Some modesty, please, (Al-Ahram)

With a few exceptions, the West is wrong about the Arabs just as the Arabs are wrong about the West. This is true in politics as in culture. Muslims number 1.4 billion or so around the world. They are a majority in 57 countries (hence that number of members of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference) and a substantial minority in many others, including India and Ethiopia. There are 16 million Muslims in Russia alone. One out of five people on this planet are Muslims. One out of every three countries is dominantly Muslim. So I ask you, are all these people guilty of terror?

It is wrong to lump all Muslims together or reduce Islam to one of its many strands. It is wrong to identify all Muslims with Islamists, or a small minority within them. But this is exactly what those who speak about the "Islamic threat" or "Islamic peril" do. Those who speak of Islam in tones of hostility forget that it is a creed embodying the cultural heritage of hundreds of millions of people.

There are people in our world who say that Muslims have a natural "penchant" for terror and aggression. They say so because they overlook the subtleties of Islamic beliefs, law and systems. They fail to recognise the diversity and varied spectrum of communities that live under Islam. ...more