“Broadly speaking, the struggle within Islam is between Muslims who embrace the values of the modern world in terms of freedom, individual rights, gender equality and democracy on the one side, and Muslims opposing these values and insisting on a [radical] Sharia-based legal system on the other. Any Muslim who even questions this version of Islam they refer to as a heretic or, worse, an apostate to be killed.”
The words above are by Salim Mansour, a Palestinian researcher who wrote an article in September 2014, shortly after the bombing campaign against the Islamic State (ISIS) had begun. It sums up what the stakes are in the struggle against the very harsh and literal interpretation of Islam that the ISIS is representing.
It also sums up the internal Islamic debate that took on extra urgency after the establishment of ISIS last summer. It was a debate that had been going on for a number of years, but driven primarily by Islamic scholars, journalists, and researchers based in the United States or Europe.
