The Untapped Potential of Liberal Islam

The Untapped Potential of Liberal Islam



The recent groof of Anti-Americanism in the Muslim world has been a blow to American Democracy. The root of this urgent problem is America´s injust foreign policy as well as Islam´s created image of America and the West as globalizing immoral society, while Islam´s reinforced image has been made ever more God centered and just. This has caused hatred and violence.
Liberal Islam is the best solution to this radical Islam. Moderate Muslins conciliate modernity with Islamic principles while remaining their reason without distorting Islam.
However, like the radicals, they distorts the West image, an act which has been emphasized by a radical reading of Syd Qutb´s texts against modern Nasserite Egypt. But the West has also a misued Syd Qutb´s work. New York Times´s Paul Berman even acused Qutb´s ideology as the cause of Al Qaeda.
Yet, he recognizes that Qutb ´s was more interested in morality and society than with political battle.
As a matter of fact, Berman claims, this unrest has come from a difference in values between Islam and the West.
The potential of peace of a liberal reading of Qutb together with the interaction of Muslim moderates and the US is a visible light at the end of the tunnel.