1 00:00:02,070 --> 00:00:08,410 After every new Jihadist attack against the West, politicians reassure us that the atrocity 2 00:00:08,410 --> 00:00:12,559 does not represent the true nature of mainstream Islam. 3 00:00:12,559 --> 00:00:19,170 Of the 1.6 billion Muslims in the world, they constantly reassure us, the overwhelming majority 4 00:00:19,170 --> 00:00:24,540 are as law abiding as any members of any other monotheistic faith. 5 00:00:24,540 --> 00:00:27,820 Only a tiny fraction engage in terror. 6 00:00:27,820 --> 00:00:31,240 And Islam is a religion of peace. 7 00:00:31,240 --> 00:00:36,860 Furthermore, we are told, the great majority of Muslims hold moderate views. 8 00:00:36,860 --> 00:00:38,640 But what does that mean? 9 00:00:38,640 --> 00:00:41,760 How moderate are moderate Muslims? 10 00:00:41,760 --> 00:00:47,120 Given the threat of radical Islam, it would seem to be a fair question. 11 00:00:47,120 --> 00:00:51,720 Let me start to answer it by telling you something of my own story. 12 00:00:51,720 --> 00:00:55,780 I was raised in a middle class Muslim home in Cairo, Egypt. 13 00:00:55,780 --> 00:01:01,090 Growing up, I was told, among many other things, the following: That every day that passes 14 00:01:01,090 --> 00:01:05,100 on the Islamic nation without a caliphate is a sin. 15 00:01:05,100 --> 00:01:11,280 That the failures and miseries of the Muslim world started the moment we Muslims gave up 16 00:01:11,280 --> 00:01:14,960 conquests and wars against the infidels. 17 00:01:14,960 --> 00:01:21,810 That our prosperity depended on conquering new lands and converting new believers. 18 00:01:21,810 --> 00:01:25,960 That anyone who leaves the faith must die. 19 00:01:25,960 --> 00:01:32,160 And I also remember how my teachers and my mosque imams reacted to the news of 9/11 20 00:01:32,160 --> 00:01:35,300 when it happened: joy. 21 00:01:35,300 --> 00:01:42,880 My experience was typical, and there is data to prove it: According to the Pew Research Center, 22 00:01:42,880 --> 00:01:52,590 88% of Muslims in Egypt, 62% in Pakistan, 86% in Jordan and 51% in Nigeria believe that 23 00:01:52,590 --> 00:01:57,460 any Muslim who choses to leave Islam should be put to death. 24 00:01:57,460 --> 00:02:03,500 Similar, if not identical, numbers are in favor of stoning people who commit adultery, 25 00:02:03,500 --> 00:02:10,080 severely punishing those who criticize Muhammad or Islam, and chopping off hands for theft. 26 00:02:10,080 --> 00:02:17,640 All of these practices are a part of the penal code of Islamic law, which is known as Sharia. 27 00:02:17,640 --> 00:02:26,580 And 84% of Muslims in South Asia, 77% in Southeast Asia, 74% in the Middle East and North Africa 28 00:02:26,580 --> 00:02:33,310 and 64% in Sub-Saharan Africa support Sharia as the law of the land. 29 00:02:33,310 --> 00:02:39,360 Less drastic, yet significant, percentages are to be found even among Muslim communities 30 00:02:39,360 --> 00:02:41,040 in the West. 31 00:02:41,040 --> 00:02:46,840 So, too, most of the world's Muslims believe that any acts of violence against Israel, 32 00:02:46,840 --> 00:02:51,440 including suicide bombers in buses and restaurants, are justified. 33 00:02:51,440 --> 00:02:56,100 Now, does any of this sound moderate to you? 34 00:02:56,100 --> 00:03:02,480 Yet if anyone raises these inconvenient truths here in the West, he is sure to be called 35 00:03:02,480 --> 00:03:05,580 an Islamophobe, a hater of Islam. 36 00:03:05,580 --> 00:03:09,540 Again, my own story is instructive. 37 00:03:09,540 --> 00:03:17,340 In February of 2015, I was yelled at, cursed at, and successfully prevented from speaking 38 00:03:17,340 --> 00:03:23,900 at Swarthmore College by students and others who did not agree to what I was saying. 39 00:03:23,900 --> 00:03:29,460 Some of them were Muslim women who fit the image of the unveiled, perfect English-speaking, 40 00:03:29,460 --> 00:03:31,580 moderate Muslim young woman. 41 00:03:31,580 --> 00:03:36,700 Other seeming “moderates” tried and failed to do the same during my speech at Temple 42 00:03:36,700 --> 00:03:39,100 University the next day. 43 00:03:39,100 --> 00:03:43,270 Some of them, sadly, were students of journalism. 44 00:03:43,270 --> 00:03:48,920 It is not Islamophobic to note the tragic fact that, at this time in history, the Muslim 45 00:03:48,920 --> 00:03:53,360 world is dominated by bad ideas and bad beliefs. 46 00:03:53,360 --> 00:03:58,950 That is why millions of so-called moderate Muslims do not rise up to denounce Islamist 47 00:03:58,950 --> 00:04:05,380 terror – because the word “moderate,” as we understand it, doesn't really apply. 48 00:04:05,390 --> 00:04:10,960 If moderation means you tolerate freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the 49 00:04:10,970 --> 00:04:16,720 press, women's rights and gay rights, moderate Muslims are a distinct minority. 50 00:04:16,720 --> 00:04:19,440 Of course, they exist. Millions of them. 51 00:04:19,480 --> 00:04:25,480 But among believing Muslims, they do not represent anywhere near a critical mass. 52 00:04:25,490 --> 00:04:31,150 The values of the West and the values of Islam as practiced in the Muslim worlds of the Middle 53 00:04:31,150 --> 00:04:37,700 East, North Africa and South Asia, and more and more in Europe, are not compatible. 54 00:04:37,700 --> 00:04:44,340 Western politicians can deny this, but this denial does not change the reality. 55 00:04:44,350 --> 00:04:51,200 It is these bad ideas and beliefs that provides the soil in which radical Islam grows. 56 00:04:51,200 --> 00:04:57,320 Ignoring this only prevents us from effectively fighting Islamist terror, and at the same 57 00:04:57,320 --> 00:05:03,220 time it hurts those heroic Muslims who really are moderate. 58 00:05:03,220 --> 00:05:08,970 Until we begin to tell the truth about Islam – always in respectful language – the only 59 00:05:08,970 --> 00:05:13,260 solution to Islamist terror will never take place. 60 00:05:13,260 --> 00:05:17,660 That solution is Islam reforming itself. 61 00:05:17,660 --> 00:05:20,620 I do believe that reform is possible. 62 00:05:20,620 --> 00:05:24,290 It can, of course, only be done from within Islam. 63 00:05:24,290 --> 00:05:30,180 The West can be a part of that reform, but only if it faces – and tells – the truth. 64 00:05:30,180 --> 00:05:33,890 The sooner it does so, the better – for all of us. 65 00:05:33,890 --> 00:05:37,480 I'm Hussein Aboubakr for Prager University.