Where Are The Moderate Muslims?
Ed Husain - The Winston Marshall Show
Since October 7th, the voices representing Muslims and Palestinians in the media have been dominated by the more extreme. Moderate voices seem to have been pushed out.
I sat down with author and former Islamist turned anti-radicalisation expert Ed Husain. Now a public intellectual, professor and government adviser, Ed had been swept up by Hizb ut-Tahrir and Hamas in his youth.
Ed explains to me the history of Islamism from Sayyid Qutb to the present. We also take a deeper dive into Islam and the unity and disunity between Muslims, Christians and Jews. Ed explains Islam in Britain and across the West today, and what needs to change.
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WM
As a Jewish Israeli with some knowledge of Islam, I watched this exchange with great interest. Among the false notes I observed was one that Winston needs to revisit: Mr. Husain's claim to accept his (Winston's) Christian faith as a valid monotheistic approach to God.
Ask anyone who was raised Muslim and left it for either the Jewish or the Christian faith: Islam's god is NOT the same as the God of Israel. And Islam's Issa is NOT the Jesus of the Gospels. Conversely, even 'moderate' Islam cannot accept the Christian Bible as valid, because doing so will invalidate the Quran. All Muslims are required to consider both the Old and New Testaments to be falsified ("muharraf").
The difference in how 'moderate' vs. 'radical' Islam historically treated the "people of the Book" was this -- the latter slaughtered or enslaved them, while the former tolerated them as second-class dhimmis who owed jizya and loyal service to their Muslim rulers.
Which brings me to another fudged fact: The Muslim discussion of human rights and equality has always applied to Muslims only, and it still does. That's why the Islamic nations at the UN (including the nations Mr. Husain named as 'moderate') refused to ratify the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and insisted on writing their own Islamic version. In Islamic law, human rights are not "universal".
But this kind of dishonesty on the part of Mr. Husain is not surprising either. An unknown percentage of Muslims approve of "Taqqiya" - the Islamic practice of outwardly saying or doing something that is different from what one believes inwardly, in order to deal with a perceived threat.
Winston Marshall, with his probing questions and his growing audience, can be defined as a 'threat' to be artfully misled. It's being done with a clear conscience, for the good of Islam, which doesn't give Truth the high value that we give it. The God of the Bible does not lie, but the god of Islam does.
Last but not least, something that was touched on by Marshall but was evaded by Mr. Husain:
Islam came from a spiritual source, which reportedly appeared to Muhammad as a supernatural being. I don't doubt that story (it's the best explanation for Muhammad's superhuman ability to conquer so much territory so quickly). Likewise people watching Hamas on Oct. 7 said that some demonic superpower was driving them on and giving them a 'high' from their sickening brutality. The same brutality has been going on in the Muslim pursuit of Christians in Africa and Asia, just with less publicity.
In short, the Islamic spirit has expressed a violent hatred and FEAR of Bible believers from the 7th century until today. Jews and Christians in the West (especially the Jews) need to prepare. We in Israel are fighting this spirit unmasked, and with GOD's help we are winning. Your turn is coming soon.
Just remember that the struggle primarily "is not against flesh and blood." The dark principalities FEAR you because of the Almighty One standing with you.
Agreed, this interviewee is not coming in good faith and is steeped in a culture of falsification, one specifically permitted in Islam, as you observe. . I've admired Winston's gentle but effective and well-aimed questioning of previous guests. Sadly this time I feel his more sophisticated and less principled interviewee has got away with deliberate obfuscation and is only there to promote a dangerous agenda.