Reddit mentions of Who Speaks For Islam?: What a Billion Muslims Really Think

I recommend these books:

• Jeffery Lang (3) books: Struggling to Surrender, Even Angels Ask and Losing My Religion.
  
  
• Jonathan Brown Hadith- Muhammad's Legacy in the Medieval and Modern World
  
  
• Muhammad Asad The Road to Mecca
  
  
• Tariq Ramadan In the Footsteps of the Prophet
  
  
• Karen Armstrong (2) books: Islam: A Short History
  and Muhammad: A Prophet for Our Time
  
  
• Martin Lings Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources
  
  
• John L. Esposito Who Speaks For Islam?
  
  
• Nathan Lean The Islamophobia Industry
  
  
• Malcolm X The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X, Ossie Davis (Afterword), Alex Haley (As Told to)
  
  
• Sherman Jackson Islam and the Blackamerican: Looking Toward the Third Resurrection
  
  
• Dr. Ejaz Naqvi The Quran: with or Against the Bible?
  
  
• Hamza Yusuf Purification of the Heart
  
  
• Imam Zaid Shakir's translation, commentary and notes on Imam al-Harith al-Muhasibi's Risala al-Mustarshidin Treatise For The Seekers Of Guidance
  
  
• Al-Nawawi Nawawi Forty Hadiths
  
  Side note on Quran translation:
  
  Stay away from
  
  
• The Penguin Koran (The Koran -Penguin Classics- by Anonymous and N. J. Dawood). Its been written by non-Muslim who also changed the order of the Suras. In fact, Dawood's translation might as well been written by Robert Spencer!
  
  Try:
  
  
• The Gracious Quran: A Modern-Phrased Interpretation in English
  
  
• Mona Siddiqui How to Read The Qur'an
  
  
• Bayyinah Podcast for a comprehensive tafseer with Nouman Ali Khan (The iTunes Podcast URL)
  
  
  Misc:
  
  
• Terry Alford Prince among Slaves: The True Story of an African Prince Sold Into Slavery in the American South
  
  
• Omar Ibn Said A Muslim American Slave
  
  
• João José Reis Slave Rebellion in Brazil: The Muslim Uprising of 1835 in Bahia
  
  
• Ahmad Dallal Islam, Science, and the Challenge of History
  
  
• Use this link to download the PDF copy of Even Angels Ask by Jeffrey Lang.
  
  
• Use this link to download copy of Quran translation by Muhammad Asad on on scribd.
  
  
• Use this link to download copy of Quran translation by MAS Abdul Haleem OXFORD WORLD’S CLASSICS
  
  
• Use this link to download copy of Quran translation by Saheeh International (PDF)
  
  
• The Purpose of Life - Jeffrey Lang
  
  Movie:
  
  
• Journey to Mecca

Thanks for asking this. There was an interesting Gallup poll conducted across the Muslim world (35+ Muslim countries, 10,000 interviews) back in 2006. When asked the question of whether the 9/11 attacks were justified, 93% of Muslims said no. Only 7% said yes. When questioned further, only 13% of the 7% said attacks on civilians in general were justified.

What was really interesting was the reasons that the groups gave for their answers. The 93% of Muslims who said the 9/11 attacks were not justified often gave answers both humanitarian (e.g. attacks on innocent civilians is wrong) and religious (e.g. quoting a Qur'anic verse or prophetic tradition). When the 7% were asked for the justifications for their beliefs, they often gave political/secular answers (e.g. the United States is using their influence in too many countries).

Source: Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think by John Esposito and Dalia Mogahed. A series of articles summarizing some of the contents of the book can be found here.

EDIT, in case the point wasn't clear: The Muslims carrying out attacks are often acting out of anger against certain countries, whereas the majority of Muslims know full well that such things cannot be justified from religious texts.

No, they were celebrated by Fox News as being celebrated "by many around the world." More Americans feel that terrorist attacks on civilians can be justified than ANY MAJOR MUSLIM COUNTY. Not even HALF of all Americans say terrorism is never justified, versus over 80% in Muslim countries.

Congratulations, you're a worthless bigoted cunt. Have a nice day.

> 1) No citations

Read the book for citations.

> 2) Obvious bias

Yours is, yes.

It was higher than I expected compared to the U.S.
http://media.gallup.com/MuslimWestFacts/PDF/GALLUPMUSLIMSTUDIESOrdinaryMuslims030607rev.pdf

edit: http://www.amazon.com/Who-Speaks-Islam-Billion-Muslims/dp/1595620176

I think this will answer all of your questions.

Short Answer: Yes, a majority reject such mistreatment of women. A VAST majority.

The US military kills innocent civilians all the time. We like to pretend 'smart' bombs never hit the wrong target but that's just children's fiction. Both sides kill innocents, we just do it with predator drones and bombers, and call it a necessary cost for our military actions. They do it with whatever means they have, which is whatever explosives they can acquire.

Christians, during recorded history, have engaged in suicide bombings. In fact, the first recorded suicide bombing happened during the crusades while fighting Muslims. Source I hate to use this line of reasoning, but for all either of us know, it was Christians who started this trend. If you spend some time searching the web this is not the only time Christians have engaged in suicide bombings. Not to mention, there is virtually no difference between suicide bombings and the Oklahoma City bombings, just as one example. The end result is casualties and history has shown that Christians are also capable of these acts.

I'd still like a source for your belief that Muslims have a higher percent of radicalism. As a contrary source, I strongly recommend that you read "Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think"
Book Of course you'll find people deriding the book, but please give it a look, I think you will be genuinely surprised at some of the statistics.

I used to think much like you before I heavily studied the issue and read books like this one. In fact, I very much see where you're coming from. The Muslim world is indeed rife with theocratic, totalitarian regimes, just like Europe once was. Islam is a newer religion than Christianity, they live in a worse part of the world generally, and in turn they have not progressed as fast as us. If anything we should sympathize with the average Muslim citizen who lives in said theocracy, and has been lied to since they learned to speak.

When Muhammad came along he was seen as a dangerous progressive, because it was the first time in the Arab world that women were given any rights at all. Today those beliefs have not kept up with Western progress, but for instance, women only gained the right to vote in the US in the 1920's, in other words we have women who were born without the right to vote. They will progress, but it's easy to cherry pick their worst acts and ignore our own.

The discrepancy is not as great as you believe, and the truth is still that Western and White civilization have committed their fair share of atrocities. Personally I'd argue that the Holocaust, Russian genocide, etc. are substantially worse than the suicide bombings you are so fixated on.

If he wants to learn about Islam:
What Everyone needs to Know about Islam - John Esposito

If he wants to learn more about Muslims:
Who Speaks For Islam?: What a Billion Muslims Really Think