Carey on Islam

Looks like George Carey has caused a kerfuffle with his speech about Islam -but when you look at the text and then soem of the quoted objections to it -perhaps it looks like one or two specific criticisms which do not take away from the general substance? Hard to say for sure but the perceptions that George Carey articlates are ones that I know various people who are reasonably aducatged about Islam share at various points and those who decry what he has said I think probably need to show that they have 'heard' those more substantial points in what he has said.

I have heard many moderate Muslims decry wahhabi approaches to Islam and it might have been better for the soundbite detractors [or their editors?] to have told us whether they agreed or not with wahhabism, rahter than, in effect, to prop it up; this is precisely the challenge, it seems to me, that Carey makes; will moderate Muslims please stand up and not leave the talking and the doing to the radical activists? Admittedly one of the sounbite critics points out that there are plenty of condemnations forthcoming from the Muslim community ... but it somehow doesn't feel like it and I kow from local experience that there seems to be some reticence to go public in criticism of harsher forms of Islam.

Our difficulty is how to encourage it to happen without interfering? I think that George Carey has done a good thing in putting the hard points. He may not be right at every point but he's a darn sight better informed than most [including many muslims] and some of the points deserve better answers than have been reported.