32Finally, some remarks on the term “moderate”
Muslim. After the Islamic State, even al- Qaeda
appears “moderate.” The term is so relative—
juxtaposed against increasingly worse atrocities—
that it has become meaningless. It doesn’t tell us
which values the person in question holds. This
is why I prefer using terms that denote values, such
as “Islamist,” “liberal,” or “conservative” Muslim.Harris Your intuitions about the relative sizes of these
groups certainly track my own. As I’ve said, we have
a fair amount of polling data on the question of
what Muslims believe. I’d like to know what you
make of these data. Specifi cally, the polls that were
done in Britain immediately after the 7/7 bombings
in London revealed that more than 20 percent of
British Muslims felt sympathy for the bombers’ mo-
tives; 30 percent wanted to live under shari’ah;
45 percent thought that 9/11 was the result of a con-
spiracy between the United States and Israel;
and 68 percent believe that British citizens who “in-
sult Islam” should be arrested and prosecuted.^8
- http:// www. cbsnews. com / news / many - british - muslims - put
- islam - fi rst/.
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