Finally a Muslim with the guts to say it

[DanaC]

Maybe you're just not listening to the right people. Maybe the media doesn't find some bloke in a mosque, in a small town, telling young men to respect their elders and look after their mothers that interesting.

Islam is big. Bigger than Wahabism. Bigger than the Sunni-Shia divide. Bigger than Saudi Arabia and their oppressive regime. Bigger than Turkey, or Indonesia.

There are about 25 majority moslem countries in the world, and Islam is the second largest faith in many European nations. Altogether, probably a billion and a half of the world's population is Moslem, do you really think the only people speaking about Islam in a way that 'we' approve of, are the ones that get attention in our media?

Think about the sheer number of people we're talking about, and then try and imagine getting 20 of them in a room to agree completely with each other on everything. People aren't like that. People have varying views and interpretations. Some are likely to follow the literal word of the qu'ran, some are more likely to wear jeans and work in IT and go to the mosque on a friday afternoon.

Generally speaking, the media hasn't found the jeans wearing IT guy half as interesting as the mad mullah with a hook for a hand. (see British tabloid coverage of the Finsbury Mosque).