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I’ve mentioned elsewhere that the often proposed division of Muslims into ‘Fundamentalists’ and ‘Moderates’ is unconvincing to me. The distinction is obviously political in origin and obscures more than it enlightens.
I would like therefore to propose a replacement theory, or rather definition, to explain the real difference between the believers who merely pray, and the believers who hijack airliners.
There are, I propose, two distinct types of Muslim in the world; Those who are Latent, and those who are Active. (*There will always be a minority who elude definition).
The Latent Muslim is in the clear majority, accounting perhaps for three quarters of the World Muslim population.
This kind of believer is typically serene and apolitical. He is opiated by his beliefs, rather than stimulated by them. Devout though they may be (and unlike Christians) they often have little curiosity for the battle of ideas.
The Active Muslim – by contrast – is someone whose experience has engaged the less sedating aspects of his faith. He is inclined towards the excitement of violence, death, punishment, procreation and conquest.
These Muslims will fight you until you believe exactly as they do, and possibly even afterward.
Crucially, (unlike with the false Fundamentalist/Moderate antonymy) the Latent Muslim can become an Active believer at any given time. The two conditions are not opposed, merely different, and the Active state is always quiescent in the Latent.
The signature fallacy of EU/US leaders has been to assume that extremism and moderation are real elements of Muslim self-identification; that they are innate, unchangeable and permanent. This couldn’t be further from the truth.
As Daniel Greenfield wrote:
“Politicians… wall off that vast majority of Muslims who did not actually come down to Woolwich and hack at a soldier with a machete and did not fly two planes into the World Trade Center from those who actually did. The hackers and pilots are extremists. The couch potatoes watching at home and cheering them on are moderates. That might be fine if we were discussing a gas station robbery in Cleveland. But to Muslims, Jihad isn’t an act of violence; it’s an act of faith.”
The Latent Muslim, as the name I have chosen implies, is not a moderate. He is unactivated. He lives quietly and habitually, enlivened only by foreign stimulus. It is this Foreign stimulus that tends to change the Latent into the Active. This explains for example, why those Muslims in 99% Muslim countries (Turkey, Saudi Arabia etc..) are largely Latent, whereas those in religiously divided lands (Lebanon, Egypt, Serbia/Kosovo, Britain, France) are more Active.
A more frivolous illustration would involve the mythology of Zombies.
Zombies (in some depictions) are unaggressive and docile among each other, but faced with a thinking human, become drones of monstrous conquest.
In the logic of Zombies, there is no ‘friend or foe’, but simply ‘fellow or food’. And as wrong-headed as we would be to negotiate with the undead, perhaps we’d do better to reconsider our approach with Muslims based on the criteria described.
D, LDN.
Defend the Modern World 
This is a very, very helpful way of describing the phenomenon. Most insightful, thank you.
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Nice of you to say. Thank you.
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A more accurate divisional title would be ‘Liars or Terrorists.
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Maybe, but Latent Muslims don’t always lie. That’s more a habit of their defenders on the Left.
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Perhaps, but personal experience dictates that they are are lying about the fact that they are good Muslims to other Muslims.
Keep up the good work.
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“There is no ‘Moderate Islam’ according to the Prime Minister of Turkey. You are very insightful in your understanding of Muslims, unless, for example, a Muslim has become an atheist. For a Muslim to become an atheist is huge first step toward liberation from the Koran, the Religion of Rage, as I believe C.S. Lewis described it. From Canada.
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Agreed. I want to mention those who were born Muslims but who have become outspoken apostates (often at great personal danger to themselves) like Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Michael Nazir-Ali (former bishop of Rochester), the people at http://www.islam-watch.org/, the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain, Mosab Hassan Yousef. We should show them our support.
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That is an excellent discussion. I have rarely seen the matter put so clearly.
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Nice of you to say. Thank you.
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May I add a anecdotal incident about Muslims. I have been helping a young Muslim man financially and emotionally for well over a year. With no job and just kicked out of his Rooming House not having paid his rent, he has been on the streets almost two days now in bitter cold. I no longer have the funds to help him. Tonight, at about midnight, he phoned me. I met him and was able to give him sixty dollars to help him drop into all night coffee shops to keep warm and have something to eat for a day or two.
Before I dropped him off, he put an affectionate hand on my shoulder and said, “I have never received help from Muslims. It’s always Christians who have helped me. When I was in dire straits you came into my life and supported me. Christians help me. Although raised in a Muslim family, I don’t believe in Allah. Maybe some day I will believe in Jesus. You(referring to myself) must have something pushing you to help me so much.” I replied(I knew he liked Pope John Paul), “Well you know Pope John Paul said that every human being has a value, a worth and dignity beyond compare. So you Damir have a worth that is always there, and so, yes, that helps me always to stay with you and help you, Damir .”
As I drove away, I must admit I felt good, very good about Damir’s kind words to me. We have been through a lot this past year since our meeting…at a coffee shop!
A priest from Canada. What would Pope Francis say?
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That’s certainly very admirable of you. Perhaps you’ve convinced him that Christians are not always blood-thirsty crusaders after-all. It reminds me of a cartoon in the WSJ from a few years ago about the USAF dropping aid parcels on Pakistan after an earthquake. In the first panel, an angry Muslim sees an American plane in the sky and shouts “Evil aggressor! Imperialist Crusader!” – and then in the second panel, he catches a parcel marked ‘food’ and says “Oh…” with a look of confusion.
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I agree. In order to validate your hypothesis we need only ask whether western-located Muslims are more likely to disavow their western hosts or their Islamic religion (and fellow Muslims), should push come to shove. I am afraid (and polls show) that many would be loyal to their “brothers and sisters” rather than to us. Thus we effectively have many thousands of traitors within.
I think we will at some point need some kind of constitution to which Muslims must swear, despite taqiyya. That is, if they have not been persuaded to leave by that point on account of the Qur’an being largely full of hate (especially against unbelievers) and just being alien to our way of life and unwanted in the UK.
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They cannot ever get their heads around the fact that western charity isn’t “owed to them”. It is jizyah pure and simple and a little taqqiya will only make the dollars, pounds and euros flow a little smoother. Ever try to elicit help for a “muslim charity”? They look at you as if you are a stray dog in need of being put down. The idea of muslim charity for non-muslims simply doesn’t exist.
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