<sigh>

In case you didn't notice, Abuayisha, I was defending your religion.  Even though I don't believe a word of it, even though IMHO the world would be better off without it, nonetheless it is not an obstacle to peace and harmony among cultures, as caringheart implied (or at least no more so than all the other religions) and does not need to be reformed on that account.

Tell me, would it be fair to say that you believe that Scientology should be discarded altogether?  How about Mormonism?  Or Humanism?

It would be fair to say that moderate - mainstream Islam seeks only to proselytize, in other words, make sure that mankind has an opportunity to hear the message of Islam. As long as an ideology does not cause harm, moderate - mainstream Islam has absolutely no problem co-existing along side. The ideology of extreme radical Islam isn't compatible with pluralism and must be confronted. Certainly, the "heavy lifting" the ideological arguments must be made from within Islam, because to suggest as you have, and as a complete outsider, that you will allow Quran - but Muslim should discard Hadith, will never address the ideological battle between moderates and extremist in Islam.

American Muslims to a much greater degree than European Muslims have assimilated and there exists very little troubles with extremism. What is needed is a greater recognition of those moderate Muslims who live peacefully in order to isolate extremist. If you continue to have the inability or unwillingness to differentiate between moderates and radicals it will result in legitimizing radicals and isolating moderates. In other words, as difficult and painful as it may seem, the West will need to win the hearts and minds of moderates, who are indeed the mainstream of Islam, as to not politically push them into the hands of radicals.  "sigh"

Well, just for the record, I didn't use the word "allow", which would be rather arrogant.  I arrived at the Quran-only interpretation on my own, just by reading the Quran and sampling the hadith; but you are surely aware that there is a growing movement within the Muslim community in favour of that position.  I do think that ultimately it has to be the solution to the growing gap between ideology and modernity, but you're right that my opinions are probably not worth much.  I'm just sayin'.

I'm not sure why it's our job to win the hearts and minds of moderates, rather than vice versa.  I agree that recognition and differentiation is a challenge though, so help me out.  The thousands upon thousands of Muslims who participated in the riots -- are they mainstream, or are they extremists?