"The Missing Martyrs" by Charles Kurzman

Here is a book which is grossly mistitled - and as a result - a bit misleading. The real subtitle to this book should not be "Why There Are So Few Muslim Terrorists", but rather it should read, "Where are the Moderate Muslims?" The basic premise of this book is that only a small percentage of Mulims worldwide are extremists, and that fact renders the rest of the 1.2 billion Islamic adherents blameless for the acts of the minority. Ah, but were that true...

Let's explore Mr. Kurzman's reasoning a bit. By his thought process the Vatican Sex Abuse scandal is just the product of a few misguided Catholic Priests, and not representative of the religion as a whole, even though the Vatican did everything in it's power to sweep it under the rug.

The whole Nazi thing; just a few errant soldiers taking things too far. Wouln't want to paint the whole German Third Reich with too broad a brush. After all, the people living just outside of the death camps "had no idea."

Is it too much for the world to ask, no, make that expect, the Islamic heirarchy to demand obedience to the Fatwah's issued against terrorism? They seem to have no problem with obeying these edicts against people of other faiths, including cartoon journalists. What is this double standard, other than an excuse for terrorism?

Within hours of Anders Behring Breivik's terrorist attack in Norway, the worlds Christian community had denounced his actions as that of a madman. Compare that reaction to the dancing in the streets by Muslims worldwide after the terrorist attacks of 9-11.

This strip from the Charlotte Observer, third article down, shows the true statistics as per the State Department and the National Counterterrorism Center in their annual report. Terrorism, though currently less sucessful, is clearly on the rise.

I'm afraid that this book does not "wash clean." It is, instead, in my opinion, a manipulation of facts and figures, all of which are designed to have the reader reach a conclusion which is in sharp contrast to the simple reality that mainstream Islam has not done enough to curb the militant dissidents among their ranks. That such inactions cast a light of suspicion on the faith as a whole should come as no surprise. That this review is bold enough to state the obvious, and leave me a bit fearful of the reaction to it, should not.