A few see the religious other as the enemy. Others view non-Muslims as people to whom the message of Islam must be preached. Still others see people of other faiths as deserving of tolerance and mutual respect, while another group among Muslims goes beyond mere tolerance, believing that other faiths are equally valid theologically to Islam.
From all of these various groupings, the one that defines most Muslims is that of tolerance and mutual respect. A 2003 World Values Survey comparing 11 Muslim majority countries with several Western ones found that in all but one of the surveyed countries, public support for democracy – including its concepts of religious pluralism – was greater or equal to such support in Western countries. A more recent poll by the Gallup Center for Muslim studies – representing 1.3 billion Muslims – found a similar desire for democracy, human rights and freedom. Clearly, there is support both for religious pluralism, as well as political systems that uphold it.
There is a disconnect, however, between what most Muslims believe and the policies of many of the governments under which they live. While many Muslims want religious freedom as standard domestic policy, the member states of the Organization of Islamic Countries support measures such as the non-binding UN Defamation of Religions Resolution, which urges countries to legally and constitutionally prohibit the defamation of religion. For the most part, this seems admirable, but it is also seen by many as a measure to restrict freedom of speech, since domestically many of these same countries enforce harsh blasphemy laws against religious minorities and Muslim dissidents.
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4:08 AM
Moderate Islamist here
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