Dear FRONTLINE,

Thank you so very much for this excellent program. Education. It is what everything boils down to. There IS so much hatred between groups of people precisely because of lack of knowledge. Your program holds great educational value, providing honest insights into the Muslim communities. It is a rare sight on American television.

I beg people to learn the truth before judging. If you read in this discussion area that Muslims were guilty of atrocities and barbarism towards Hindus in India, please investigate the truthfulness of this you will find it NOT the case at all. Don't automatically believe it because it fits your stereotypical view you may have Muslims.

You will also read here that in some-one's 57 years, all he has seen and heard of is Muslims instigating acts of violence on non-Muslims. Please take the time to analyze it and see if that is an accurate or fair statement. Take the 20th century as an example and look at the numbers: did Muslims exterminate 6 million Jews and many gypsies? Did Muslims declare the First and Second World wars in which thousands millions? of people died? Did Muslims drop atomic bombs in Japan?

We now have a wealth of information at our fingertips through the internet, some of which can be accurate. Lets learn and understand and that way we can become tolerant. The Muslim masses in the Third World need to be taught to read and write so they can think for themselves and understand what God really says in the Quran.

The Non-Muslims need to learn and understand Islam so they can separate the teachings of the religion from the practices of a MINORITY of Muslims. It's a challenging task, overcoming prejudice, emotion and politics!

As a Muslim American, it is a goal of mine to tell others about Islam. I live in the modern age, I am a practicing Muslim, thus Islam is PART of the modern world, right? Islam doesn't need to "adapt". The question should be "Can the modern world adapt to Islam"? For example, Islam doesn't define the exact structure of government. Instead it defines the requirements of government: justice, consultation for decision-making and choosing/removing the leader, equality, protection of minorities, etc. yes, the majority of today's Muslim countries do not follow these Islamic principles. So if a modern-day form of government accommodates these principles, it is Islamic.

Muslims for very many centuries defined and represented the "modern world" and we shouldn't take just the last few centuries out of context and pinpoint this period as their defining nature.

Khalid M
Chicago, Illinois

Dear FRONTLINE,

Thank you very much for providing such an interesting program. I found it very informative and filled with information I was previously unaware of. You are filling a much needed gap in providing the American public with substantive information about the Islamic World, rather than with the sensationalist propaganda being force fed to them in the mainstream media.

Portland, Oregon

Dear FRONTLINE,

There is one religious fallacy that pops up in the show. Oddly enough, it is about Christianity.

While both Judaism and Islam are Semitic, montheistic religions of the world of the Old Testament, Christianity is the religion of the New Testament and takes a very different direction. The doctrine is that Christ's dying for our sins removes the taint of original sin and brings us a religion of peace and forgivenes, rather than one of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.

Is that practiced? No, not always. But it is a principle that has to be understood if any real conversations about faith in a pluralistic world are going to follow. I'm not sure the God of the three faiths are the same because of the institutionalized violence in Judaism and Islam.

Colorado Springs, CO

Dear FRONTLINE,

I don't buy your propaganda that Islam is benign and compassionate. In my 57 years, Muslim militants have initiated over a dozen Middle-East wars and terror campaigns to exterminate Israeli Jews and Lebanese Christians. Muslims also expanded their "Jihads" against Hindus in India, Bahai's in Iran, Buddhists in Bengladesh and Malaysia, Coptic Christians in Egypt, and Roman Catholics in the Philippines and Indonesia. Islamic armies have decimated Black Christians in the Sudan, Ethiopia, and Nigeria by slaughter and famine.

Islam's recent legacy 20th Century includes car

bombings, burnings, shootings, kidnappings, hijackings, airport massacres, hostages, and sacking of embassies worldwide. Now they use exploding teenagers to kill Jews for Allah.

Are there any honest and kind Muslims? Of course there are! But their voices are strangely silent except to condemn Americans or Israelis who strike back in self-defense. The sad fact of Islamist extremism is that it offers their youth a cause to kill and die for but nothing to live for.

Pat Staeheli
Kent, WA

Dear FRONTLINE,

I am a Christian. Learning more and understanding Islam reminds me of a quote which I think is appropriate:

"When two great civilizations, utterly foreign to each other, come into direct contact, it seems that, at first, they cannot exchange anything but blows and trinkets. Mutual access to the core of their respective cultures necessitates a lengthy and complex process.

It demands patience and humility, for outsiders are normally not allowed beyond a certain point: they will not be admitted to the inner chambers of the spirit, unless they are willing to shed some of their original baggage.

Cultural initiation entails metamorphosis transformation and we cannot learn any foreign values if we do not accept the risk of being transformed by what we learn". Simon Lays, New York review of Books, April 18, 1996,28-31

carl minich
Tulsa, OK

Dear FRONTLINE,

Excellent program. As expected, though, it was pointed out that a mere fraction of the world's Muslims are terrorists. Thank God for that - Muslims represent a very large part of the world population, do they not? Numerical figures are frequently abused by the media, often unintentially, in political polls, warnings about the health risks of the carcinogenic food of the week, etc.

How do we draw significant conclusions from the numbers we have? We could start with this question: Are a *disproportionate* number of Muslims terrorists? Are a disproportionately small number of Muslims critical of anti-Semitism and of prejudice towards the non-Muslim world?

Dave Klein
Philadelphia/Taipei, PA/Taiwan

Dear FRONTLINE,

As one previous respondee here said, many injustices have been done in the name of religion -- including Islam, Christianity, and Judiasm and Hinduism, Buddhism, .... The mistreatment of native people by Christians when the New World was conquered was terrible.

Yet in the past century, there has been relatively little done of this nature by Christians except to other Christians, as in Ireland, while some Muslims have practiced a widespread genocide in the name of their religion, from the Armenian attrocities to the more recent ones already mentioned. While Christianity was inappropriately used to justify slavery and racism in the past, Islam still is used this way, as in Mauratania.

I am committed to the freedom of peaceful Muslims and Christians and athiests and all others who do not advocate violenceto express their views publicly and practice their religion personally.

I also believe we must face the realities in the world around us. And that includes recognition that at this point in world history, where Islam is dominant it is extremely intolerant -- a real shame, given its enormous positive contributions in many past eras.

Morganville, NJ

Dear FRONTLINE,

At least five Jesuit priests and two staff members of the Woodstock Theological Center a Catholic 'think tank' watched the program 'Muslims' eagerly, and thought it was an exceptionally fine, and much needed, look at the variety of Muslims in today's world. Most of the important questions and problems were looked straight in the face, believably,

and hopefully. I will recommend it to anyone I come in contact with, and hope to get and use it personally and professionally.

Thank you, and Salam aleikum!

James Redington, SJ
Washington, DC

Dear FRONTLINE,

Religious Muslims face the same problem as observant Jews and practising Christians - how to raise children in a religious tradition when they are immersed in advertising and other media, indeed in a culture, that promote materialism, greed and consumerism, militarism and a host of other values antithetical to their religious values. How can we raise our kids to be "in the world" but not "of the world". As a religious educator in a Catholic high school, I can tell you that it is increasingly difficult.

And Frontline, thanks for a wonderful teaching tool.

Edward Sirois
Seekonk, MA

Dear FRONTLINE,

Your production of the footage, Muslims, is commendable. With all the stereotypes about Muslims and Islam, I hope those who watched your program would at least give some thought to what *is* Islam and what's not.

Too often, people of various cultures intermingle social practices, which are not necessarily the teachings of Islam. Unfortunately, these are the practices that outsiders of Islam view, which often gives an incorrect interpretation that *this* is Islam.

My call is for Muslims to educate themselves about Islam. Non-Muslims are viewing Islam by the actions of Muslims, however incorrect those actions may be.

Thank you and God's Guidance and Peace.

Omar Ali
Denver, Colorado

Dear FRONTLINE,

I thought this documentary was among the best I have seen on the subject of Islam...I appreciate the attempted objective perspective, which was much less un-biased than most other informative sources....It covered the true attributes of Islam as well as the negative human applied attributes.

One of the most important things stressed is the fact that the militant Islam and other forms of radical Islam we see around the world is based on human interpretation of the Qur'an, not the true teachings recorded by the prophet Muhammad. We see there is many types of Islam, first of all different sects, in each sect there are also many divisions, then there is political "Islam" represented by charismatic characters such as bin Laden and Sheikh abdel-Rahman; then there is cultural Islam which is prevelant throughout the muslim countries, this is the Islam that oppresses women and has strict laws in the eyes of the west, it is the mixing of the culture with religion which leaves the government and people with a confused stance and hatred toward the 'other'.

Thank you for the intriguing documentary...I only wish every american citizen could watch it to open their minds up to the fact that every muslim is not a terrorist out to kill people!

Rose L.L.
San Francisco, California

Dear FRONTLINE,

"Muslims", presented a very accurate picture of what is facing the large but silent majority of moderate Muslims worldwide. Islam itself adheres to modern values, it did when introduced in Arabia 1500 yrs ago, and it does today, institutionalizing equality of race, sex yes, Women's rights are protected in Islam, economic background a social security blanket for the needy in the form of zakat, Islam promoted fair trade practices, contract law, hygiene, diet, and so many modern concepts that we in America are still trying to perfect.

Its unfortunate that radical elements in Asia and the Middle East have hijacked Islam which means peace to promote their own ideologies far removed from Islam, in most cases and that in an un-Islamic dictatorial and savage manner.

Similarly unfortunate, is the Western political and media mindset which promotes sterotypes about Islam and chooses for it a 'radical' face by highlightening that element and making it further difficulty for moderate actaully, a true Muslim is a moderate voices to be heard... tonight you gave a chance for those vocies to be heard.

Munib Mundia
Garden City, NY

Dear FRONTLINE,

The question, can Islam adopt to the modern world, suggests that the faith of Islam is somehow separate from the modern world.

As an American Muslim I feel that I am modern, free, liberated. I also know that I am fortunate to live in a democratic society which adheres to the principles of rule of law, freedom of speech, freedom of the press and religious tolerance. These values being very much aligned with Islam's. Islam's values of faith, charity and strength of community transcend time and culture and makes a tremendous contribution to the modern world.

New, yet draconian, interpretions of Islam are challenging the true nature of the faith. The tragedies committed by Al Aqeda and the Taliban, for example, bears witness as to how the interpretations of a few has created consequences for the world.

The last few months have been challenging times for Muslims. I have personally never felt less understood, and yet more sought out for understanding.

Arlington, va

Dear FRONTLINE,

While we can all agree here in this safe place of civilized discussion that Islam is noble, has many affinities with other religions and can coexist with modernity, this is just pep talk. The problem we are facing is not the theoretical reconciliation of Islam with modernity, the West and with other cultures. The problem is the rise of radical militant forces that threaten both the current regimes in Islamic countries and potentially in the West.

The small percentage of liberal Muslims and by all appearances, it is a small percentage cannot hope to compete with a mass movement that shortcircuits difficult intellectual arguments with a simple slogan. How can they reconcile Islam with Democracy when Democracy itself is a Western invention. Modernity, as we know it, can only exist in a secular society.

Certainly, we should not impose our notion of Modernity on muslim societies although I would like someone to tell me how exactly we are doing that - no one is forcing anyone to drink Coca Cola or tune into Baywatch, but a successfull economic system takes centuries to develop. Will the muslim world be willing to wait that long or will they instead vent their anger and frustration at us?

We should not be fooled by the affinity we feel toward the Muslim intellectuals. They are on the same side as us - they are for peaceful coexistence, freedom of thought, self-determination. But they are not in power. And they will never stoop to the kinds of tactics that are necessary to gain power.

Lana B.
new haven, ct

Dear FRONTLINE,

Your TV program on "Islam" got nowhere when it comes to reality. You never mentioned India, the home of the second largest muslim population in the world 150 millions after Indonesia. You never mentioned that being a

so called "Religion of Love", it has demolished at least a million Hindu/Buddhist/Jain/Sikh temples in India during it's "Loving Rule" of about 500 years there, before the British came One mosque demolition by the "Hindu Bin-Ladens" in Ayodhya, India, in 1993, inspired thousands of temple demolitions from London to Kualalampore. You failed to mention that Muslims in India and in other secular countries prefer to enjoy "Sharia" law when it comes to "Family Matters", but prefer to follow "Indian Penal Codes" or similar, when it comes to criminal offencesto avoid hand chopping?. That shows the true faces of these so called "Islamists". Thanks.

Dipta Bandyopadhyay
Houston, TX

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