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Mojo_PeiPei: Sure. I'm originally from Pakistan, and I was raised in a very religious household. I'm clearly English-educated, of course, but I'm not even really important here. I know tons of Pakistanis who have never left Pakistan. I've never met one who didn't mourn 9/11, or who condones terrorism in general. Such people exist there, but generally not in the mainstream society. They represent an extreme. The same is true in Egypt, where I recently lived for a year. This is true even among those who would be called Islamists... those who espouse political Islam or push for the enforcement of Islamic law.
Again, let me reiterate that when I say that, I don't mean to entirely marginalize the problem. I acknowledge the problem. There is a problem with Islam in the world today, and it's a problem that Muslims will need to do much more to address. But to say that it's a problem somehow fundamental to Islam, that brutishness and violence somehow form the very essence of Islam, is in the realm of the absurd. It simply doesn't reflect the lived reality of over a billion people on this planet.
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