Extreme Islam was produced primarily to get across an idea that wasn’t disseminated widely in American culture — to show how strong the [fundamentalist Muslim] belief system is and how unmanageable it is, considering there are tens or possibly hundreds of millions of people sharing these ideas. America has to come to grips with the intensity of their beliefs. Any conflict with them will not be resolved by simply saying we’re great guys, we believe in democracy.

I believe Osama bin Laden, if you examine the Koran, is closer to the Koran and the prophet Mohammed’s beliefs than the hope that Islam can be democratic. It’s not a very democratic belief system. To say that it is comes out of a wish that has nothing to do with Islam. It comes from the idea that everything good has to do with democracy or democratic ideals. Well, there are different ideals at work in the world, and we need to come to grips with that.

Full Story: Reason.