Moderate, Shmoderate. It's the Sharia, Stupid State Dep't Official

This isn't the first time "moderate" "intefaith" imam Rauf has been sent on an "outreach" mission to Muslim countries by the American government. The Bush administration availed itself of the imam's services, too. Robert Spencer comments:

Why have two administrations been so anxious to underwrite this Islamic supremacist cleric’s globetrotting? [State Department spokesman P.J.] Crowley explained that Rauf’s “work on tolerance and religious diversity is well-known and he brings a moderate perspective to foreign audiences on what it’s like to be a practicing Muslim in the United States.”

One wonders what definition of “moderate” Crowley, and the Bush and Obama State Departments, use. Rauf openly touts the virtues of Islamic law, Sharia, in his book What’s Right with Islam. Although he covers his arguments in blandness and protestations that there is no significant difference between Sharia and America’s founding principles, he never gets around to discussing the elements of Sharia that outrage principles of human rights that are otherwise universally accepted: the draconian punishments of stoning for adultery and amputation of the hand for theft; the death penalty for those who leave Islam; the institutionalized subjugation of women and non-Muslims; and more.

It would be helpful if Crowley et al understood what Turkey's prime minister understands, i.e. that "Islam is Islam." And Islam per se is not "moderate" since its raison d'etre is the furtherance of sharia until the whole world acknowledges its primacy. There are, of course, lots of Muslims who have no interest in pursuing such an agenda: I would be willing to refer to them--and only to them--as "moderates" (knowing that there's no guarantee that they will necessarily remain "moderate"). I would extend no such courtesy to the likes of Imam Rauf, though, since it is clear he is just as keen to see sharia predomoninate as is, say, "radical" Yemenial Devil Imam al-Awlaki, but who prefers to do so via "interfaith" schmoozing/mosque erection and sans overt violence.

For the sake of clarity, I suggest we nix it with the "moderate" and "radical" designations, reserving the "moderate" tag for those Muslims indifferent to or working against the sharia agenda. The rest could be described as "sharia fan (violent)" or "sharia fan (non-violent)".