Shut Your Mouth, Impudent Kafir

Two Muslimas (in the NatPo) chastize Geert Wilders for having the temerity to "define Islam" (something forbidden by Islamic law):

It is also highly presumptuous to suggest that Muslims who don’t practice or believe in the “totalitarian ideology” described by Mr. Wilders are “not Muslims at all.” In defining “true” Islam by its extreme interpretations, Mr. Wilders usurps the authority of Islam’s practitioners to speak for what our religion can and does stand for. Just as there are Muslims who claim that Islam permits violence to fight injustice, there are Muslims who assert that Islam supports or even demands non-violence (see, for instance, the works of Islamic scholars Dr. Jawdat Said, Dr. Mohammed Abu-Nimer and Dr. Chaiwat Satha-Anand). There are Muslims who argue that Islam requires gender equality (for example, Dr. Amina Wadud and Dr. Aziza al-Hibri). And so it is with many aspects of Islamic interpretation. Given this diversity in thought, who is Mr. Wilders to ordain one among many competing interpretations as definitive of Islam?

Despite the alleged "diversity in thought," Islam was aptly defined by Turkey's Islamist Prime Minister (who, unlike the authors of the above, wasn't trying to gull credulous infidels):

The term 'moderate Islam' is ugly and offensive. There is no moderate Islam. Islam is Islam.

So there.

Update: The authors of the NatPo piece are Samira Kanji and Azeezah Kanji, respectively the president of and the program devoloper at the Noor Cultural Centre. According to its website, the NNC is striving

to become a leading centre for Islamic learning and the celebration of Islamic culture, while respecting the diversity in peoples and religions as directed by the Qur’an [49.13]: We have created you male and female, and have made you into nations and tribes, in order that you might come to know one another. In the sight of God the noblest among you is the one who is most deeply conscious of God.

Well, I guess that's a lot friendlier and more "diverse" than the Qur'anic directive

O YOU who have attained to faith! Do not take the Jews and the Christians for your allies: they are but allies of one another and whoever of you allies himself with them becomes, verily, one of them; behold, God does not guide people who are unjust. (5:51)

An example of the type of "diversity in thought" the NCC is into: last month it hosted Jason Kunin, one of Toronto's shortest and most notorious Zion-loathers. He advised whoever bothered to show up on "voting smart."