NatPo Editorial--"Don't Let Murderers Define Islam"

Sure thing, NatPo, editorial writer (the piece appears in the Post's paper version, but online it's at the FP site). But for that to happen, we'd have to bowdlerize the faith's sacred texts and remove all those, um, problematic passages obliging the faithful to wage jihad on the the infidel until Islam is calling the shots everywhere, forever.

We'd also have to sanitize a very bloody history of Muslims, following the lead of their faith's founder, doing their utmost to fulfill that holy mission.

You see, editorialist, pace your assertion that

In 2012, Afghanistan - like Libya and other large swathes of the Middle East - is convulsed by a violent ideological struggle over the role of Islam in public life. But in early 1979, that struggle was still in its infancy.

the role of Islam was settled long, long ago. Almost right from square one, in fact, Islam decided that there was to be no separation between the temporal and the religious, no rendering unto Caesar that which belonged to Caesar, because Caesar was an infidel, and everything in every sphere had to be rendered unto its sole rightful boss, Allah. 

It would be wonderful were the Muslim world comprised in the main of modern, civilized, Westernized Muslims such as Raheel Raza, Salim Mansur and Irshad Manji, individuals who are more than willing to separate the temporal from the religious. But, alas, they but a tiny minority, and while they may "define Islam" for the infidels who embrace them and their spirit of modernism and fellowship, they will never be allowed to define it for the faithful. That's because the devout reject them and their interpretation as a bastardization of Islam because it does not hew to the faith's original goals. Re those, the Muslim Brotherhood, with its " jihad is the way, sharia is the goal" mantra, is the wave of the future, because it jibes so perfectly with the past.

Update: I wish this had been in the NatPo editorial:

The ugly truth about Islam is that Muslim violence is not some force that is released only in response to provocations, it’s a cynical and voluntary abuse that Muslims have complete control over. Going Dhimmi accomplishes nothing except to reward the killers.