Interesting post.
Now, can we ask how can Christians combat extremism? Specifically, but certainly not limited to, the Jerry Falsewell/Ted Haggard/Rick Warren/Rod Dreher/Fred Phelps/Pat Buchanan/ Pat Robertson types of condemnatory, vicious, lying, hateful, hurtful, judgemental kind?

Very thought-provoking, but the WOMBAT acronym will just provoke snickering.

Your Name,
Though I disagree with many things Rick Warren and Rod Dreher say, it is not fair to lump them together with Jerry Falwell, Fred Phelps, Pat Robertson and the likes of them. Though both Dreher and Warren oppose gay marriage and frequently criticize homosexuality, both men have indicated that they support civil unions (or at least some legal rights) for gay couples, whereas Robertson believes gay couples should be jailed for engaging in “sodomy” and Phelps believes that gays should be executed. There is a pretty big difference between opposing same-sex marriage and believing homosexuals should be put to death. Dreher and Warren can be somewhat judgemental, but nowhere near as judgemental as Robertson, Falwell, and Phelps.

I will say, as a non-Muslim and an American who tries his best to defend Islam from people who would gladly condemn all Muslims by association, it helps to have people speaking out.
But I agree. Muslims in the west just need to keep on keepin’ on, so to speak, but remain firm and proud in their faith.
Frankly, I don’t even like the term “moderate” Muslim. It kind of sounds like “diet Muslim” or “Islam lite”. There are plenty of peaceful and kind Muslims who are far more devout and zealous than those who basically use their faith as an excuse to justify their wrongdoing.

What’s a muharib?

Muslims can start by not blaming Jews and/or Zionists for their problems. Moderate secular doctors and dentists in Egypt believe that The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is true. Many Muslims need to stop asking for tolerance while preaching hatred.
I do understand that this kind of antisemitism originated in Christian Europe, but it now permeates the Arab and Muslim world.

I understand the catchiness and significance of the acronym WOMBAT but the fact that I have to ask “what is a muharib” tells me it needs significant explanation before Westerners will understand. I dismiss the premise of controlled war. How do you fight people in a controlled manner with rules when they are willing to use school, hospitals and other civilian population centers as shields and they are willing to die if they can kill you? It is a question that has been begging an answer for many years now. In all of history war has been waged one country against another or one faction against another. What we have in this battle is a significant number of people, scattered around the world who are willing to kill innocent people anywhere at anytime simply to make a point. How can you have rules and how can you not condemn this kind of action when it’s done in the name of a religion?

I agree with the first poster (apparently another victim of this lousy comments platform).
While it is great to see Muslims tackling this problem, as a non-muslim, I think it is more realistic for me as a Christian to talk about tackling the Christian Extremist issue.
Extremists of all types have perverted their doctrines in such a way as to become advocates for violence and conquest.
Excuse me for being a bit presumptuous, but I do not feel that is whhat the God of all Creation had in mind for us.

They shout that there is only one god ALLAH, and that he is the greatest.
I agree and there is only one creator and he is the geatest, and that is ALLAH.
Allah created everything in this world you, me, the faithful, the none faithful. all belivers, all nonbelivers in fact everything.
Nothing exists that was not created by ALLAH.
If he had wanted robots that fell on their kness to whorship him, he could have created them.
But he did not.
So, when you destroy anything, anything at all, be it a blade of grass, human being or anything esle YOU ARE DESTROYING ALLAH’S
CREATIONS.
So please do not kid yourself that you are working for ALLAH.
Because you are not.
Still I have no doubt that someday you will face ALLAH and you will have accept his punishment.
WE ALL WILL BE PUNISHED FOR ANY EVIL WE COMMIT.
Mypete

“I think it is more realistic for me as a Christian to talk about tackling the Christian Extremist issue. ”
I’m sorry but what Christian extremist have flown planes into buildings, blown up buses, trains, embassies etc?
If Moderate muslims want to combat extremism, then they need to stand up and denounce groups like Hamas and Hezbollah by name. When a CAIR leader was asked if he denounces Hamas he refused to name Hamas saying he donounces all terrorist.
Moderate Muslims need to root out the extremist from their Mosques and they need to cooperate with law enforcement when they find out about a plot. they need to stop saying their are victims and become assimilated into the American/Western world. Stop trying to bring your culture into our world. If you want to wear the hijab, niqab or whatever then go back to your homeland.
stop the stealth jihad and stop denying what everyone else sees

Peterk,
Have you heard of the IRA, Timothy McVeigh, David Koresh, KKK, need I go on? At any given time, one religion or another may be embroiled in conflicts, but don’t act oblivious to all of the violence of the past 2000 years.

I sort of understand the original poster on some bits, but don’t understand other bits.
The problem (as I see it) is that all the power of all the groups is in the hands of the fundamentalists. They control the groups and dictate stratey and policy.
The older generations who first immigrated to UK or USA were (I believe) happy to be away from Sharia and oppression (they then hit our racist society, but that is a different issue). But their offspring, or grandchildren, born in the West, have never suffered under Sharia law. They see it as a utopian vision rather than a nightmare, and they are being fed the usual violent fighting creed that all teenagers (male usually, but not solely) rather enjoy, with all those hormones conflicting their lives, by internet preachers and hate-speech imams.
It works for them; they are able to rebel against the world, and even their schoolteachers are not able to guard against this brainwashing. In fact, in UK, some of them teach it and glorify it.
What should the muslims as a community do?
Well, why is there no Muslim organisation that is influential and able to confront these people? This is your future aswell!
The history of the West is replete with some nutter or extremist organisation trying to take power, but they are always fought, from the inside. And the only way to counter the inevitable is for Muslims to counter it, and openly, and strongly.
Why do you think so many westerners backed the invasion of Afghanistan and the hunt for terror. Because there was no organisation in the Muslim world doing it! It appears to us that Muslims just want to take over the world (courtesy of certain paragraphs in the Qu’ran), if not by violent jihad, then by slow immmigration and fast birthrates.
If you do not counter the threat, you abdicate the responsibility and leave it up to the Westerners to confront, which only leads to more confrontation and more hardline attitudes on both sides.
Please wake up and don’t dismiss the call for you to counter these thugs – if you continue to do so, the limited Western intelligence will merely swipe all people aside that look like they come from that religion, and that is not the way it should be

@Peterk

You’re kidding, right? Try the Oklahoma City Bombing on for size. Timothy McVeigh was a Christian extremist. Not enough? Try David Koresh of the Branch Davidians. Or how about the Irish Republican Army and its subsequent splinter factions and sister organizations? My first introduction to my Irish heritage was sitting in front of the television, watching reports of car bombings, violence in the streets, the bombs thrown at a bunch of helpless Catholic schoolgirls.

And your comment about hijab is just plain uneducated. Might as well tell every Jewish man who wears the yarmulke to go back to Israel, or every babushka who wears her babushka to Mass to go back to Mother Russia.
America is a melting pot of various cultures and ways of life. If a person wants to put something on their head to represent their faith, who are you to tell them to do otherwise? Catholic nuns still wear their garb, and I don’t see you complaining.
Grow up.

Waqir Ali, I think your post is very good. I wish that everyone of any religion would discard utopian, theocratic dreams.