Editorial: What are the first things to do?

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2008%5C03%5C26%5Cstory_26-3-2008_pg3_1

Second Editorial: Saudi Arabia tries to reform its Imams

Saudi Arabia has fired 1,000 imams or prayer leaders in its mosques after they were heard asking Saudi youths to go and fight global jihad and hate non-Muslims. But fully 40,000 imams have been retained in the hope of training them out of their obsession with jihad that ends up killing more Muslims than infidels. The Saudi programme is to send the non-offending imams to a centre set up five years ago where they can learn a moderate version of the faith and stop arousing the youth of Saudi Arabia into passions of violence.

This is a welcome development that is possible only in a state where regimentation at times works for the better interest of the nation and state. But the clerical establishment is still “powerful and ultraconservative” and continues to exert authority over the people in tandem with the royal hierarchy. According to reports, only last week a prominent cleric called for the beheading of two liberal writers who had questioned the orthodox view “that Muslims cannot change their religion”. After Nasserism, the rise of the tough Saudi faith has produced extremism in all parts of the Islamic world. It is here that the reform must begin and it is here that the first halting steps are very welcome. *
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"The conversion of the entire population to Islam and the extinction of every form of dissent is the ideal of the Muslim State - This is Islamic Peace"

A moderate Moslem is one who sends others blow themselves up.