Moderate Islam: Does It Exist?

This weekend at church, I amiably argued with a friend over whether "Moderate Islam" exists. My position was thus: Moderate Muslims do not exist because they cease to become practiciing Muslims when they "moderate". More specifically, they no longer follow the teaching of the Qu'ran as laid down by the Prophet Mohammad.

My friend vehemently disagreed. He felt believes that Moderate Islam does exist and that the American people are generally bigoted against the majority of "peace-loving Muslims".

He went further to state that the media portrayal of the Arabs is "unfair" and that the Jews are no longer special or "God's people." Well, this is another argument altogether, but one that gets thrown into the bag.

The basic gist is this: Muslims, Arabs and anyone Middle-Eastern non-Jew are portrayed as fascist, murderous nuts and it is an unfair depiction.

I need to learn more about this myself and am currently researching the history and religion of Islam and the history of the Crusades as well.

Here is my current position: while there are nice Muslim people, and I have friends who describe themselves as Muslim, the Islamic religion cannot be construed as "peaceful" in any way, shape or form.

Here though is a phenomenal link which captures my current position better than I can write myself.