Muslim Condemnation?

Jeff Jarvis asks whether or not we should be seeing more condemnation of terrorist attacks perpetrated by Muslims from the mainstream Muslim community. Well, sure. And to be fair, we often do. But there are a few important things to remember:

1) There's no central Muslim authority. In other words, there's no Pope for Islam. That's one of the things that many non-Muslims seem to have a problem with - Islam tends to be decentralized.

2) Would you blame mainstream Muslims for thinking that they're less connected to these terror strikes than outsiders might believe them to be? I mean, I'm a Christian and I don't see the need to go around apologizing to non-Christians for Fred Phelps and his GodHatesFags.com website. I doubt you could say fundamentalist Islamic terror groups are "a Muslim problem" any more than you could say fundie Christians bombing abortion clinics are a Christian problem.

3) What makes you think widespread condemnation from mainstream Muslims would make any difference? The fundies are going to interpret the Koran any way they want to, and the influence of anyone who interprets it differently probably amounts to diddley squat.

It sounded to me like Jarvis was toying with the idea of painting Muslims with an awfully wide brush. But I know he's smarter than that.