There are some very serious problems within our Ummah that, in my opinion, are far more debilitating and destructive than extremism and terrorism, because they are much more prevalent. Violent radicalism and extreme interpretations of the religion have always been around, and always will be; but they have also always existed on the fringe, the numbers of people who subscribe to these ideas have always been few, and this is the case now, and it always will be the case. It has only been designated as our number one problem, because it occasionally affects the West. But we have intellectual problems much more imperative to address than this.
The prevalence of conspiracy theories, weird mystical ideas about the religion (like believing that Rasulullah ï·º didn’t have a shadow), ignorance about politics and economics, malfunctioning critical thinking skills, apathy, irrationality, an inability to process information objectively, over-simplification and the failure to analyze data and situations logically; these are tremendous handicaps, and they seem to me to be incredibly widespread.