Almost all of them are moderate or liberal not because they subscribe to a less conservative interpretation of their faith, but because they have chosen to put a certain distance between their own religious thought and practice and the strict tenets of institutional Islam.While there are such things as moderate and liberal Christianity, there is no such thing as a moderate or liberal Islam. Yes, there are millions of good-hearted individuals who identify themselves as Muslims and who have no enmity in their hearts for their non-Muslim neighbors and coworkers. Some of these Muslims are religiously observant, some are not; but their moderation is not an attribute of the brand of Islam to which they officially subscribe but is, rather, a measure of their own individual character.
As a rule, then, a moderate Muslim doesn't see extremist Muslims as getting their religion wrong in quite the same way that, say, a liberal Episcopalian might feel that a conservative Southern Baptist has gotten Christianity wrong; such a Muslim, rather, even though he deeply abhors the actions of his violent coreligionists, may well be unable to shake off the feeling that they're more dedicated to Islam than he is. The result: A profound reluctance to criticize.
The fact remains that if there are indeed millions of moderate or even liberal Muslims out there, the great majority of them tend to keep an extraordinarily low profile with regard to their moderation or liberalism; and when push comes to shove (as it has with increasing frequency in recent years), few will speak up against Muslim extremists. I am reminded of a previous post quoting Sam Harris.