We need a more confident Muslim public voice

Confidence is not volume. It is the willingness to say what one believes, plainly, and then to defend it with evidence rather than indignation.

Too much public commentary oscillates between apology and outrage. Both are reactions to an audience rather than expressions of a position.

A mature public voice begins from its own sources, addresses the wider society in terms it can understand, and refuses to trade principle for approval.

That requires institutions capable of producing writers and speakers who have read widely and thought slowly.

The alternative is a discourse shaped entirely by whoever is most provoked on a given morning.