Enlightened moderation
anti-extremist Islamic school of thought, created by Pervez Musharraf
Enlightened moderation is a term coined by a former Pakistani president, Pervez Musharraf; it applies to practicing a moderate Islam, as opposed to the interpretations of fundamentalist Islam.
To think properly as to rationalise thoughts, to be on the positive side of life and to prefer optimism, the theory goes, is to be against extremism.
The strategy of enlightened moderation was unveiled by Musharraf during the 2002 OIC Summit Conference in Malaysia.
Musharraf explained his position in an opinion piece that was published in various newspapers in 2004. His plan for enlightened moderation has two sides. It calls "for the Muslim world to shun militancy and extremism and adopt the path of socioeconomic uplift" and "for the West, and the United States in particular, to seek to resolve all political disputes with justice and to aid in the socioeconomic betterment of the deprived Muslim world".
Musharraf pointed out that moderation and enlightenment have been the traits of the Islamic world since the times of Muhammad.
Musharraf wrote:
I say to my brother Muslims: The time for renaissance has come. The way forward is through enlightenment. We must concentrate on human resource development through the alleviation of poverty and through education, health care and social justice.
The public source identifies “Enlightened moderation” as anti-extremist Islamic school of thought, created by Pervez Musharraf. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Enlightened, moderation and anti-extremist.
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The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5379070. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2002 and 2004.
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This entry incorporates text from “Enlightened moderation” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.