Should Muslims call their reactions into question when they deal with those who don’t believe like them?
Answer: Of course!
In fact progressive Muslims do this and have done so for a very long time. Progressive Muslims are embarrassed about the reactions to the Danish cartoons for example. The problem is that progressive Muslims are not very well organized. In Germany for example all large Muslim organizations range from conservative to ultra-conservative to being unconstitutional. Prominent liberal Muslims like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lale_Akguen have been trying for many years to get liberal Muslims organized. It’s not happening. There are many reasons and one is that most liberal Muslims don’t want to become a target. It’s dangerous to openly disagree with ultra-conservative Muslims.
In Western countries ultra-conservative Muslims don’t understand the fact that even non-religious people consider certain beliefs to be ‘sacred’. Freedom of speech and freedom of thought are sacred. Violating these principles results in outrage. And rightly so.
For ultra-conservative believers blasphemy is considered a violation of something very sacred.
That’s the root cause of the clash we’re seeing. Two incompatible views.
So what we need is conservative Muslims learning to feel comfortable with disagreement. With dissent. With pluralism. With the principle live and let live. And only liberal Muslims have the power and means to convince them.
Of course this applies to conservative Christians too.