The root causes of extremism need to be addressed. Where extreme wealth exists, with extreme power concentrated in very few hands, and where extreme poverty, injustice and inequity also exist, then the ingredients for religious or political extremism are present. Extremism does not exist in a vacuum, so the causes must be understood before the evil ideology can be defeated. Also, Muslims must revive the practice of learning Qur'anic Arabic. When this practice was widespread, Muslims were creative, innovative and inventive. When they abandoned this practice, they abandoned independence of thought, study and research and became heavily reliant, dependent, upon scholars, sects and schools of thought. This is how people are misled, misguided and misinformed, by blindly following others - whether religious or political leaders. Muslims have become followers and not leaders; this is why their societies are stagnant and static, regressing into ignorance, instead of progressing toward enlightenment and illumination. Nina Deen