why do the moderates not make a major effort to engage extremists in a public debate
You'd have to read Arabic newspapers to really know the scene, but people who've lived in the Mideast and read the newspapers tell me that there is a constant debate. Tension between moderate and extreme interpretations of Islam DEFINE contemporary life in the Muslim world. In fact, Iranian students are protesting the freakish Holocaust denial conference in Tehran as we speak.
London Times article
many western writers state the it appears the Koran does indeed advocate what the extremists claim.
Like the Bible, you can find support for most any position. But there is no lack of support for peace and tolerance in the Koran.
I am currently reading the superb book
Islam, by Karen Armstrong, a prominent scholar of religion. According to her, Mohammed considered himself simply the latest of many prophets speaking for God. He insisted that Jesus, Jacob, and other children of Abraham followed just as legitimate a path as Muslims. His goal was to bring monotheism and the religion of Abraham to the Arabs, and had no strong feelings about what anyone else should think. Armstrong goes so far as to suggest that although Mohammed had never heard of Budda or Confuscious, he would have considered them simply other messengers of the one true God, albeit directed at Asia. The Prophet specified that Jews and Christians should be revered and not coerced to change. Mohammed apparently saw Christians and Jews as more advanced than Arabs because they had adopted Abraham's monotheism. They were to be emulated, not persecuted.
Within Arabia, he brokered peace agreements and halted much of the endemic tribal warfare.