Jordan tries to tell a story that militates against Islamist narrative

“Killing every single extremist is not an option, What we really need is to weaken their ideology.”

Marwan Shehade, an Amman-based expert on Salafism, quoted by OZY, is indisptuably right.

But, it’s hard to fight a beguiling narrative.

Jordon is apparently trying to do this with powerful words, as part of a national anti-extremism policy that tries to define “moderate Islam.”

What can that be?

No one seems to know so far.

OZY says that Hayel Dawood, the Jordanian minister of Muslim Affairs, is meeting with all of the 5,500 imams employed by the ministry to review guidelines for “moderate” preaching and suggested sermon topics.

This is obviously likely to cover aspects that we know from the UK as hate speech, rabble-rousing talk that incites violence.

Will that be enough?