The Peaceful Fantasy

D'Souza gets whipped:

D'Souza asks us to put our hopes in an intra-civilization alliance; traditional Westerners and traditional Muslims on one side, and Islamist radicals and Western cultural leftists on the other. He puts his hopes on a peace-loving, tolerant, and humane Islam, which is strong enough to rescue us from our sorrows.

It would be wonderful--if only it were true. The peaceful and tolerant Islam of D'Souza's book is a fantasy. It doesn't exist, it has never existed, and if it ever does I'll be pleasantly surprised. Islam is not peaceful and tolerant, but a violent, depraved ideology. Islam's founder was one of the worse human monsters our world has ever suffered.

Comments

[Grant Jones]

"D'Souza asks us to put our hopes in an intra-civilization alliance; traditional Westerners and traditional Muslims on one side, and Islamist radicals and Western cultural leftists on the other."

A classic contest between dogmatism and subjectivism. I guess for D'Souza reason has no place in the mix.

[Matt]

I do have a question for you Isaac, as one who used to follow Islam. In the US you have (broadly) a division in Christianity between those who believe what the Bible says literally (Conservatives like the Southern Baptists) and those that interpret it in modern times (like Episcopalians with gay and female priests). I know there are more divisions, but those are two general/large ones.

Would you say there is a division within Islam between the "Fundamentalist Radicals" who whole to everything within the Koran and Hadith and more moderate Muslims that ignore certain strictures and live reasonably peaceably in the West? I'm not arguing that the latter group have a powerful voice. But is that a way to explain why all of the Muslims in the US & UK aren't engaged in Jihad? Or is there another explanation?

[Isaac Schrödinger]

Matt: I have answered your question in this post: Islam and Muslims.