Hirsi Ali’s candor is so refreshing. She speaks from her experience as a Muslim woman oppressed by a misogynistic, patriarchal, and obscurantist Islamic culture. To be fair, most Muslims are not bloodthirsty savages out to kill and oppress and drive us back to the dark ages, but that element is certainly there and European/American lefty intellectuals need to stop tip-toeing around that reality. They need to confront radical Islam forcefully, firmly stand up for freedom of speech and the press, women’s equality, sexual freedom, and assimilation of liberal democratic principles. If Muslims immigrate to Europe or North America or Australia, they need to assimilate to its political culture. Moral relativism is not an effective political framework. Humanistic values are *clearly* superior to doctrinaire religious ones, and that should be boldly upheld in Europe and the West (both against extremist Muslims and Christians).

Now to be the devil’s advocate for a moment:

I grew up in a Muslim family. From my earliest memories, I remember being taught to pray, to read and revere the Quran (even though I couldn’t understand its Arabic), and to follow the example of the Prophet Muhammad who was portrayed as wise, just, merciful, compassionate, forgiving, charitable, loving, humorous, humble, courageous, magnanimous… basically possessing all the greatest human virtues. This is the image most Muslims have of Mohammad, and that is why negative portrayals of him are considered so shocking, hurtful, and disrespectful. Most non-Muslims simply cannot understand the depth of the insult and anger. A rough analogy would be seeing your child or loved one being publicly raped and calling it freedom of expression. It would offend all your sensibilities. This is how Muslims are seeing this ‘Cartoongate’ fiasco.

Having said that, the real issue here is Islam’s inability to evolve beyond its mythic literalist mindset. Muslims refuse to see the Quran as a human creation, Muhammad as an imperfect human being, and religion as an ever-evolving social construct. They’re stuck in a Medieval world of absolutes, rigid doctrines, inflexible black-and-white morality, patriarchy, and an inability to see other views as remotely valid. Even “moderate” Muslims, as peace-loving and virtuous as most are, will never dare to question the Quran or Muhammad’s infallibility. It takes apostates like Rushdie, Ali Sina, Ibn Warraq, and Hirsi, or nearly-out-of-the-Islamic-fold liberals like Irshad Manji, to question the basis of belief. Most moderate Muslims are in fact moderate because of their selective knowledge of Islam. They take to heart its peaceful message while conveniently ignoring its more barbaric and horrific one (the one with all the hellfire, violence, fear of God’s wrath, misogyny, condemnation of other religions as errant – basically language in the same vein as the harsh tribal stories of the Old Testament). To challenge the infallibility of the Holy Book or the Prophet would be to destroy the foundation of their faith and be completely lost in this world, so Muslims vehemently refuse to “go there” or allow anyone else to.

What to do?... Muslims who have the luxury of doing so can live in willful ignorance of the negative aspects of their faith, renounce the faith altogether, or boldly confront its ugly truths and take a more mature and allegorical/non-literal approach to it, as many modern Christians and Jews do to theirs.

There’s a wonderful article by Anne Twitty in the Winter 2005 issue of the literary journal Parabola. The topic of the issue is Fundamentalism, and Twitty writes in her article “Lines in the Sand”:

“There is a lack of faith… that arises among those who cling to ‘faith.’ Faith as defined precisely by text and creeds and practices. A lack of faith in the ungraspable essence from which these texts and creeds and practices arose. A lack of faith in the realm of experience that is open to allusion, not to definition. A lack of faith in the as yet inchoate, uncreated what-is-to-come…

It is the definite, the finite, that so many believers demand. Where do they look to find it? Paradoxically, to the past, a highly selective past reified into an eternal perfect moment. Awaiting another eternal moment: the Reappearance, Judgment Day, when Muhammad, along with a panoply of angels, will come again. Meanwhile, say the Wahabis, Enforcers of the Law: Every innovation is going astray…

The Holy Book. Written words frozen as time; or as time capsules. In one sense: inviolable prescriptions and proscriptions; in another: potential sparks to be struck from the encounter with each new mind, each new consciousness. Unless these are trained to beware of sparks: Revelation Stops (Stopped) Here.

From these literal beliefs, what consequences?

The retreat into the circle. Which requires ever greater efforts to define the outer dangers that impinge, ever greater efforts to convince oneself. Shutting your ears. Shutting out.”

Many posters here seem to keep asking where the moderate Muslim voices are. Some include:

Salam al-Marayati, Amr Khaled, Shireen Ebadi, Ziauddin Sardar, Syed Hossein Nasr, Sharifa Alkhaleeb, Amina Wadud, Nahid Angha, Muqtedar Khan, Shandana Minhas, Khaled Abou El Fadl, Omar Aswamy …

But being so well-read and knowledgeable about the Muslim world as you all are, I’m sure you must have heard of these people already.

Bonmot makes an excellent point in his/her earlier post “I say potato…” The Western world has no shortage of its own displays of barbaric behavior. Think of European soccer fans rioting, melees at rock concerts, hooligans in America trashing city property after their hometown football team wins/loses, fraternity hazing, Fred Phelps and his rabid anti-gay posse, road rage, gang bangs, serial killers, and the list goes on.

To equate barbaric behavior with an entire culture is faulty logic, a syllogism.

eg., Foaming-at-the-mouth enraged football fans are Christian. Most American football fans are Christian. Therefore, most Christians are foaming-at-the-mouth enraged football fans.