{"id":15487,"date":"2019-04-29T17:45:56","date_gmt":"2019-04-29T09:45:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.justcharlie.com\/?page_id=15487"},"modified":"2019-04-29T17:46:00","modified_gmt":"2019-04-29T09:46:00","slug":"islam-and-the-future-of-tolerance","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.justcharlie.com\/highlights\/islam-and-the-future-of-tolerance\/","title":{"rendered":"“Islam and the Future of Tolerance” Book Highlights"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

These highlights were taken the Kindle version of Islam and the Future of Tolerance<\/a> by Sam Harris and Maajid Nawaz.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maajid Nawaz<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I was born and raised in Essex, in the United Kingdom, and grew up in what I refer to as the bad old days of racism in my country. A case that changed the course of race relations in the UK, the murder of Stephen Lawrence, led to a government inquiry that produced the Macpherson report.2 That report coined the phrase \u201cinstitutional racism\u201d and judged that it existed in the police forces of the UK. It was a serious indictment. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Naturally, my generation became disgruntled, disillusioned, and disconnected from society. Into that grave identity crisis came the Islamist ideological group that I eventually joined. The group, Hizb ut-Tahrir, is of the revolutionary variety, remains active across the world, and is still legal in the West. Founded in 1953 in Jerusalem during an earlier Muslim identity crisis after the creation of Israel, Hizb ut-Tahrir was the first Islamist group to popularize the idea of creating a theocratic \u201ccaliphate,\u201d or an \u201cIslamic state.\u201d Rather than terrorism, its members use recruiting and winning over Muslim public opinion, with the eventual aim of inciting military coups in Muslim-majority countries such as Egypt, Turkey, and Pakistan in order to come to power.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

When we in the West failed to intervene in the Bosnian genocide, some Muslims became radicalized; when we did intervene in Afghanistan and Iraq, more Muslims became radicalized; when we failed to intervene in Syria, many more Muslims became radicalized. The grievance narrative that pins the blame on foreign policy is only half the story. It is insufficient as an explanation for radicalization.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Saddam Hussein was the perfect example: he was a universally hated secular tyrant. But the moment a coalition of non-Muslim states attacked him, much of the Muslim world was outraged that \u201cMuslim lands\u201d were being invaded by infidels. Of course, there were many perfectly sane reasons to be against the war in Iraq, but that wasn\u2019t among them. One of the problems with religion is that it creates in-group loyalty and out-group hostility, even when members of one\u2019s own group are behaving like psychopaths. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In 1999, midway through my law and Arabic degree at the University of London\u2019s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), I took a year off and went to Pakistan on the instructions of Hizb ut-Tahrir to help cofound the Pakistani branch. Pakistan had just tested its atomic bomb a year earlier, and the global leader of our group aspired to a nuclear caliphate.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Anywhere we laid the foundations of this organization, we very specifically targeted army officers so that we could incite military coups. In 2000, after my return from Pakistan, I was personally involved in conversations with Pakistani cadets who had come to study at Britain\u2019s Sandhurst Royal Military Academy. Since then, Pakistan has witnessed aborted coup plots by my former organization, some of which have been reported in the press.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In 2001, my studies took me to Egypt for my Arabic-language year. I arrived one day before the 9\/11 attacks. Not fully comprehending the significance of those attacks, I continued recruiting across Egypt for my cause. In April 2002, my Alexandria residence was raided by Egyptian state security officers. I was blindfolded, had my hands tied behind my back, and was taken to state security headquarters in Cairo, where I witnessed other prisoners being tortured by electrocution. I was twenty-four years old.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

It was a combination of my lengthy revisionist conversations with other prisoners and Amnesty\u2019s outreach that started me on the long journey toward a liberal, human rights\u2013based secular perspective. In 2006, I was released from prison and returned to London. In 2008, while completing my master\u2019s degree in political theory at the London School of Economics, I cofounded and went on to chair Quilliam, the world\u2019s first counter-extremism organization.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

So that there\u2019s absolutely no confusion for our readers, when I say \u201cIslamism,\u201d I mean the desire to impose any given interpretation of Islam on society. When I say \u201cjihadism,\u201d I mean the use of force to spread Islamism.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Islamism and jihadism are politicized, contemporary readings of Islam and jihad; they are not Islam and jihad per se. As I\u2019ve said, Islam is a traditional religion like any other, replete with sects, denominations, and variant readings. But Islamism is the desire to impose any of those readings on society. It is commonly expressed as the desire to enforce a version of shari\u2019ah as law.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

One group analyzed the past forty years of parliamentary elections in Muslim-majority countries and found that on average, Islamist parties have carried 15 percent of the vote. This suggests that 15 percent of the world\u2019s Muslims are Islamists. However, poll results on the topic of shari\u2019ah generally show much higher levels of support for its implementation\u2014killing adulterers, cutting off the hands of thieves, and so forth. I\u2019m not sure what to think about a society in which 15 percent of people vote for an Islamist party, but 40 percent or even 60 percent want apostates killed. If nothing else, that would seem to nudge the proportion of Islamists a little higher. I\u2019ve been saying that the number is probably around 20 percent worldwide\u2014an estimate I consider fairly conservative, whereas Muslim apologists consider it an outrageous fiction that testifies to my bigotry and paranoia. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Whether one looks to Pakistan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Egypt, or the Gulf, the majority of Muslims are currently conservative\u2014some would call them fundamentalists. Let\u2019s call them conservatives, because they don\u2019t wholeheartedly subscribe to contemporary liberal human rights.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Most traditional Muslims consider Islamism an errant politicization of their religion. These people are extremely conservative in their own families and lifestyles\u2014they do pose certain core human rights challenges\u2014but they generally don\u2019t want the state to impose their religion, because they want to retain the right to have their own understanding of what this religious conservatism means.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The vast majority of Muslims in, say, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Egypt are conservative. This complicates matters, because we\u2019re currently faced with two entirely different challenges\u2014facing down Islamism and jihadism on the one hand, and advancing human rights and democratic culture on the other. Conservative Muslims may be our allies for the former but not the latter.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Secularism is simply a commitment to keeping religion out of politics and public policy. Your religion is your business, and my religion, or lack of one, is mine. A willingness to build a wall of separation between church and state is what defines secularism\u2014but, as you point out, behind that wall one may be a full-blown religious fanatic, so long as one doesn\u2019t try to impose the fruits of one\u2019s fanaticism on others.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

After the Islamic State, even al-Qaeda appears \u201cmoderate.\u201d The term is so relative\u2014juxtaposed against increasingly worse atrocities\u2014that it has become meaningless. It doesn\u2019t tell us which values the person in question holds. This is why I prefer using terms that denote values, such as \u201cIslamist,\u201d \u201cliberal,\u201d or \u201cconservative\u201d Muslim.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Tolerance in Britain<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Polls that were done in Britain immediately after the 7\/7 bombings in London revealed that more than 20 percent of British Muslims felt sympathy for the bombers\u2019 motives; 30 percent wanted to live under shari\u2019ah; 45 percent thought that 9\/11 was the result of a conspiracy between the United States and Israel; and 68 percent believe that British citizens who \u201cinsult Islam\u201d should be arrested and prosecuted.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

One of the most alarming polls reported recently by the London Times found that one in every seven young Britons has \u201cwarm feelings\u201d toward the Islamic State. Whether or not this is accurate, it suggests a level of grassroots sympathy that is too high for comfort. An ideological undercurrent within communities fosters these numbers. Britain has become a net exporter of Islamism and jihadism. My former Islamist group didn\u2019t exist in Pakistan until we exported it from Britain.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Of course, jihadists believe in taking direct action; they have an entire theory around that. I\u2019d argue, in fact, that the rise of the so-called Islamic State under Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi does somewhat vindicate Osama bin Laden\u2019s strategy and his belief that making the West intervention-weary through war would lead to a power vacuum in the Middle East and that the West would abandon its support for Arab despots, which would lead to the crumbling of despotic regimes. From the ashes of that would rise an Islamic State. Bin Laden said this eleven years ago, and it\u2019s uncanny how the Arab uprisings have turned out.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

It is not necessarily accurate to assume that, say, the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood are somehow less pious than the leaders of, say, the Islamic State. More violence does not necessarily equate with greater religious conviction. Each group is deeply convinced of its approach to achieving Islamism in society, and both face much danger in pursuit of that goal. But they differ in methodology, and they very much despise each other, just as Trotsky and Stalin eventually did. That didn\u2019t mean one was less a communist than the other; they had a factional dispute within their ideology. Some people misunderstand such disputes within Islamism. They argue, \u201cWhat do you mean Islamism? There\u2019s no such thing.\u201d The Muslim Brotherhood hates groups like the Islamic State, and the Islamic State would kill members of the Muslim Brotherhood. I always remind them, that\u2019s like saying there\u2019s no such thing as communism just because Stalin is said to have killed Trotsky. It\u2019s an absurd conclusion to reach. Of course there\u2019s a thing called communism. And there\u2019s a thing called Islamism. It\u2019s an ideology. People are seeking to bring it about, but they differ in their approach.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

As you know, the public conversation about the connection between Islamic ideology and Muslim intolerance and violence has been stifled by political correctness. In the West, there is now a large industry of apology and obfuscation designed, it would seem, to protect Muslims from having to grapple with the kinds of facts we\u2019ve been talking about.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Apparently, it\u2019s not enough for an educated person with economic opportunities to devote himself to the most extreme and austere version of Islam, to articulate his religious reasons for doing so ad nauseam, and even to go so far as to confess his certainty about martyrdom on video before blowing himself up in a crowd. Such demonstrations of religious fanaticism are somehow considered rhetorically insufficient to prove that he really believed what he said he believed. Of course, if he said he did these things because he was filled with despair and felt nothing but revulsion for humanity, or because he was determined to sacrifice himself to rid his nation of tyranny, such a psychological or political motive would be accepted at face value. This double standard is guaranteed to exonerate religion every time. The game is rigged.<\/p>

Among the left, this is a remnant of the socialist approach that prioritizes group identity over individual autonomy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

I once wrote an article titled \u201cThe End of Liberalism?\u201d in which I observed that these \u201cfellow-travelers\u201d have made it nearly impossible for well-intentioned, pluralistic, liberal people to speak honestly on this topic\u2014leaving only fascists, neo-Nazis, and other right-wing lunatics to do the job. On some occasions the only people making accurate claims about the motivations of Islamists and jihadists are themselves dangerous bigots. That\u2019s terrifying. We have extremists playing both sides of the board in a clash of civilizations, and liberals won\u2019t speak sensibly about what\u2019s happening. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The first stage in the empowerment of any minority community is the liberation of reformist voices within that community so that its members can take responsibility for themselves and overcome the first hurdle to genuine empowerment: the victimhood mentality. This is what the American civil rights movement achieved, by shifting the debate. Martin Luther King Jr. and other leaders took responsibility for their own communities and acted in a positive and empowering way, instead of constantly playing the victim card or rioting in the streets. Perpetuating this groupthink mind-set is both extremely dangerous and in fact disempowering. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Now, as to the view that this is how anyone who had suffered imperialism or colonialism would behave: no, it\u2019s not. Entire countries such as India, were colonized.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

I believe that indulging identity politics can be dangerous. It usually leads to division. It doesn\u2019t lead to communities\u2019 standing together.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The doors leading out of the prison of scriptural literalism simply do not open from the inside. In the twenty-first century, the moderate\u2019s commitment to scientific rationality, human rights, gender equality, and every other modern value\u2014values that, as you say, are potentially universal for human beings\u2014comes from the past thousand years of human progress, much of which was accomplished in spite of religion, not because of it. So when moderates claim to find their modern, ethical commitments within scripture, it looks like an exercise in self-deception. The truth is that most of our modern values are antithetical to the specific teachings of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. And where we do find these values expressed in our holy books, they are almost never best expressed there.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The fundamentalist picks up the book and says, \u201cOkay, I\u2019m just going to read every word of this and do my best to understand what God wants from me. I\u2019ll leave my personal biases completely out of it.\u201d Conversely, every moderate seems to believe that his interpretation and selective reading of scripture is more accurate than God\u2019s literal words. Presumably, God could have written these books any way He wanted. And if He wanted them to be understood in the spirit of twenty-first-century secular rationality, He could have left out all those bits about stoning people to death for adultery or witchcraft. It really isn\u2019t hard to write a book that prohibits sexual slavery\u2014you just put in a few lines like \u201cDon\u2019t take sex slaves!\u201d and \u201cWhen you fight a war and take prisoners, as you inevitably will, don\u2019t rape any of them!\u201d And yet God couldn\u2019t seem to manage it. This is why the approach of a group like the Islamic State holds a certain intellectual appeal (which, admittedly, sounds strange to say) because the most straightforward reading of scripture suggests that Allah advises jihadists to take sex slaves from among the conquered, decapitate their enemies, and so forth.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Imagine that a literalist and a moderate have gone to a restaurant for lunch, and the menu promises \u201cfresh lobster\u201d as the specialty of the house. Loving lobster, the literalist simply places his order and waits. The moderate does likewise, but claims to be entirely comfortable with the idea that the lobster might not really be a lobster after all\u2014perhaps it\u2019s a goose! And, whatever it is, it need not be \u201cfresh\u201d in any conventional sense\u2014for the moderate understands that the meaning of this term shifts according to the context. This would be a very strange attitude to adopt toward lunch, but it is even stranger when considering the most important questions of existence\u2014what to live for, what to die for, and what to kill for. Consequently, the appeal of literalism isn\u2019t difficult to see. Human beings reflexively demand it in almost every area of their lives. It seems to me that religious people, to the extent that they\u2019re certain that their scripture was written or inspired by the Creator of the universe, demand it too.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

We definitely have to acknowledge that anything we say could apply to Judaism and Christianity. But a particular strand of a politicized version of the Muslim faith is causing a disproportionate share of problems in the world, so there are good reasons to focus on that strand.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

It can sometimes be very hard to make a mental leap and put yourself into the mind of the average Pakistani. I know many Pakistani atheists who\u2014alongside liberal Muslims\u2014are trying to democratize their society from within Pakistan. You and I can have this discussion without fear, but for them such open discussions can result in death.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m well aware that millions of nominally Muslim freethinkers are in hiding out of necessity. This is one of the things I find so insufferable about the liberal backlash against critics of Islam\u2014especially the pernicious meme \u201cIslamophobia,\u201d by which anyone who thinks Islam merits special concern at this moment in history is branded a bigot. What worries me is that so many moderate Muslims believe that \u201cIslamophobia\u201d is a bigger problem than literalist Islam is. They seem more outraged that someone like me would equate jihad with holy war than that millions of their co-religionists do this and commit atrocities as a result.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In recent days, the Islamic State has been burning prisoners alive in cages and decapitating people by the dozen\u2014and gleefully posting videos attesting to the enormity of their sadism online. Far from being their version of a My Lai massacre, these crimes against innocents represent what they unabashedly stand for.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

A sensible way forward would be to establish this idea that there is no correct reading of scripture. This is especially easy for Sunnis\u2014who represent 80 percent of the Muslims around the world\u2014because they have no clergy. If a particular passage says \u201cSmite their necks,\u201d to conclude, despite all the passages that came before it and everything that comes after it, that this passage means \u201cSmite their necks today\u201d is to engage in a certain method of interpretation. If we could popularize the understanding that all conclusions from scripture are but interpretations, then all variant readings of a holy book would become a matter of differing human perspectives.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The best way to undermine extremists\u2019 insistence that truth is on their side is to argue that theirs is merely one way of looking at things. The only truth is that there is no correct way to interpret scripture.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

When you open it up like that, you\u2019re effectively saying there is no right answer. And in the absence of a right answer, pluralism is the only option. And pluralism will lead to secularism, and to democracy, and to human rights. We must all focus on those values without worrying about whether atheism is the most intellectually pure approach. I genuinely believe that if we focus on the pluralistic nature of interpretation and on democracy, human rights, and secularism\u2014on these values\u2014we\u2019ll get to a time of peace and stability in Muslim-majority countries that then allows for conversations like this. Questioning whether God really exists would become a choice, open to all.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The second central message\u2014the other side of the same coin, really\u2014is the promise of paradise, which explicitly devalues life in this world. Obviously, that isn\u2019t unique to Islam either, but the belief in martyrdom, and in jihad as a way of achieving it, is primarily a Muslim phenomenon. Islam teaches that dying in defense of the faith is among the surest paths to paradise\u2014and the only one to reach it directly, bypassing the Day of Judgment. Some teachings suggest that a martyr can bring seventy of his dearest friends and family in after him. And we all know about the virgins who seem to guarantee that eternity will be spent in an open-air bordello. The belief that a life of eternal pleasure awaits martyrs after death explains why certain people can honestly chant, \u201cWe love death more than the infidels love life.\u201d Again, you and I both know that these people aren\u2019t bluffing. They truly believe in martyrdom\u2014as evidenced by the fact that they regularly sacrifice their lives, or watch their children do so, without a qualm.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

As we\u2019ve been having this dialogue there was an especially horrific attack on a school in Peshawar, Pakistan, where members of the Taliban murdered 145 people, 132 of them children. The details are gruesome\u2014and I don\u2019t intend to dwell on them\u2014but it is important to understand the irrationality and horror that these numbers conceal. We are talking about a group of young men who were willing to burn a teacher alive in front of her pupils, butcher every child they could get their hands on, and then blow themselves up to maximize the carnage and avoid being captured. It is very difficult for most people to understand how this behavior could be possible, and they generally imagine that only madmen could act this way.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Here is an excerpt from an online conversation that Ali A. Rizvi had with a Taliban supporter in the aftermath of the massacre in Peshawar (translated from Urdu and annotated by Rizvi; the speaker is the Taliban supporter):<\/p>

\u201cHuman life\u201d only has value among you worldly materialist thinkers. For us, this human life is only a tiny, meaningless fragment of our existence. Our real destination is the Hereafter. We don\u2019t just believe it exists, we know it does. Death is not the end of life. It is the beginning of existence in a world much more beautiful than this. As you know, the [Urdu] word for death is \u201cintiqaal.\u201d It means \u201ctransfer,\u201d not \u201cend.\u201d Paradise is for those of pure hearts. All children have pure hearts. They have not sinned yet \u2026 They have not yet been corrupted by [their kafir parents]. We did not end their lives. We gave them new ones in Paradise, where they will be loved more than you can imagine. They will be rewarded for their martyrdom. After all, we also martyr ourselves with them. The last words they heard were the slogan of Takbeer [\u201cAllah u Akbar\u201d]. Allah Almighty says Himself in Surhah Al-Imran [3:169\u2013170] that they are not dead. You will never understand this. If your faith is pure, you will not mourn them, but celebrate their birth into Paradise.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Critiquing Islam, critiquing any idea, is not bigotry. \u201cIslamophobia\u201d is a troubled and inherently unhelpful term. Yes, hatred of Muslims by neo-Nazi-style groups does exist, and it is a form of cultural intolerance, but that must never be conflated with the free-speech right to critique Islam.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

My view is that no idea is above scrutiny, and no people are beneath dignity. As Ali A. Rizvi points out, if I say \u201csmoking is bad,\u201d this does not mean that I believe all smokers to be bad people.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Most of human history is a bloodbath, of course, so Islam is not unique in this. But it is misleading to suggest that the problems of Muslim triumphalism and intolerance are modern ones. I know that modern Islamism learned a trick or two from European fascism, but when Muslim armies were stopped at the gates of Vienna in 1683, the world had witnessed a thousand years of jihad\u2014which had spread the faith from Portugal to the Caucasus to India to sub-Saharan Africa. Islam was spread primarily by conquest, not conversation. Infidels were forced to convert or die.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

It seems to me that a politically correct mythology is replacing history on many of these topics. Consider the Crusades. The Christians are often depicted as barbarian aggressors and the Muslims as their highly cultured victims. But the Crusades were primarily a response to 300 years of jihad (whether the crusaders were aware of the Islamic doctrine or not). They were a reaction to Muslim incursions in Europe, the persecution of Eastern Christians, and the desecration of Christian holy sites. And few people seem to remember that the crusaders lost all but the first of those wars.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Muslims, too, practiced slavery in Africa, and Western slavers appear to have learned a good deal from them. In fact, Muslims regularly enslaved white Christian Europeans. For hundreds of years, to live or travel anywhere on the Mediterranean was to risk being captured by Barbary pirates and sold into slavery. It is believed that more than a million Europeans were enslaved and forced to work in North Africa by Muslims between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

One of the most prolific and (in)famous jurists, whose ancient writings are held responsible for the revival of Wahhabism today, is Ibn Taymiyyah.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Any given subject has multiple interpretations, which demonstrates that there\u2019s no correct one. If we can understand that, then we arrive at a respect for difference, which leads to tolerance and then pluralism, which in turn leads to democracy, secularism, and human rights. This is the approach we should take with religion generally. Of course, this approach only works if our adversaries are prepared to talk. Those terrorist groups that wish to willfully target and slaughter children en masse in order to \u201csend them to paradise\u201d should face the full force of our global, civilizational consensus, and be crushed.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

One regularly hears Muslims saying, \u201cYes, we must follow the laws of England because our faith tells us that we should follow covenants.\u201d But many of these people want the laws to change\u2014indeed, many want shari\u2019ah established in the UK. Hand-waving displays of tolerance often conceal some very ugly truths\u2014which puts one in mind of the doctrine of taqqiya, wherein it is said that Muslims are encouraged to lie to infidels whenever it serves their purpose.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

It seems to me that no matter how carefully one speaks on this issue, there is a problem of Muslim perception that keeps arising on the basis of two factors that we\u2019ve already discussed. The first is the problem of identity: many Muslims feel a reflexive (and religiously mandated) solidarity with other Muslims, no matter how barbaric their commitments, simply because they happen to be Muslim. The second is the problem of ideology: scripture, read in anything but the most acrobatic, reformist way, seems to be on the side of the barbarians.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

ISIS & Recruitment<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

As a result of these two factors, we find that any action we take against jihadists\u2014bombing the Islamic State, killing Osama bin Laden, and so on\u2014seems to increase recruitment for extremist organizations and a more generalized anger toward the West. No matter how surgical or well-intended our actions, some number of Muslims will conclude that they must now defend their faith against infidel aggressors rather than recognize that groups like the Islamic State and al-Qaeda are the common enemies of all humanity. Again, their inability to recognize this appears to come from those two factors: it is taboo for a Muslim to side with non-Muslims who are killing or subjugating their \u201cMuslim brothers and sisters\u201d; and groups like the Islamic State and al-Qaeda are enacting very literal (and therefore plausible) interpretations of Islamic doctrine.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Moving on to the Islamic State, this scourge must be militarily and culturally defeated. Nothing but total defeat will suffice for a group that is so certain that it speaks for God. The Islamic State being able to claim victory against the entire world order is their biggest recruitment sergeant. It \u201cproves\u201d that God is on their side against all the odds. Defeat will demonstrate to the world\u2019s Muslims that the Islamic State speaks for nothing but medieval depravity. A military defeat will be but a short-term success. It must be coupled with a cultural defeat of what they stand for. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

This fundamental misdiagnosis and the US government\u2019s failure to recognize the jihadist insurgency led to jihadist groups metastasizing as the ideology continued to grow entirely unchecked. Recently, and only after the Islamic State\u2019s lightning successes in Iraq, did President Obama come to recognize the role ideology plays, and again this was in his last two years. Yet, in an almost comical twist that I have come to label the Voldemort effect,21 as of the time of this dialogue, President Obama still cannot bring himself to name this ideology.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The Voldemort effect in this context entails not naming Islamism, nor distinguishing it from the multifaceted religion. By highlighting the need to \u201ctackle the Islamic State\u2019s ideology\u201d but refusing to name it, President Obama only increased the public\u2019s fear and made it easier for Muslimphobes, who will naturally assume the ideology Obama refers to is \u201cIslam,\u201d to blame all Muslims<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Jihadism is the use of force to spread Islamism. Jihadist terrorism is the use of force that targets civilians to spread Islamism. The Islamic State is merely one jihadist terrorist group. The problem was never \u201cal-Qaeda-inspired\u201d extremism, because extremism itself inspired al-Qaeda, and then inspired the Islamic State. It is this extremism that must be named\u2014as Islamism\u2014and opposed.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

A 2013 PEW poll conducted in eleven Muslim-majority countries showed that support for suicide bombing against civilians in defense of Islam has declined in recent years. Nevertheless, the numbers of people who still think that this form of violence against noncombatants is \u201coften\u201d or \u201csometimes\u201d justified are sobering: Egypt (25 percent), Indonesia (6 percent), Jordan (12 percent), Lebanon (33 percent), Malaysia (27 percent), Nigeria (8 percent), Pakistan (3 percent), the Palestinian territories (62 percent), Senegal (18 percent), Tunisia (12 percent), and Turkey (16 percent). There are 1.6 billion Muslims worldwide. If even 10 percent support suicide bombing against civilians in defense of the faith, that\u2019s 160 million supporters of terrorism.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Islam and the Future of Tolerance<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

These highlights were taken the Kindle version of Islam and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":15162,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"yoast_head":"\n"Islam and the Future of Tolerance" Book Highlights<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.justcharlie.com\/highlights\/islam-and-the-future-of-tolerance\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\""Islam and the Future of Tolerance" Book Highlights\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"These highlights were taken the Kindle version of Islam and […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.justcharlie.com\/highlights\/islam-and-the-future-of-tolerance\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Just Charlie\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/justcharlie\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2019-04-29T09:46:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"24 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.justcharlie.com\/highlights\/islam-and-the-future-of-tolerance\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.justcharlie.com\/highlights\/islam-and-the-future-of-tolerance\/\",\"name\":\"\\\"Islam and the Future of Tolerance\\\" Book Highlights\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.justcharlie.com\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2019-04-29T09:45:56+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-04-29T09:46:00+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.justcharlie.com\/highlights\/islam-and-the-future-of-tolerance\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.justcharlie.com\/highlights\/islam-and-the-future-of-tolerance\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.justcharlie.com\/highlights\/islam-and-the-future-of-tolerance\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.justcharlie.com\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Book Highlights\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.justcharlie.com\/highlights\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":3,\"name\":\"“Islam and the Future of Tolerance” Book Highlights\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.justcharlie.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.justcharlie.com\/\",\"name\":\"Just Charlie\",\"description\":\"sights, sounds, life\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.justcharlie.com\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"\"Islam and the Future of Tolerance\" Book Highlights","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.justcharlie.com\/highlights\/islam-and-the-future-of-tolerance\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"\"Islam and the Future of Tolerance\" Book Highlights","og_description":"These highlights were taken the Kindle version of Islam and […]","og_url":"https:\/\/www.justcharlie.com\/highlights\/islam-and-the-future-of-tolerance\/","og_site_name":"Just Charlie","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/justcharlie","article_modified_time":"2019-04-29T09:46:00+00:00","twitter_misc":{"Est. reading time":"24 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.justcharlie.com\/highlights\/islam-and-the-future-of-tolerance\/","url":"https:\/\/www.justcharlie.com\/highlights\/islam-and-the-future-of-tolerance\/","name":"\"Islam and the Future of Tolerance\" Book Highlights","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.justcharlie.com\/#website"},"datePublished":"2019-04-29T09:45:56+00:00","dateModified":"2019-04-29T09:46:00+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.justcharlie.com\/highlights\/islam-and-the-future-of-tolerance\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.justcharlie.com\/highlights\/islam-and-the-future-of-tolerance\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.justcharlie.com\/highlights\/islam-and-the-future-of-tolerance\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.justcharlie.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Book Highlights","item":"https:\/\/www.justcharlie.com\/highlights\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"“Islam and the Future of Tolerance” Book Highlights"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.justcharlie.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.justcharlie.com\/","name":"Just Charlie","description":"sights, sounds, life","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.justcharlie.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.justcharlie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/15487"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.justcharlie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.justcharlie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.justcharlie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.justcharlie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.justcharlie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/15487\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.justcharlie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/15162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.justcharlie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}