So, I read this in a few sittings over Christmas and thoroughly enjoyed it. If you are not familiar with Sam Harris and Maajid Nawaz, getting acquainted via this small tome wouldn't hurt you in the long run.
Proof that dialectics can move entrenched sides forward if both sides are willing to put aside transient differences and focus on common desires and goals, this book is all about getting smarter and better informed.
The robust, yet conversational style of questions, rebuttal and raising acquisition of knowledge (especially for non-Muslims) above all other concerns is appealingly effective on the page. Uniquely, placing the more Western reader in the vicarious hands of Sam Harris, playing a kind of curious intellectual seeking a deeper understanding of 'Political Islam' (whilst also interjecting and flagging up any concerns to his teacher - Maajid Nawaz), the book rides along with a sense of being in safe hands.
Yet, Sam is not backwards about coming forwards and doesn't let anything pass him by unchecked.
Interestingly, I expected Sam might overwhelm Maajid, being that I already have a healthy respect for his work. Yet, one thing that quickly becomes apparent is how much Maajid is Sams intellectual equivalent. This is crucial, of course. Sam Harris and Maajid Nawaz are clearly adept writers and communicators, which only serves to spur the depth to which the mutual knowledge can be gleaned from reading this. Most usefully, the distinctions between 'Cultural Muslims', 'Conservative Muslims', 'Jihadis' and 'Revolutionary Islamists' left even Sam feeling rewarded for his association in talking to Maajid. Maajid clearly knows his stuff.
Although some cultural differences are seemingly insurmountable before reading this book, often framed, polarisingly in the phrase, 'The Clash Of Civilizations', this book explains from a very academic, political and cultural angle, possible pathways in to which there is room to expand and reform Islam to fit within a Pluralistic, Liberal Democracy.
This isn't to say, after reading this that I'm suddenly relaxed about criticising Islam as an umbrella or set of of precepts and ideas. Some texts in the Quran and Hadith are easily abused by competing agendas as examples of either confirming the 'bronze age barbarism',or, used as incitement to recruit by both critics and Islamist extremist groups alike (simultaneously ignoring the more moderate interpretations), yet other verses are still left objectively and intrinsically in need of reform beyond semantic departures from literalism.
These pathways to reform soon reveal a pattern though, that, Islam cannot be solely reformed from within.
Sam says: *"The doors leading out of the prison of scriptural literalism simply do not open from the inside".*
This quote, perhaps, stood out the most indelibly than any other I read in this book. It's well crafted, sure, but it highlights how reformation of Islam cannot be magicked, or gerrymandered out of the raw material in scripture. The scripture is too prescriptive, descriptive and inflexible that, for instance, one could not fashion a whole new, more Liberal religion out of it that somehow allowed the consumption of pork or alcohol, for instance. No amount of internal reshuffling could overcome the mountain of work that is needed to precipitate Islam's own 'Reformation Of The Church', short of an equivalent 'New Testament', one has to imagine.
So, if Islam is to become more complimentary to Liberal Democracy, it has to receive our culture and contradict its own to some greater or lesser extent.
It also hints at how little many political commentators in the West actually know of Islam, in all it's myriad permutations, complexity and historical evolution. I myself, though a self-confessed theological novice, suddenly feel (re) struck by the total lack of nuance the MSM proliferates in talking about Islam. It seems to repeat the mantra 'Islam is a religion of peace' without any real depth of substance behind it, repeating it no matter what horror is on the current agenda.
As a native UK resident and European, a lot of careful and considered decisions need to be made around certain 'hot button topics' over the next few years. The state of our nation, so to speak, the EU and immigration as a bargaining chip with which to sway our membership in said EU, whether to opt out in a Brexit, (the possible eventual collapse of the EU) are all high on that list.
Most of all, how much do we think unfettered cultural change will be tolerated by ourselves as receiving hosts,or, by arriving Islam, ghettoised in huge blocks of diaspora and unable (or unwilling) to integrate into the parent culture? The rise of the Right-Wing in Europe is coming. Any sober projection of the coming decades leaves me worrying how much I myself will be forced to defend my culture and values by the mismanagement of our governing institutions holding us to ransom over our perceived 'racism' and 'bigotry' in the name of 'multiculturalism'.
This book definitely grants a feeling of being better equipped and has sparked an urge in myself to learn more about Islam. The 'Future Of Tolerance' as a hopeful concept doesn't look great though, if I'm honest. Maybe, that's cause to read more of Maajid Nawaz.
Anyway, it's a short and enlightening read. One I fully recommend. Go get it.
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