22 Jan 2009
StephenAlsford
I saw your comment at Jihad Watch that Ed is a con artist.
Could it be that he is a sincere fool?
When I read the Islamist it was with some admiration for the author, right up until the time near the end where he condemns his radical ex-pals in HuT as bad Muslims; wanting to praise what he calls 'traditional Islam' as the real thing. It makes for a neat reconciliation with his parents and their friends, and a satisfying conclusion to the story. However, having read about Islam with its' Jihad ideology, I had to realize that Ed had ignored the facts about real, jihadist, supremacist Islam, in order to fit the 'Islam is peace' mould for unsuspecting westerners.
The other possibility, which occurred to me was that , for Hussein, the benign 'traditional Islam' of his parents generation was indeed the real thing. Coming from Pakistan, ruled as part of the Raj for 150 years or more, after the Moghuls were deposed or subjugated by the British, Islam apparently became relatively harmless and quiescent so far as Jihad was concerned. Did the new rulers go through the Quran and Hadith collections, taking out all the aggresive stuff? Or did they vet the appointments of mullahs and imams? Was there a lesson they learned then that we should learn today?
22 Jan 2009
Mary Jackson
Some good questions, Stephen. I'm going to be exploring this issue further in my New English Review article next month.
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