Link back to commentI have heard this argument a number of times. I find it a bit odd, frankly.
Is David saying that Muslim fundamentalists are likely to turn to the opinions of kafirs (infidels) for the correct understanding of Islamic texts? This seems unlikely, to put it mildly. But to then go on and imply that we should avoid reaching any unpleasant conclusions about what these texts might imply for our kind of society is absurd.
Verse 9:29 of the Quran calls on Muslims to:
‘Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.’
(Translation from the Quranic corpus maintained at Leeds University. ‘People of the Book’ refers to members of other Abrahamic faiths, mainly Jews and Christians http://corpus.quran.com/translation.jsp?chapter=9&verse=29)
Is this a problem, if some people think these words are perfect and eternal – and obligatory? Well don’t take my word for it – I will cede the floor to someone who it would be hard to accuse of Islamophobia and anti-Arab racism, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi of Egypt.
In January 2015 Sisi gave a speech to leading clerics at Al-Azhar university addressed to Egypt’s religious leadership in which he called for what some characterized as a reformation of Islam. He said this:
‘I am referring here to the religious clerics. We have to think hard about what we are facing – and I have, in fact, addressed this topic a couple of times before. It is inconceivable that the thinking that we hold most sacred should cause the entire umma (Islamic nation) to be a source of anxiety, danger, killing and destruction for the rest of the world. Impossible!’
‘That thinking (fikr) – I am not saying “religion” (din) but “thinking” – that corpus of texts and ideas that we have held sacred over the years, to the point that departing from them has become almost impossible, is antagonizing the entire world. It’s antagonizing the entire world!’
Note al-Sisi’s words: ‘that corpus of texts and ideas that we have held sacred over the years, to the point that departing from them has become almost impossible, is antagonizing the entire world’.
https://jcpa.org/article/sisi-calls-for-reform-of-islam/
So al-Sisi thinks it is a problem, as do those who have made a detailed study of terrorist groups like ISIS like the journalist for The Atlantic magazine Graeme Wood, concluding that ISIS has a theology that is ‘coherent, even learned’. The well-known Australian public intellectual Robert Manne, who made a detailed study of ISIS publications, including their English language online magazine Dabiq, several years ago also commented on the close attention to texts and the sophistication of their theological arguments in a short book.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/03/what-isis-really-wants/384980/
https://www.blackincbooks.com.au/books/mind-islamic-state
However the problem for liberal democracies is much broader than terrorism, serious though that is.
The wider issue is the likelihood of sustained efforts to ensure that Islamic norms are recognized so that for example criticism of Islam, even scholarly criticism, becomes increasingly difficult through both formal legal measures, such as broadening the definition and understanding of racism to include ‘Islamophobia’ and bringing it into the ambit of hate speech laws, as is happening already in Europe, and informal methods, including physical threats against critics (see Tom Holland case above).
As the UK exemplifies, we may see the emergence of parallel legal systems, such as Sharia Councils that, even if their decisions do not carry the force of law, have great power to pressure and intimidate. Furthermore aspects of the current law, such as the ban on female genital mutilation, may simply cease to be effectively enforced, again as happening in Britain.