Reinvoking the "this is not true Islam" argument

Submitted by Abhi (United States), May 25, 2009 at 14:23

Dear Dr. Pipes:

While responding to the news story regarding Arab sex tourism to India, your respondent Ahmad from UAE has invoked the oft-repeated this-is-not-true-islam argument. This argument has become old and tired.

I have never heard a Christian dissociating himself from the history of the crusades by merely saying that what was done then was not true Christianity. Hindus do not run away from the blemishes on our religion brought by the caste system by saying that it is not true Hinduism. Why then the privilege of selective dissociation be available to Muslims.

In reality, Islam is what Islam does. If you use your petro-dollars to establish world-class secular universities in the tradition of Oxford, Harvard, and Cambridge, you will be praised like none other. If you establish medieval emirates and caliphates where every non-muslim is a second class citizen, you will be judged as such.

I must admit, the prosperity and metropolitan character of some small parts of Middle East (e.g. Bahrain and Dubai), are steps in the right direction. More of these steps have to be taken -- in Tehran, in Baghdad, in Kabul, in Karachi and elsewhere in the Islamic world.

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