Defeating Islam or Islamism? Neither!

Submitted by Prashant (United States), Jul 19, 2013 at 02:24

Dear Dr Pipes:

Your reader Dominic Pepe in his much-liked essay suggests that defeating Islamism is not enough; it is the Islam that needs to be defeated. I disagree. Neither Islam nor Islamism needs to be defeated. What needs to be defeated are the hypocrisy, non-symmetry, stubbornness, and circular logic that goes with Islam. It is like a line-item veto. Every line needs to be examined and the lines that are objectionable must be questioned. For example, there is nothing wrong in quran 5:32 but it loses all its value in the company of 5:33. We need to object to 5:33. There is nothing wrong when Muslims want democratic rights in the USA. But it becomes hypocritical when they deny the same rights to the people in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and other places. We need to block this hypocrisy.

There is nothing wrong in asserting that Quran is a religious book. But it becomes objectionable when it is said that it is the only book or the final book. We need to object to such assertions.

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