First salvo in the intellectual offensive against Islam should be separation of church and state.

Submitted by Prashant (India), Dec 5, 2021 at 21:38

Dear Dr Pipes: I have long believed that the war against Islam must be intellectual and not physical. I also believe that Islam is standing on such a thin ice and its principles are so indefensible that it cannot resist a principled offensive against it for too long. I have used the word 'offensive' because I also believe that the non-Islamic world must not just defend itself against the Islamic lies, misrepresentations, and propaganda, it should attack Islam as a flawed philosophy at every point where, in our judgement, Islam is flawed.

Our first intellectual salvo against Islam should be easy to explain to everybody, it should be easy to understand for all (including the leftists). It should be easy to define. And it should be effective and widely applicable. What should be the first battle front opened against Islam? We cannot criticize Islam using democracy as the rallying cry because Muslim countries can falsely claim that they are democratic. Attacking Islamic spiritual and social doctrines as flawed is difficult because other religious doctrines are also not entirely flawless. Attacking Islam as a part of a general atheistic/secular attack on all religions (as done by Russel in 'Why I am not a Christian') is like throwing the babies away with the bath water. The sustained attack on Islam must be truthful, meritorious, and uniquely applicable to Islam.

I think the first major offensive against Islam should be against Islam's amalgamation of church and state. Non-separation of church and state is fundamental to Islam. Empirically, most Islamic societies in today's world do not hide their deep and intentional association with Islam. Historically, it is well known that countless numbers of Islamic marauders actively worked to spread Islam. Doctrinally, Quran routinely assumes that it is OK for Muslims to rule non-Muslims. Politically, Muslim politicians in non-Islamic societies never get tired of blowing the trumpet of Islam. Thus, when it comes to separation of church and state, Islam is on a very thin ice as it is practiced today and throughout the history of Islam.

Most non-Muslim nations of the world have distanced themselves from actively propagating any religion. People thrive and prosper in the USA and most of the European democracies irrespective of their religions. The recent waves of nationalism that we have seen in many countries of the world either have an economic component to them or are in reaction to Islamic immigration or result from petulant and aggressive demands by Muslim minorities.

Islamic political bodies, on the other hand, protect Islam vehemently when they control a landmass politically. And they work resolutely to create Islamic enclaves within the nations that they do not exclusively control. In our modern world there is no moral justification for laws against apostacy and/or blasphemy in the Islamic majority nation. If a naturally born citizen of these nations wants to reject Islam, they must have every right to continue to live in their land of birth as first-class citizens and not be murdered by the state or by Muslim people. By the same token, there is no room to create more nations on the planet that want to call themselves Islamic. Your wars for independence are illegitimate if you cannot create freedom for all.

The determination of what is wrong and must be opposed is easy. Islam is a religion. If you refer to Islam in your constitution repeatedly, you must edit. If your have the word 'Islamic' in your name, you are an inferior member of the community of nations. If your goal is to create a nation of this kind, you are stepping on other's toes and your effort is illegitimate.

The principle(s) outlined above are simple. Even the people with leftist leaning among us can understand that Islamic nations are in contradiction with what the left stands for. The left can be convinced not to partner with Islam. The academics and intellectuals among us need to be reminded that they should be the ones demanding the principles outlined here in the first place and if they oppose these principles, they will be on thinnest ground themselves. They should be told not to accept grants from Islamic interests to build their ornate buildings. No person in their right mind can simultaneously support freedom and be in bed with the Islamic nations. You will need to choose one or the other.

A lot about how Muslims' interact with non-Muslims and with each other is objectionable. A lot of what is objectionable is sustained because Muslims are allowed to create Islamic nations. The world can either take Islamic impudence lying down or oppose it intellectually. Here is my call and method to do the latter. Islam should not be granted additional time to change. Time to change for Islam is now.

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