WHY I AM NOT A MUSLIM

The terrorist attacks perpetrated by Islamic fundamentalists that have taken place in recent years have provoked a wide variety of responses, ranging from Muslim apologists who insist that their religion is a religion of peace to right-wing Christian fundamentalists who insist this is a war against Islam.  In these turbulent times, it is perhaps time for us to re-examine a free thought classic written by an ex-Muslim who has found his way out of the shackles of his religion and discovered what true freedom is all about.

Why I Am Not A Muslim is indeed a free thought classic.  At a time when literature on Islam tends to be written either by ecstatically enthusiastic believers or else by mystically-oriented non-Muslims who cannot or will not question the foundations either of Islam or, more importantly, of religious belief itself, this book is more timely than ever.  Ibn Warraq fills a huge gap with this book.  Warraq, founder of the Institute for the Secularisation of Islamic Society (ISIS) and a former Senior Research Fellow for the Center for Inquiry, is the author of nine books, of which this was the first.  Here, he examines just about every tenet of the house of Islam in an engagingly readable text.  For this and his other efforts, Warraq was forced to go into hiding for over a dozen years, fearing for his life and that of his family.  Like Salmon Rushdie, author of Satanic Verses, Warraq had a death sentence imposed on him by the Muslim orthodoxy and was forced to live and travel under an assumed name.

An examination of the table of contents reveals the broad approach Warraq has employed in presenting his case.  Among the more interesting chapters are Is Islam compatible with Democracy and Human Rights?, and Islam in the West.  All the chapters are interesting and thought-provoking.

It is interesting that while many Christians since the time of Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century have sought ways of reconciling Christianity’s pre-rational belief system with the modern world, Islam in general has not yet experienced such a transformation.  While there are sects and schisms within Islam, the orthodox and decidedly anti-rational proponents of the faith have so far been quite successful in shielding it from critical intellectual scrutiny.  Islamic theology, its law code (Shari’ah) and its political tenets appear to Western eyes as medieval and obsolescent, as indeed they are, but critiques are rare and, as recent experience has shown, highly dangerous.

Yet paradoxically, it was the Muslim world that first enjoyed a cultural and intellectual Renaissance.  This was first achieved over a thousand years ago by Muslim scholars who copied and studied the surviving texts from the ancient Greek world.  While Western Europe was in the throes of the darkest period of the Christian Dark Ages, the medieval Muslims were able to create a brilliant civilization inspired by such men as al-Kindi, al-Razi, and ibn Rushd (Averroes).  These men brought the light of reason into dar-al-islam (House of Islam, to be differentiated from dar-al-harb, the House of War).  They were the freethinkers of their day, and many ultimately divorced themselves from Islam altogether.  Many were openly atheistic.  The very survival of these men attests to the fact that there was, for at least a couple hundred years, a period of comparative tolerance in the Muslim world.

Nonetheless, over time, orthodoxy began to raise its ugly head and Islam became more and more of a closed system.  Warraq brilliantly discusses this transformation and his chapter entitled The Totalitarian Nature of Islam is illuminating and should be required reading not only for students of religion, but for our political leaders and scribes who still insist on defending Islam despite its track record in recent decades.

Ibn Warraq has done for Islam what Bertrand Russell, Chapman Cohen, Michael Martin and others have done for Christianity, namely exposed not only its factual and historical errors, but also the fundamental intolerance built into the faith since its inception and always lurking ominously below the surface.