On July 23, Waleed Aly will be presented with the Voltaire Award for free speech from Liberty Victoria. It would be rather charming were he to give a speech on that occasion reflecting on Voltaire’s play Mahomet, which depicted Islam as based on false miracles, personal ambition and ruthless fanaticism.

For some time Aly has been the go-to person for commentary on Islam and avoiding what is widely dubbed “Islamophobia”. It is safe to say he does not share Voltaire’s assessment of Islam.

Yet Voltaire remains a figure for our time, and free speech on the subject of Islam has become extraordinarily problematic. Imagine Mahomet being produced in Paris today! The truth is, if we truly want to buttress a tolerant, multicultural society, we have to confront more honestly the underlying realities that generate “Islamophobia”, however awkward this may be, especially for those such as Aly who are stranded between Islamic culture and secular society. The occasion of the Voltaire Award for free speech is an opportunity for Aly to make this clear.

In April, Aly was interviewed at length by Robert Manne under the rubric “Islam: What are We Afraid of? Waleed Aly and Robert Manne in conversation.” Their conversation was lucid, temperate and fascinating. In some ways, it was a model of intellectual discourse in civil society. The problem is, they did not answer their own question, to say nothing of answering it as Voltaire would have done.

Aly observed correctly that Islamist terrorism had got only worse since the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and especially since the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

He distinguished thoughtfully between European, American and Australian reactions to Muslim immigration and made intelligent points about Islamic State, Iraq, Syria and the debacle of the briefly promising Arab Spring. He described the short rule in Egypt by the Muslim Brotherhood as “a disaster”. However, neither he nor Manne raised serious questions about Islam itself; simply gliding over it as “one of the world’s great religions”; the fear of which is, implicitly, irrational, phobic, ignorant and, in Aly’s words, hardly worth engaging with.

They described Islamic State as a rogue operation whose atrocities had nothing to do with Islam but were aberrant even by the standards of al-Qa’ida.

Aly compared beheadings by Islamic State to the Jacobin Terror in 1793 France but didn’t mention beheadings in the history of Islam. Neither mentioned movements towards Islamisation — from North Africa via Turkey to Indonesia — or the disturbing phenomenon of Muslim “militants” murdering journalists and others for mocking Islam.

Consequently, they failed to explain why there would be any reason to feel uneasy about or even hostile to the growing presence of Islam in the West. One might have expected at least passing reference to the many centuries of confrontation between Europe and an expansionist Islam up to the late 17th century. But the only confrontation discussed was the Western invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq after 9/11.

Clearly, this is an immensely sensitive subject and it is easy to lapse into polemic about it, inflaming rather than tempering debate. If, however, we are to answer the question “Islam: What are we afraid of?” we cannot avoid raising certain characteristics of Islam that do in fact give cause for concern to many people in the West, and many of those trapped in Muslim-dominated states. We know far more than Voltaire did, and what we know is not reassuring.

Karen Armstrong has portrayed Mohammed as “a prophet for our time”. But the classic Muslim sources (Ibn Ishaq, Ibn Kathir, Waqidi, al-Tabari, going back to the 8th and 9th centuries) make clear that he was a very dubious figure even in his own time. He founded a religion at the point of a sword, plundered infidels, arranged for the murder of his critics (even poets), massacred or expelled communities of Jews in Arabia, condemned apostates to death, was an unscrupulous poly­gamist and taught that women were inferior to men.

The Muslim sources themselves are completely explicit on all these points. It is simply dishonest to pretend that none of this is true or to pass it off on the basis that Christianity and even Judaism also have their dark or dubious characteristics. The modern world (Voltaire being a leader) fought its way free of Judeo-Christian dogmatism and error through trenchant criticism of religious claims and practices. There are no good grounds for sparing Islam similar critical treatment; all the more so because we are seeking to integrate into Western societies millions of human beings who happen to be Muslims.

Outside the West, the problem is much worse. In wide swathes of the Muslim world, other religions are persecuted and apostates are hunted to death with judicial sanction. Blasphemy is violently attacked and Muslim “heretics” hounded. Homosexuals are condemned to death. Women and girls are denied freedom and education. The Jews are viciously denounced on racist and religious grounds, quite apart from the political issue of Zionism.

Mr Aly is not a muslim. If he were he would be fighting with ISIL. There is no verse in the koran that allows muslims to relax their harsh views. There is no mention in the koran of moderate muslims or radical muslims. There is no manichean type escape clause in the koran. If you cleave to the alleged religion of islam you are a muslim without any shades of grey, light grey, dark grey etc.

salad in wrote on Jul 13^th, 2016 at 8:46am:

Well not entirely true.  There are reformist Muslims who actually wish for their religion to undergo enlightenment as what happened with Catholicism.  And there are of course radicals/extremists, orthodox, and the moderates. 

Mr Aly is not a muslim. If he were he would be fighting with ISIL.

There is no verse in the koran that allows muslims to relax their harsh views.

THE TRUTH;



And, the moslem living here, in Australia, full-well knows, but hides and denies, the fact,    ....i.e. the truth, that the moslem is not permitted by his religion, to be tolerant of people who are not moslems.

is an article of faith, for every moslem.




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Quote:
Google




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Quote:
http://www.meforum.org/2512/nidal-hasan-fort-hood-muslim-doctrine

There is no mention in the koran of moderate muslims or radical muslims.

There is no manichean type escape clause in the koran.

If you cleave to the alleged religion of islam you are a muslim without any shades of grey, light grey, dark grey etc.

Dsmithy70 wrote on Jul 13^th, 2016 at 12:16pm:

We know Muslim countries have problems...  the video just points out that different Muslim countries have different problems. We know that...  what do they have in common?
THEY ARE MUSLIM COUNTRIES...