I find myself in an awkward position — which is just about precisely the position that I think I should be in and that I want to be in:
My attitude toward Islam and toward the contemporary Islamic world is far more positive than some can approve, and my attitude toward the contemporary Islamic world is much more negative than some of my Arab, Arabist, and Islamicist friends can accept.
I see the contemporary Muslim world as seriously dysfunctional in certain troubling respects. Few would disagree with that, I think. But I don’t think that Islam or the Islamic world are intrinsically evil or irredeemable, as some vocally anti-Islamic writers and speakers claim.
That said, I think that there are some issues in the formative early history of Islam that need to be openly discussed by people of good will, both Muslim and non-Muslim. There needs to be some frank conversation. Perhaps, among other things, a conference should be convened in which such matters could be candidly aired and examined. Perhaps I’ll try to do a bit of that myself. Perhaps I’ll even try to hastily frame one or two of the issues on this blog over the next week or so.
In the meantime, here’s an Australian voice that’s worried about some of the same things that worry me:
Later postscript: Thanks to Immo Beijerling for bringing this to my attention. Apparently, you need to access it through a Google Play news app, or something of that sort. That’s apparently how I first did it, because I had no problem. But now I can’t access it. Good luck!
Still later postscript: Will this work? http://google.com/newsstand/s/CBIw9_-D8Bo
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