I\u2019ve been sitting on this for a while, after hastily writing up my summary of Heretic<\/a> before returning the book to the library.<\/p>\n In the first place, it seems a bit silly to say that Ali is persuasive, since I was predisposed to believe what she wrote and it was in line with my own thinking anyway, having, back in January (pre-patheos) been on a bit of a kick of writing about Islam, from wildly speculating <\/a>about how a \u201cmoderate Muslim\u201d might reconcile the \u201csword verses\u201d to a belief in peace, to my post<\/a> on the Jewish Enlightenment as a model (I thought this was a pretty good post, and was peeved that I couldn\u2019t get any traction from it), as well as my more recent summary of a book<\/a> by a Modifying Muslim, to use Ali\u2019s terminology.<\/p>\n But Ali\u2019s point is this: \u00a0the problem with Islam is not simply the \u201csword verses\u201d but several big, all-encompassing elements of the religion: \u00a0the demand that\u00a0the Qur\u2019an and other founding documents must be interpreted in line with one or another of the historical schools of thought, firmly in place a millennium ago; the insistence that the Qur\u2019an is, in every last word, the word of God precisely transcribed, with no room for historical analysis; the demand that the dictates of Islam be all-encompassing and prescribe all aspects of one\u2019s life; and the dangerous focus on the afterlife and the fatalism about this life \u2014 plus, of course, the belief that Islam should properly dominate everyone and everywhere.<\/p>\n Now, that may not be how Islam plays out in the daily lives of every last one of its adherents; I\u2019ve read that in Malaysia and Indonesia, Islam is more \u201cmoderate,\u201d though I don\u2019t know exactly how that plays out. \u00a0(Maybe something for later reading?) But these core ideas are fundamental to Islam, at least as it exists in the Middle East and Africa, and as it\u2019s been transplanted to Europe and the Americas.<\/p>\n We in the West tend, with our desire for ecumenism, to believe that all religions are basically the same, that the dual commands to love God and love your neighbor, and the idea that God loves us, his creation, are not just core to Christianity but to all religions. \u00a0When Obama gave his Prayer Breakfast speech, I observed<\/a> that his denial that ISIS is \u201cIslamic\u201d seemed to be this sort of reasoning: \u00a0\u201creligions are about love, ISIS isn\u2019t loving, therefore ISIS isn\u2019t a religion but something else, and if ISIS isn\u2019t any kind of religion, then it can\u2019t be Islamic.\u201d \u00a0That\u2019s nonsense. \u00a0The core idea of Islam is not \u201cGod is love\u201d \u2014 it\u2019s very name itself communicates that the core idea is \u201cGod demands your submission.\u201d<\/p>\n And, to the best of my understanding, it is key that violent jihad is not just some wild idea that\u2019s quite disconnected from Islam, but, to the contrary, the idea of peaceful coexistence has been, you might say, grafted onto Islam only very recently, and without much success. \u00a0In my \u201cJewish Enlightement\u201d post, I link to an article profiling Muslim religious leaders in Chicago trying to combat the appeal of extremists, but they really appear to have have few tools at their disposal other than \u201cdon\u2019t join ISIS because we said so.\u201d<\/p>\n But bypassing all this:<\/p>\n Ali profiles reformers and expresses optimism that they will ultimately convert their comrades. \u00a0In the same way as the developers of Reform Judaism said, the religious laws of the Torah and Talmud are particular to a given time and place, but \u201cCentral and changeless is the belief in the one and holy God, who is to be served through righteousness and mercy.\u201d \u00a0(The latter is a quote from the book I referenced in the prior post.) \u00a0\u2014 in that same way, these new Islamic reformers begin with a fundamental belief about God as Good, and are willing to either discard, or reinterpret (with alternate translation of Arabic words with multiple meanings, or with placing certain texts as applicable only to the fixed circumstances they were written in \u2014 e.g., the Sword Verses as a sort of pep talk never intended to encourage literal wholesale slaughter) any text that doesn\u2019t conform.<\/p>\n Which is all well and good. \u00a0But the challenge for us who are not Muslim is this: \u00a0what role, if any, can we play? \u00a0 And what role should the government play? \u00a0<\/strong>Ali suggests that the government put more effort into supporting reformers, in the same way as we supported anti-communists. \u00a0And it is clear that Obama, and Bush before him were too eager to accept into the \u201cmoderate Muslim\u201d fold anyone who was willing to claim that they \u201copposed terrorism\u201d without any due skepticism of what the so-called moderates had in mind. \u00a0Ali, indeed, profiles some of these individuals who were welcomed into the \u201cmoderate\u201d fold despite words and deeds demonstrating quite the opposite. \u00a0(I\u2019d give you specifics but the book is back at the library now.) \u00a0And at the same time, neither Obama now nor Bush then, were willing to confront Middle Eastern governments for the violations of human rights that imprisoned reformers there, and certainly prevent reform movements from taking root \u2014 Bush being concerned about maintaining Saudi Arabia\u2019s support and Obama with blinders on or simple indifference with respect to Iran.<\/p>\n So it seems clear that\u00a0support for these reformers ought to be part and parcel of support for human rights abroad.<\/p>\n But beyond that, given that we have all manner of community outreach programs for Muslim immigrant communities in the United States, should we be more demanding in what qualifies one as a \u201cmoderate Muslim\u201d in terms of how the grant money is distributed?<\/p>\n Here\u2019s the problem: how far can we go before crossing a line, into\u00a0religious discrimination?<\/p>\n