Given the preponderance of Islamism in just about every conflict in the world today it is not surprising that the faith is rendered to much scrutiny. Ibn Warraq is a pious Muslim turned apostate who opted for atheism in the aftermath of the Rushdie affair. Using majority Islamic sources accepted by Islamic scholars themselves he lays bare the fact that Islamism is a political ideology with totalitarian aims seeking to subdue the non-Islamic world.

His articulate references; polemical insights as well as surgical precision in evincing what he argues makes this book a compelling weapon in the fight to save the non-Islamist world. A must read for all future generations. ( )

Ibn Warraq is the pseudonym of Pakistani expatriate now living in Ohio. The book dates from 1995 and was written in response to the “Rushdie affair”: the fatwa issued by the Ayatollah Khomeini calling for the death of author Salman Rushdie in response to Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses. In other words, it predates 9/11 - it’s from when things were just annoying, not really bad.

This work is a rationalist, secular humanist refutation of Islam, the title paralleling Bertrand Russell’s famous Why I Am Not A Christian. The author admits in his preface that he is “not a scholar” and that his work is a compilation from many sources. Perhaps because of this it suffers from a common failing of didactic works - every single anecdote, example or argument that supports the basic thesis is dredged up and presented. So we get a short discussion of evolutionary theory as a attempted refutation of the Koranic creation story, and a quote from Stephen Hawking on the possible nonboundary condition of the universe. Things like this, and the often chaotic overall organization, distract from the meat of the argument.

And meat there is. Ibn Warraq is quite critical of Western apologists for Islam. The very first chapter goes after various writers of the religious Right who have expressed admiration for Muslim “spirituality” and the “politically correct” on the Left who cut slack for Islam that they never would for Christianity because Muslims are “oppressed”.

After that we get a discussion of the origins of Islam that was eye-opening for me. My own research on Islam has mostly consisted of reading popular books by Islamicists such as Berhard Lewis, coupled with conversations with various Muslims. Neither of these sources ever discussed the problems with conventional histories of early Islam, the origin of hadith, and the sequencing of verses in the Koran that abrogate other verses. They wouldn’t; the Muslims because they wouldn’t say anything disparaging of their religion and the Islamicists for the subtler reason that if their professional lives depend on access to sources that would be denied them if they were too critical. Ibn Warraq goes as far as to claim that early versions of the Koran that contradict the current “revealed” text are hidden in some Middle Eastern libraries and denied to Western scholars. I don’t know whether to buy this last or not; it sounds a little to much like various conspiracy theories centering on things supposedly kept hidden in the Vatican Library. But it’s interesting that someone would even bring up the idea.

Ibn Warraq also discusses something that has been ignored by the Western Left - the colonial nature of Islam. Because the Koran is held to exist only in Arabic, the Arabic language and Arabic culture have been imposed by Islam on Ibn Warraq’s native Pakistan, Persia, Indonesia, Algeria - in fact, every Islamic country outside the Arabian Peninsula proper. The destruction of the Buddhist sculptures by the Taliban is minor compared to some of the havoc wrought on other cultures. I suppose I should be thankful that the Muslim Brotherhood hasn’t (yet) come through on its threat to destroy Pharaonic monuments in Egypt.

Much of the remainder of the book, alas, is just various anecdotes used to refute claims of Islamic virtue (“Islamic Spain was tolerant? What about the massacre of Jews in Cordoba in 1013?”) While all these stories are probably true, mentioning them as isolated examples without discussing the context isn’t very useful except as a direction for further research.

This is a worthwhile and interesting book; it would be a lot more worthwhile and interesting if it had a good editor and was about half as long. I look forward to reading some of Ibn Warraq’s other works. ( )

A self-described Pakistani 'religious zealot' and jihad-oriented Muslim became disillusioned with the West, the free-speech advocates, the media, and nearly everyone else did not condemn the fatwa against Rushdie (author of "The Satanic Verses") but instead apologized for the Islam fanatics and said Rushdie 'shouldn't have written the book' which was a fictional novel. Warraq gives a detailed, footnoted and referenced history of Mohammad, the Arab world of his time, the development of the Koran, the Islamic borrowings from Judaism, early Christianity, Zoroastrian, Persian culture, and others. He also covers how the Islamic legal system developed and codified/fossilized during the Middle Ages, and how it affects Arab and non-Arab culture and civilization today. ( )

Tedious read, but a necessary work and interesting in spots. ( )

(Alistair) An excellent sceptical analysis of Islam, and a breath of fresh air in the current climate in which slavish deference to non-Western cultures' self-perception is the order of the day. It is unfortunate, if telling, that the author had to publish this book under a pseudonym for fear of reprisals. ( )