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noach
Reza Aslan's books
May 2 2009, 6:35 AM EDT | Post edited: May 2 2009, 6:35 AM EDT
Good analysis and refutation, kamala. May I suggest though removing some of the exclamation marks?

I'm at present working with two earlier books, one by Aslan "No god But God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam" (2006) and "People Like Us: How arrogance is dividing Islam and the West" (2007) by Waleed Aly, an Muslim Australian academic. If one reads these two personal testimonies against the background say of Efraim Karsh's "Islamic Imperialism: A History" (updated edn., 2007) it's as if they're discussing entirely different religions and their accompanying politics. The two former authors both display the same arrogance in their dismissal of books "with histrionic titles", singling out for example Robert Spencer's "The Truth About Mohammed, Founder of the Worlds Most Intolerant Religion" and including presumably Karsh's work, which is sober, accurate and fully annotated and grounded in scholarship.

Both Aly and Aslan approve of, and are mutually approved, by John Esposito at Georgetown University, author of "Unholy War". Martin Kramer (martinkramer.org) is a well-founded and informed critic of Esposito's Saudi-funded Centre for Muslim-Christian Understanding. (Presumably the Jews are already well understood.)

In sum, you hit the nail on the head by saying that Muslim apologists such as these must either be ignorant or deceptive - or both. I presume you've not received any answers to the questions you posed for the author of The Muslim Next Door? 1  out of 1 found this valuable. Do you?    
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kamala_kamala
1. RE: Reza Aslan's books
May 2 2009, 5:55 PM EDT | Post edited: May 2 2009, 5:56 PM EDT
Thanks. You're right, probably a couple too many exclamation points. I guess I couldn't contain my disbelief.

Nope, no answers from the Muslim Next Door, and no response from Aslan to this one either (though I know he's read it). In some sense I don't blame them for staying quiet. Much better for their own reputations to simply pretend these writings don't exist rather than get into a written debate they know they cannot win.

I did receive kudos however from someone else who wrote a much milder review of this book for a mainstream media publication; it's almost as if some people "get it" but realize the mass media (and perhaps the mass public) just isn't ready yet for the truth. Hopefully some day soon they will.
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