A Muslim’s Memoir of Apostasy, and His Call for Reforming Islam

As a child of Shiites growing up in Saudi Arabia, Ali Rizvi remembers being constantly told that violence and bloodshed in the Muslim world “had nothing to do with Islam.” He became skeptical of this explanation when he finally read the Quran—in English translation—at age twelve, beginning a journey away from the religion of his birth that supplies the foundation of his recent book, The Atheist Muslim. Oren Kessler writes in his review:

When [Rizvi] presented the offending verses to community elders, they merely offered further excuses, dismissing famed translator N.J. Dawood as an Iraqi “Yahoodi” (Jew) who was not to be trusted. . . . [Rizvi] became convinced that most of the Muslims in his life were good people not because of their creed, but despite it.

Thus persuaded, he soon ran up against one of the more curious markers of our age: the charge of prejudice or even racism that attends any effort to scrutinize faith—particularly Islam. . . . Western elites, he laments, are crippled by the fear of being labeled bigots (a condition he terms “Islamophobia-phobia”). Here, Rizvi [underlines] the contrast between “Islamophobia” and anti-Semitism—the former being a judgment passed on ideas, the latter on a people. . . .

Letting go of faith isn’t easy. It is the relinquishment not only of one’s moral mooring but of one’s friends, community, and, often, family. Rizvi exemplifies the pro-science, pro-Enlightenment “atheist Muslim” of the book’s title, but he acknowledges that many others can’t and won’t make that leap. . . .

[F]or a more flexible, modern Islam to succeed, he argues, one obstacle looms largest: the doctrine of scriptural inerrancy. . . . [But] Islam, he believes, can survive a rejection of inerrancy and remain intact.

Read more at Commentary

More about: Islam, Quran, Religion & Holidays, Saudi Arabia

 

What a Strategic Victory in Gaza Can and Can’t Achieve

On Tuesday, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant met in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Gallant says that he told the former that only “a decisive victory will bring this war to an end.” Shay Shabtai tries to outline what exactly this would entail, arguing that the IDF can and must attain a “strategic” victory, as opposed to merely a tactical or operational one. Yet even after a such a victory Israelis can’t expect to start beating their rifles into plowshares:

Strategic victory is the removal of the enemy’s ability to pose a military threat in the operational arena for many years to come. . . . This means the Israeli military will continue to fight guerrilla and terrorist operatives in the Strip alongside extensive activity by a local civilian government with an effective police force and international and regional economic and civil backing. This should lead in the coming years to the stabilization of the Gaza Strip without Hamas control over it.

In such a scenario, it will be possible to ensure relative quiet for a decade or more. However, it will not be possible to ensure quiet beyond that, since the absence of a fundamental change in the situation on the ground is likely to lead to a long-term erosion of security quiet and the re-creation of challenges to Israel. This is what happened in the West Bank after a decade of relative quiet, and in relatively stable Iraq after the withdrawal of the United States at the end of 2011.

Read more at BESA Center

More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas, IDF