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 on Commentary: https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/rizvis-reformation/