[jatx]

Dr. Wafa certainly has guts, and what she says is appealing, but I worry that the appeal of her message is due to the fact that she is saying what we'd like to hear, not what is necessarily true. The idea that the current conflict is between modernity and medievalism appeals to us in the West because it (1) squares with our deeply ingrained need to believe in the equality of faiths and (2) characterizes us as the laudable moderns and our opponents as lunatic heathen dirt worshipers.

I would certainly feel better if I were able to view the conflict in those terms, but I cannot shake the suspicion that Islam is structurally Medieval. I.e., if you imagine an Islam that permits the separation of church and state, the basic human rights of women, and rejects the use of force and violence in spreading the faith, then you are not imagining Islam at all but some sort of hybrid weed with no roots. Perhaps I am wrong, but that has become my working hypothesis. The fact that most Muslims you encounter are peaceful, reasonable human beings just points out the allure of modernity, but my sneaking suspicion is that these individuals are peaceful because they are slowly abandoning Islam, not transforming it.

Ultimately, I couldn't care less whether Islam is transformed, so long as Islamists leave the rest of humanity alone. Perhaps she has the right talking points.