Burmawi, born a Muslim in Jordan and later a convert to Christianity, has done the post-Christian West a great favor by highlighting the threat that Muslim immigration presents to civil society in Europe and North America. He also highlights how Western liberalism lacks the coherence and strength to stand up to the threat it poses to Western democracies.

Burmawi sees Islam not merely as a religion but as an ideology, or operating system, established by Muhammad. Qur’an burnings and cartoons mocking the prophet arouse anger not because they insult God but because they insult Islam’s founder. This allegiance to Muhammad “has profound consequences,” he writes. Indeed, “If Muhammad made war, war is sanctified. If he ordered assassinations, those are jurisprudential precedents. If he expressed hostility toward Jews or Christians, that hostility becomes doctrine.”

Turning to Israel, Burmawi argues that the permanent hostility and violence directed at it are rooted not in anger at the Jewish state’s “occupation” of Palestine but in anger at Israel’s very existence. The latter affronts the Islamic nomos that requires Muslims to be the supreme worldly authority. Burmawi also suggests that anti-Zionism serves as a release valve for Muslims inevitable inability to live up to the demands of their faith.

If Muslims did take in the message of Islam, Israel and the West, they would recognize it as a coherent and well-documented expression of frustration at the negative impact of Islamic supremacism on humanity. Armed with this insight, elites in the umma might update the practice of their faith, just as Christian leaders did after the Holocaust. Burmawi’s argument could spark self-criticism in the Muslim world, of the kind that has always been a part of the West’s operating system.

Burmawi would also do Muslims a favor by highlighting the obstacles that their faith and tradition present to human flourishing—if only they were able to move past anger and resentment at his critique of their faith. At the outset, he warns that he is not providing his readers with “a casual overview of Islam” but, instead, with “a forensic and unapologetic inquiry into the ideological architecture of a political theology masquerading as a religion.” His aim is “to show what Islam produces—institutionally, psychologically, and geopolitically.” He writes of his purpose:

However, despite his challenge to Muslims, Burmawi’s unwillingness to acknowledge the difference between Islam, generally, and radical Islam, specifically, has an unfortunate consequence. This distinction, affirmed by Middle East Forum founder Daniel Pipes, offers some two billion Muslims an accessible path away from religious-based supremacism and toward modernity. By refusing them this option, Burmawi’s book implies that his own path of conversion out of Islam is the only one. The author hopes to prod Westerners into defending the civilization they inherited – and not to convince Muslims to update their faith and make the societies they control more humane and free. Readers looking for a path for Muslims to reach modernity must look elsewhere.

Dexter Van Zile