Making Sense with Sam Harris - #23 — Islam and the Future of Tolerance (Audiobook Excerpts)

Episode Date: December 21, 2015

Sam Harris introduces the audio edition of his book with Maajid Nawaz, "Islam and the Future of Tolerance: A Dialogue." If the Making Sense podcast logo in your player is BLACK, you can SUBSCRIBE to gain access to all full-length episodes at samharris.org/subscribe.

Thank you. episodes of the Making Sense podcast, you'll need to subscribe at SamHarris.org. There you'll find our private RSS feed to add to your favorite podcatcher, along with other subscriber-only content. We don't run ads on the podcast, and therefore it's made possible entirely through the support of our subscribers. So if you enjoy what we're doing here, please consider becoming So today I have something different for you. I have an audiobook preview. The book I did with Majid Nawaz, Islam and the Future of Tolerance, a dialogue, has just been released as an audiobook. And in this podcast, you'll hear about a half hour of the audiobook and about a half hour of the postscript that we recorded, especially for the release of the audiobook and about a half hour of the postscript that we recorded, especially for the release of the audiobook. This postscript was not part of the hardcover,

and in it we answer reader questions and talk about how the book has been received and deal with some of our critics. But you'll hear, I hope, that this book was really made to be an audiobook. It is, in fact, a dialogue. Of course, you'll hear the distinction between our reading this dialogue rather than merely producing it extemporaneously, but the fact that we're reading it allows us to be precise, and on this topic, more than many others, I think precision is now the key. In the postscript, we just have a conversation, much more like a podcast conversation, and you'll hear about a half hour of that as well. In any case, this was a hugely gratifying collaboration for me.

I'm just so happy to have connected with Majid, to have started this dialogue, to have produced this audiobook and the print edition, and to now be able to call him a friend. It's just, it's been a win just across the board for me. Now, unfortunately, I don't think the problems we discuss in this book are going away anytime soon. I think Majid's voice in particular is going to be increasingly relevant in the years to come. But I'm just very happy to have started this dialogue, and I look forward to collaborating with him in any way that I can in the future that will be useful. And you all can support our efforts by listening to the book or reading it and talking about it or blogging about it and sharing it with others. So now I give you a preview of the audio edition of Islam and the Future of Tolerance,

a dialogue by Sam Harris and Majid Nawaz, read by the authors. Majid Nawaz, read by the authors. Majid, thank you for taking the time to have this conversation. I think the work you're doing is extremely important. I'm not sure how much we agree about Islam or about the prospects of reforming the faith, and it will be useful to uncover any areas where we diverge, but I want you to know that my primary goal is to support you. That's very kind of you. I appreciate that. As you know, we are working in a very delicate area, walking a tightrope and attempting to bring with us a lot of people who, in many instances, do not want to move forward. It is very important that we have this conversation in as responsible a way as possible. Agreed. I'd

like to begin by recalling the first time we met, because it was a moment when you seemed to be walking this tightrope. It was, in fact, a rather inauspicious first meeting. In October 2010, I attended the Intelligence Squared debate in which you were pitted against my friends Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Douglas Murray. We met afterward at a dinner for the organizers, participants, and other guests. People were offering short remarks about the debate and otherwise continuing the discussion. And at one point Ayan said, I'd like to know whether Sam Harris has anything to say. Although I was well into a vodka tonic at that moment, I remember what I said more or less verbatim. I addressed my remarks directly to you. We hadn't been introduced and I don't think you had any idea who I was.

I said essentially this, Majid, I have a question for you. It seems to been introduced, and I don't think you had any idea who I was. I said essentially this. Majid, I have a question for you. It seems to me that you have a nearly impossible task, and yet much depends on your being able to accomplish it. You want to convince the world, especially the Muslim world, that Islam is a religion of peace that has been hijacked by extremists. But the problem is, Islam isn't a religion of peace, and the so-called extremists are seeking to implement what is arguably the most honest reading of the faith's actual doctrine. So your maneuvers on the stage tonight, the claims you made about interpretations of scripture, and the historical context in which certain passages of the Quran must be understood,

appear disingenuous. Everyone in this room recognizes that you have the hardest job in the world, and everyone is grateful that you're doing it. Someone has to try to reform Islam from within, and it's obviously not going to be an apostate like Ayaan, or infidels like Douglas and me. But the path of reform appears to be one of pretense. You seem obliged to pretend that the doctrine is something other than it is. For instance, you must pretend that jihad is just an inner spiritual struggle, whereas it's primarily a doctrine of holy war. I'd like to know whether this is, in fact, the situation as you see it. Is the path forward a matter of pretending that certain things are true,

long enough and hard enough so as to make them true? I should reiterate that I was attempting to have this conversation with you in a semi-public context. We weren't being recorded, as far as I know, but there were still around 75 people in the room listening to us. I'm wondering if you remember my saying these things and whether you recall your response at the time. Yes, I do remember that.

I'm glad you reminded me of it. I hadn't made the connection with you. I'm also grateful you mentioned that although we were not on air, many others were present. To my mind, it was just as important inside that room as outside of it for people to take what I was saying at face value. In fact, my desire to impact Muslim minority societies with my message is just as strong as my desire to impact Muslim majority societies. Part of what I seek to do is build a mainstream coalition of people who are singing from the same page. That doesn't require that

they all become Muslim or non-Muslim. On the contrary, what can unite us is a set of religion neutral values. By focusing on the universality of human, democratic and secular, in the British and American sense of this word, values, we can arrive at some common ground. It follows that all audiences need to hear this message. Even inside that room, therefore, the stakes were high. To lose that audience would be to realise my fear. The polarisation of this debate between those who insist that Islam is a religion of war, and proceed to engage in war for it, and those who insist that Islam is a religion of war, and proceed to engage in war for it, and those who insist that Islam is a religion of war and proceed to engage in war against it. That would be an intractable situation.

Now, moving to the specifics of your question, I responded in the way I did because I felt you were implying that I was engaging in pretense by arguing that Islam is a religion of peace. engaging in pretense by arguing that Islam is a religion of peace. If I remember correctly, you said, it's understandable in the public context, but here in this room, can't you just be honest with us? Yes, that's exactly what I said. Yes. Can't you just be honest with us in here, implied that I hadn't been honest out there. My honest view is that Islam is not a religion of war or of peace. It's a religion. Its sacred scripture, like those of other religions, contains passages that many people would consider extremely problematic.

Likewise, all scriptures contain passages that are innocuous. Religion doesn't inherently speak for itself. No scripture, no book, no piece of writing has its own voice. I subscribe to this view whether I'm interpreting Shakespeare or interpreting religious scripture. So I wasn't being dishonest in saying that Islam is a religion of peace. I've subsequently had an opportunity to clarify at the Richmond Forum, where Ayaan and I discussed this again. Scripture exists, human beings interpret it. At Intelligence Square, being under the unnatural constraints of a debate motion, I asserted that Islam is a religion of peace simply because the unnatural constraints of a debate motion, I asserted

that Islam is a religion of peace simply because the vast majority of Muslims today do not subscribe to it being a religion of war. If it holds that Islam is only what its adherents interpret it to be, then it is currently a religion of peace. Part of our challenge is to galvanise and organise this silent majority against jihadism so that it can start challenging the narrative of violence that has been popularized by the organized minority currently dominating the discourse. This is what I was really trying to argue in the Intelligence Squared debate, but the motion forced me to take a side. War or peace? I chose peace. I understand. My interest in recalling that moment is not to hold you accountable to your

original answer to me. And it may be that your thinking has evolved to some degree. But our conversation broke down quite starkly at that point. I don't remember how we resolved it. I don't remember that we did resolve it. Well, let's proceed in a spirit of greater optimism than may seem warranted by our first meeting, because we have a lot to talk about. However, before we dive into these issues,

I think we should start with your background, which is fascinating. Your Islamism seems to have been primarily political, born of some legitimate grievances, primarily racial injustice, that you began to view through the lens of Islam. But you haven't said, as members of al-Qaeda do, that you were incensed by the sacrilege of infidel boots on the ground near Muslim holy sites on the Arabian Peninsula. sacrilege of infidel boots on the ground near Muslim holy sites on the Arabian Peninsula. To what degree did religious beliefs, a desire for martyrdom, for instance, motivate you and your fellow Islamists? And if no such ideas were operative, can you discuss the religious difference between a revolutionary Islamist outlook and a jihadist one? Yes, sure, of course. There are indeed similarities and differences between Islamism and jihadism.

We shouldn't be surprised by this. The same applies when we look at, say, communism. Socialists are on one end and communists on the other. Some are militant and some aren't. It's the same with Islamism. Now, I've argued that the motivation for Islamists and jihadists is ideological dogma fed to them by charismatic recruiters who play on a perceived sense of grievance and an identity crisis. In fact, I believe that four elements exist in all forms of ideological recruitment. A grievance narrative, whether real or perceived, an identity crisis, a charismatic recruiter, and ideological dogma. The dogma's narrative is its propaganda. The difference between Hezbollah and Al-Qaeda is akin to the dispute within communism as to whether change comes from direct action and conflict. If you

take the theory of dialectical materialism in communism, and whether we should step back and allow the course of history to carve its own way, or intervene to affect it, purists of that theory will argue that you don't have to do anything, that the means of production will naturally shift from the bourgeoisie to the workers. And any intervention is futile, because that's just the way history works. Others will say we must take direct action. Such differences on a theoretical level also exist between Islamists of the political, or entryist, type, those of the revolutionary type, and jihadists. Of course, jihadists believe in taking direct action. They have an entire theory

around that. I'd argue, in fact, that the rise of the so-called Islamic State under Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi does somewhat vindicate Osama bin Laden's strategy and his belief that making the West intervention-weary through war would lead to a power vacuum in the Middle East, and that the West would abandon its support for Arab despots, which would lead to the crumbling of despotic regimes. From the ashes of that would rise an Islamic state. Bin Laden said this 11 years ago, and it's uncanny how the Arab uprisings have turned out. What I'm trying to get at is the religious distinction I think I detect between the type of Islamist you were, having been the victim of violent prejudice in the UK and becoming politically radicalized by Islam, and someone who may or may not have similar grievances,

but decides to go fight for a group like the Islamic State because he genuinely believes that he's participating in a cosmic war against evil and will either spread the one true faith to the ends of the earth or get himself martyred in the process. Were you thinking about the prospects of your own martyrdom? Or was your Islamism more a matter of politics and ordinary grievances? I suppose I'm trying to say that although there's a difference in methodology, all Islamists believe they're engaged in a cosmic struggle.

But this cosmic struggle isn't the only reason they're doing it. Perhaps I'm giving too much credit to critics of my views on this topic. But let me bend over backward once more. I'm imagining, as so many people insist is the case, that some significant percentage of highly dedicated Islamists are purely political, in that they're motivated by terrestrial concerns and are simply using Islam as the banner under which to promote their cause. Aren't there Islamists who don't believe in the metaphysics of martyrdom? We would simply call them insincere. Insincere people exist in any movement and under any ideology. But if we're going to look at what

Islamists subscribe to, obviously we have to discount the minority who are Machiavellian and join only because they want something else out of it. But if you consider those who are sincere, and I was sincere in what I used to believe, you'll find that they're prepared for martyrdom. I had to face torturers in Egypt and thought I was going to die for my cause. In that sense, all sincere Islamists believe they're engaged in a cosmic struggle for good against evil, and they define good as a holy struggle. But again, to emphasize, that is not the only thing they believe. Though they do certainly believe in martyrdom, they also believe in the evils of Western imperialism. Likewise, they believe that they're living under Arab dictators.

The grievance narrative kicks in, as I said, prior to the point of recruitment. But at the point of recruitment, this grievance narrative is fossilized by ideological dogma, which then becomes the vehicle through which they express themselves. So it's not one or the other, but certainly the cosmic struggle is a consistent element for all Islamists. not one or the other, but certainly the cosmic struggle is a consistent element for all Islamists. Another difference between jihadists and Islamists is that Islamists will seek martyrdom according to their own theory. So in Hezbollah Tahrir we were taught that martyrdom is achieved by being killed while holding a despotic ruler to account or spreading the ideology. We were taught that if the regime kills you while you're attempting to recruit army officers, you'll be a

martyr and you should embrace that. But we were also taught that you're not a martyr if you blow yourself up in a marketplace because you're killing civilians and other Muslims. Now, whereas Hizb ut-Tahrir was attempting to incite coups by the existing army, jihadists simply said, why don't we create our own army? Why are we bothering with these guys, who are infidels anyway? For jihadists, to die while fighting for their own army is martyrdom. That is the difference. As long as you're dying in accordance with the view you subscribe to, you're a martyr in the eyes of your group. So you wouldn't distinguish between jihadists and other Islamists as to the degree of religious

conviction? For instance, their level of certainty about the existence of paradise, or the reality of martyrdom. The difference is purely a matter of methodology? Yes. Some jihadists are not pious in the sense of having firm religious convictions. They simply prefer the violence, the direct action, so they're attracted to those groups. Yet some Islamists are incredibly pious and sincerely believe in the holiness of their political cause. So piety or the lack of it, and religious sincerity or the lack of it, fluctuates between and within and among groups. This is all fascinating, and again, extremely useful to spell out.

But we should clarify another point here, because the line between piety and its lack may not be detectable in the way that many of our listeners expect. For instance, it's often suggested that the 9-11 hijackers couldn't have been true believers because they went to strip clubs before they carried out their suicide mission. However, to me, there's absolutely no question that these men believe they were bound for paradise. I think many people are confused about the connection between outward observance and belief. That's right. The 9-11 hijackers were not suicidally depressed people who went to strip clubs and

then just decided to kill themselves along with thousands of innocent strangers. Whether or not they went to strip clubs, or appeared pious in any other way, these men were true believers. Yes, the strip club thing is a red herring, because even in a traditional view of jihad, when you believe you're engaged in an act of war, you're allowed to deceive the enemy. So whether it's espionage or going undercover or war propaganda, within traditional thinking, as revived by modern jihadism, it's permissible during war. The 9-11 hijackers being seen in strip clubs is, however, relevant for use in propaganda against them. Most conservative Western Muslims who do not think they're at war with their own countries would find such behaviour

immoral. But you're absolutely right to say that it's not indicative of the hijackers' religious convictions or lack thereof. This confusion between supposed jihadist religiosity and sex should be clearer now after the world has witnessed Boko Haram and the Islamic State's enslavement and mass rape of women. It is not necessarily accurate to assume that, say, the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood are somehow less pious than the leaders that, say, the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood are somehow less pious than the leaders of, say, the Islamic State. More violence does not necessarily

equate with greater religious conviction. Each group is deeply convinced of its approach to achieving Islamism in society, and both face much danger in the pursuit of that goal. But they differ in methodology, and they very much despise each other, just as Trotsky and Stalin eventually did. That didn't mean one was less a communist than the other. They had a factional dispute within their ideology. Some people misunderstand such disputes within Islamism. They argue, what do you mean, Islamism? There's no such thing. The Muslim Brotherhood hates groups like the Islamic State, and the Islamic State would kill members of the Muslim Brotherhood. I always remind them, that's like saying there's no such thing as communism just because Stalin is said to have killed Trotsky. It's an absurd conclusion to reach. Of course there's a thing

called communism, and there's a thing called Islamism. It's an ideology. People are seeking to bring it about, but they differ in their approach. Degrees of religious conviction are not what will help us understand the differences among jihadists, revolutionary Islamists, political Islamists and non-Islamist Muslims. Let's take Sayyid Khutub, for example. Khutub was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood and is now known as one of the founding fathers of the theory that eventually became modern jihadism. The Egyptian regime killed him for writing a book,

which he wrote while incarcerated in the same prison that I came to be held in many years later. It takes a high degree of religious conviction to die merely for writing a book, and that, for the Brotherhood, was martyrdom. Likewise, Hezbollah Tahrir members glorify the death of their members at the hands of the regime, but not the death of suicide bombers. They prepare their adherents to be killed for trying to overthrow a regime, and they tell all the same stories about martyrdom and eternal bliss in paradise that jihadists do. The only conclusion I can draw from everything you've just said is that the problem of ideology is far worse than most people

suppose. Absolutely, but to repeat, ideology is but one of four factors, albeit the most often ignored. I would generally agree, although there certainly seems to be many cases in which people have no intelligible grievance apart from a theological one and become, quote, radicalized by the idea of sacrificing everything for their faith. I'm thinking of the Westerners who have joined groups like Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. Sometimes, religious ideology appears not merely necessary but sufficient to motivate a person to do this. You might say that an identity crisis was also involved. But everyone has an identity crisis at some point. In fact, one could say that the whole of life is one long identity crisis. The truth is that some people appear to be almost entirely motivated by their religious beliefs.

Absent those beliefs, their behavior would make absolutely no sense. With them, it becomes perfectly understandable, even rational. The problem is that moderates of all faiths are committed to reinterpreting or ignoring outright the most dangerous and absurd parts of their scripture. And this commitment is precisely what makes them moderates. But it also requires some degree of intellectual dishonesty, because moderates can't acknowledge that their moderation comes from outside the faith. The doors leading out of scriptural literalism simply do not open from the inside. In the 21st century, the moderates' commitment to rationality, human rights, gender equality,

and every other modern value, values that, as you say, are potentially universal for human beings, comes from the last thousand years of human progress, much of which was accomplished in spite of religion, not because of it. So when moderates claim to find their modern ethical commitments within scripture, it looks like an exercise in self-deception. The truth is that most of our modern values are antithetical to the specific teachings of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. And where we do find these values expressed in our holy books, they are almost never best expressed there. Moderates seem unwilling to grapple with the fact that all scriptures contain an extraordinary amount of stupidity and barbarism that can always be rediscovered and made wholly anew by fundamentalists.

And there's no principle of moderation internal to the faith that prevents this. These fundamentalist readings are, almost by definition, more complete and consistent, and therefore more honest. The fundamentalist picks up the book and says, okay, I'm just going to read every word of this and do my best to understand what God wants from me. I'll leave my personal biases completely out of it. Conversely, every moderate seems to believe that his interpretation and selective reading of scripture is more accurate than God's literal words. Presumably, God could have written the books any way he wanted.

And if he wanted them to be understood in the spirit of 21st century secular rationality, he could have left out all those bits about stoning people to death for adultery or witchcraft. It really isn't hard to write a book that prohibits sexual slavery. You just put in a few lines like, don't take sex slaves, and when you fight a war and take prisoners as you inevitably will, don't rape any of them. And yet God couldn't seem to manage it. This is why the approach of a group like the Islamic State holds a certain intellectual appeal,

which admittedly sounds strange to say, because the most straightforward reading of scripture suggests that Allah advises jihadists to take sex slaves from among the conquered, decapitate their enemies, and so forth. Imagine that a literalist and a moderate have gone to a restaurant for lunch, and the menu promises fresh lobster as the specialty of the house. Loving lobster, the literalist simply places his order and waits. The moderate does likewise, but claims to be entirely comfortable with the idea that the lobster might not really be a lobster after all. Perhaps it's a goose, and whatever it is, it need not be, quote, fresh in any conventional sense, for the moderate understands that the meaning of this term shifts according to the context. This would be a very strange attitude to adopt toward lunch.

But it is even stranger when considering the most important questions of existence. What to live for, what to die for, and what to kill for. Consequently, the appeal of literalism isn't difficult to see. Human beings demand it in almost every area of their lives. It seems to me that religious people, to the extent that they are certain that their scripture was written or inspired by the creator of the universe, demand it too. So when you say that no religion is intrinsically peaceful or warlike, and that every scripture must be interpreted, I think you run into problems. Because many of these texts aren't all that elastic. They aren't susceptible to just any interpretation, and they

commit their adherence to specific beliefs and practices. You can't say, for instance, that Islam recommends eating bacon and drinking alcohol. And even if you could find some way of reading the Quran that would permit those things, you can't say that its central message is that a devout Muslim should consume as much bacon and alcohol as humanly possible. Nor can one say that the central message of Islam is pacifism. However, one can say that about Jainism. All religions are not the same. One simply cannot say that the central message of the Quran is respect for women as the moral and political equals of men.

To the contrary, one can say that under Islam, the central message is that women are second-class citizens and the property of the men in their lives. I want to be clear that when I used terms such as pretense and intellectual dishonesty when we first met, I wasn't casting judgment on you personally. Simply living with the moderate's dilemma may be the only way forward, because the alternative would be to radically edit these books. I'm not such an idealist as to imagine that that will happen.

We can't say, listen you barbarians, these holy books of yours are filled with murderous nonsense. In the interest of getting you to behave like civilized human beings, we're going to redact them and give you back something that reads like Khalil Gibran. There you go. Don't you feel better now that you no longer hate homosexuals? However, that's really what one should be able to do in any intellectual tradition in the 21st century. Again, this problem confronts religious moderates everywhere, but it's an excruciating problem

for Muslims. Yes, I'd agree with that last sentence. It's certainly an excruciating one for Muslims, because it's currently, and I've said this openly, one of the biggest challenges of our time, particularly in a British and European context, as witnessed by the sad and horrendous atrocities committed against hostages in Syria by British and European Muslim terrorists. We definitely have to acknowledge that anything we say could apply to Judaism and Christianity. But a particular strand of a politicised version of the Muslim faith is causing a disproportionate share of the problems in the world so there are good reasons to focus on that strand

I don't dispute any of that Just as a side note You say that in the 21st century we should have the right to edit any holy book But of course there will always be value in preserving texts as they once were, say, a thousand years ago, even as historical documents. I don't think the issue is the physical state of the texts we're looking at. This brings me neatly to everything else you said.

I think the challenge lies with interpretation, the methodologies behind reform, whether reformists are in fact continuing a pretense, and whether this challenge is insurmountable. I think it's about approach. Let's start with this. You're very clearly speaking from an intellectual perspective. You're trying to approach this consistently. You're trying to approach this with an understanding of the challenges ahead, and you're trying to be sensitive and not harm my work. I appreciate all of that. But you also have to recognize that you're speaking from the luxury of living in, or probably born and raised in, a mature, secular, democratic society. It can sometimes be very hard to make a mental leap and put yourself into the mind of the average Pakistani.

I know many Pakistani atheists who, alongside liberal Muslims, are trying to democratise their society from within Pakistan. You and I can have this discussion without fear, but for them such open discussions can result in death. Of course, and I hear from many of these people, I'm well aware that millions of nominally Muslim free thinkers are in hiding out of necessity. This is one of the things I find so insufferable

about the liberal backlash against critics of Islam, especially the pernicious meme Islamophobia, by which anyone who thinks that Islam merits special concern at this moment in history is branded a bigot. What worries me is that so many moderate Muslims believe that Islamophobia is a bigger problem than literalist Islam is. They seem more outraged that someone like me would equate jihad with holy war than that millions of their co-religionists do this and commit atrocities as a result. In recent days, the Islamic State has been burning prisoners alive in cages

and decapitating people by the dozen and gleefully posting videos attesting to the enormity of their sadism online. Far from being their version of the My Lai massacre, these crimes against innocents represent what they unabashedly stand for. In fact, these ghastly videos have become a highly successful recruiting tool, inspiring jihadists from all over the world to travel to Syria and Iraq to join the cause. No doubt most Muslims are horrified by this. But the truth is that in the very week that the Islamic State was taking its barbarism to new heights, we saw a much larger outcry in the Muslim

world over the killing of three college students in North Carolina amid circumstances that made it very likely to have been an ordinary triple murder, as opposed to a hate crime indicating some wave of anti-Muslim bigotry in the U.S. This skewing of priorities produces a grotesque combination of political sensitivity and moral callousness, wherein hate crimes against Muslims in the U.S., which are tiny in number, often property-related, and still dwarfed five-fold by similar offenses against Jews, appear to be of greater concern than the enslavement and obliteration

of countless people throughout the Muslim world. As you say, even having a conversation like this is considered a killing offense in many circles. I hear from Muslims who are afraid to tell their own parents that they have lost their faith in God for fear of being murdered by them. These people say things like, if a liberal intellectual like you can't speak about the link between specific doctrines and violence without being defamed as a bigot, what hope is there for someone like me,

who has to worry about being killed by her own family or village, for merely expressing doubts about God? So yes, I'm aware that one can't speak in Pakistan as I do here. This raises an intellectual point and a pragmatic point. Intellectually, I don't accept that there's a correct reading of scripture in essence. Now, you can point to many passages in the Quran and in a hadith, and I've certainly read them because I memorized half the Quran while a political prisoner, that you would find very problematic, very concerning, and, on the face of it, very violent. But, as I've said, to interpret any text, one must have a methodology. And in that methodology, there are jurisprudential, linguistic,

philosophical, historical, and moral perspectives. Quentin Skinner of the Cambridge School wrote a seminal essay called Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas. This essay addresses the danger in assuming that there is ever a true reading of texts. It asks the question, does any piece of writing speak for itself, Or do we impose certain values and judgments on that text when interpreting it? I personally do not use the term literal readings, because this implies that such readings are the correct literal meaning of the texts. I would simply call it vacuous. Similar to the printing press's influence on the Reformation,

increased internet access has facilitated a more patchwork, democratized, populist approach to interpreting Islamic texts. Now, the key for me, and this is only the intellectual point, I'll move to the pragmatic in a minute, is that if we accept that texts are, in fact, a bunch of ideas thrown together and arbitrarily called a book, then nothing in a vacuous reading of a text makes it better than other interpretations. The question is, do we accept a vacuous approach to reading scripture, picking a passage and saying, this is its true meaning regardless of everything else around it, or do we concede that perhaps there are other methods of interpretation?

It comes down to our starting point. If one were to assume that a correct, unchanging reading of Islamic scripture never existed, and that, from inception to now, it has always been in the spirit of its times, then the reform approach would be the intellectually consistent one. Indeed, we would expect it to be the majority view today. This approach stands in opposition to that of the very organized, vocal and violent minority that has been shouting everyone else down. If, on the other hand, we start from the premise that the vacuous reading was the original approach to scripture, then the reform view stands little chance of success. There may be no answer here. I don't think this question has been resolved when it comes to interpreting the US constitution, or Shakespeare, or indeed any religious scripture. So, pragmatically speaking, what can be done?

If somebody in Pakistan were to raise with me the issues you have raised, they could be killed. In such a stifling atmosphere, what is the solution? I don't want our listeners to think that all Muslim-majority countries are the same. For instance, in the middle of Ramadan in 2014, Turkey witnessed a gay pride march. A sensible way forward would be to establish this idea that there is no correct reading of scripture. This is especially easy for Sunnis who represent 80% of the Muslims around the world, because they have no clergy. If a particular passage says smite their necks, to conclude, despite all the passages that came before it and everything that comes after it, that this passage means smite their necks today, is to engage in a certain method of interpretation. If we could popularize the

understanding that all conclusions from scripture are but interpretations, then all variant readings of a holy book would become a matter of differing human perspectives. That would radically reduce the stakes and undermine the claim that the Islamists are in possession of God's words. What is said in Arabic and Islamic terminology is, this is are in possession of God's words. What is said in Arabic and Islamic terminology is, this is nothing but your ijtihad. This is nothing but your interpretation of the texts as a whole. There was a historical debate about whether or not the doors of ijtihad were closed. It concluded that they cannot be closed because Sunni Muslims have no clergy. Anyone can interpret scripture if she is sufficiently

learned in that scripture, which means that even extremists may interpret scripture. The best way to undermine extremists' insistence that truth is on their side is to argue that theirs is merely one way of looking at things. The only truth is that there is no correct way to interpret scripture. When you open it up like that, you're effectively saying there is no right answer. When you open it up like that, you're effectively saying there is no right answer. And in the absence of a right answer, pluralism is the only option, and pluralism will lead to secularism and to democracy and to human rights. We must all focus on those values,

without worrying about whether atheism is the most intellectually pure approach. I genuinely believe that if we focus on the pluralistic nature of interpretation and on democracy, human rights and secularism, on these values, we'll get to a time of peace and stability in Muslim-majority countries that then allows for conversations like this. I wanted to also mention one anecdote which, for those who are listening, I think they would find as another positive example of why this conversation was so important. Just today, I spoke to somebody who's just started with Quilliam. In fact, the world will know about this through a press release we release tomorrow. But I'm telling you here a day in advance that there was a group in Britain known as Al-Mahajiroun,

which was founded by Omar Bakri Mohammed, who used to be the leader of my former Islamist organization, Hizb ut-Tahrir, in the UK. And then he split off and founded Al-Mahajiroun. Al-Mahajiroun produced none other than Anjam Chaudhry as its current UK leader. And Omar Bakri is currently in prison in Lebanon after he had his permission to remain in the UK rescinded. It's now a banned organization under Britain's terrorism legislation. Omar Bakri's son recently was just killed in Syria fighting for ISIS. Most of Europe's support for ISIS has come from those remnants of the Al-Muhajirun and their supporters across Europe, because they then morphed into groups known as Islam for UK, Islam for Belgium, Islam for the rest of the European countries. So this group is pretty much responsible for producing ISIS rank and file recruits from

Europe. A former leading member of that organization who left a long time ago before they were banned, A former leading member of that organization who left a long time ago before they were banned, he was Omar Bakri Mohammed's, one of his right-hand men in the UK, just today joined Quilliam. And there was a... It's great news. He's been on a journey himself. nagging away at him as to whether the term Islamism was a pragmatic term that we were using, or indeed had some substance to this point of the distinctions between, you know, because I argue that Islam is interpreted in many different ways, and Sufis interpret it in one way, fundamentalists in another, and Islamists in yet a third way. And he wasn't sure, he had this nagging doubt as to whether Islamism was indeed another,

you know, phenomenon within the spectrum of interpretations and really was trying to come to grips with some of this. So I gave him an advanced copy of the book because we've been obviously working with him for a while to get him to the point where tomorrow we're going to announce to the world through a press release that he's joined Quilliam. that he's joined Quilliam. And this conversation is just fresh that I've had today with him. And he said that he really enjoyed the book. He said that 10 years of proselytization, known as dawah within the Islamist networks, and actually even within traditional Islamic circles preaching, 10 years worth of Islamic preaching couldn't have achieved in his view, what this one short 120 pages booklet has achieved. And he's full of praise for the fact that we've embarked on this conversation. He is, and also credited the dialogue, which I think he's going to put in his statement that he releases somewhere through Quilliam as to why he's joined.

He credits the dialogue itself to finally crystallizing his notion of not just using the term Islamism, but exactly what it is and why it's so important for us to challenge it head on. So there's been great progress on a practical level with somebody like this. And I just wanted to convey that to you just to say that there is some positivity that is already emerging around the fact that we've had this conversation. Oh, that's great. That's great. Well, that's incredibly gratifying. And he's someone I would love to talk to at some point. I would imagine he would be a great guest on my podcast.

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