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echelon_musk | 18 hours ago

I can't recommend Heretic by Ayaan Hirsi Ali enough.

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Cipater|15 hours ago

I don't think doctrinal reformation is possible with Islam.

The Qur'an is totally prescriptive. It contains direct legal commands, judicial rules and explicit government principles which are all binding and considered as direct divine speech.

I think Westernisation and an increase in the number of "casual" muslims is and will continue to be the moderating effect.

Think of what is happening in Europe (as the clearest example) with the influx of Muslim immigrants who raise increasingly more assimilated children as the blueprint.

delichon|15 hours ago

The cultural gulf between left and right in the US is expanding rather than being assimilated or adapting. There is nothing stopping the same thing from happening between immigrants and natives in the EU. Both cases involve fundamentaly irecconcilable values, and it just depends on which values prove more viral.

CoastalCoder|16 hours ago

For those of us who haven't read it, could you explain why it's salient on this topic?

dotancohen|16 hours ago

It's an English language book aimed for Westerner readers. It purports to argue that the core strategy for spreading Islam - terror - is not compatible with Western values. It also states that other features of Islam are incompatible with Western values, such as repression of women. The book argues that since these ideologies are incompatible with Western values, they must be abandoned.

However, the abandonment argument is only valid if one already accepts Western values as an axiom - which being an English-language book most of the readers would agree with. These readers will perceive the book to promote the reform of Islam into a religion that resembles a modern Christian denomination, just with different idols and prayers and holidays.

However those who do not come from the perspective of modern Christian values and as axiomic, will reject the argument outright. This is the Muslim population who might read it.