After reading Edward Said's book, "Orientalism", this was a breath of fresh air. I found this title in the bibliography of Sam Harris' published dialogue on tolerance in Islam. Because "Why I Am Not a Muslim" is an overt polemic against Islam and Middle Eastern Islamic culture, Ibn Warraq is a pen-name used to avoid a potentially fatal fatwa such as that which threatened Salman Rushdie for many years.
The contents of the book are organized in a comprehensible fashion and draw extensively on documented history. Warraq makes no attempt to pull any punches and his agenda is absolutely clear, so the reader can reasonably assume that in many instances there will be alternative views held by those with different agendas. The shear mass of the historical data presented was both impressive and at times bordering on the tedious. The bottom line is that Warraq shows how Islam as a religio-cultural political system with its many national permutations has put the brakes on Islamic societal progress in a great many ways in the Middle East and has ultimately brought it into conflict with the western world. If what is presented in the book is even half right, I can see that any person who accepts the Koranic premise that what is written therein is the absolute and final word of God will crash violently into the beliefs and practices of Westerners, and this explains a lot of the intolerant craziness we see in the Middle East today. This also explains the relative dearth of institutes of higher learning in the Middle East, the significant absence of scientific innovation and the near absence of literary critique such as Rushdie's "Satanic Verses".
I think it would be a mistake to take this book as the complete and simplistic truth about Islam. That being said, what I have learned from reading it has helped me a great deal in understanding the driving forces that have lead to the insanity going on in the war-torn Middle East. I heartily recommend it to the person who is interested, as I am, in gaining an understanding of the roots of the turmoil we experience in our world today.
Charles R. McCormick, MD
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