Ida is quite obviously right about some of what she writes here.
Islamism uses democracy to dismantle it. Many Muslims in Denmark live in a completely different way from Khan. And it is a common fight.
But there is a false premise in the middle of the post, and it is the reason the voices she misses don't come.
It sits in one sentence -
"NO Mohamad, you have completely misunderstood Islam."
Khan has not misunderstood Islam.
What he writes is the classical interpretation. All four Sunni schools of law have agreed for over a thousand years that apostasy is punished, that homosexual acts are punished, that alcohol is forbidden, and that sharia stands above any law human beings have passed.
That is NOT a misunderstanding.
It is the tradition the majority of the world's Muslim scholars stand on, and it is what is taught at al-Azhar, in Medina and in Qom.
What Ida calls "real Islam", where you can drink a beer, be homosexual, prefer the constitution and leave your faith without punishment, is - perhaps - the way many Muslims in Denmark actually live. And that is all well and good.
But it is NOT what their religion teaches.
Those are two different things, and that is exactly what Abud Mustafa showed us on B.T.'s podcast last week, as I wrote - a man who lives one way and stands under the other, and who cannot say he disagrees with his religion without ceasing to be a Muslim. And not without it having consequences. Far too many SERIOUS consequences.
So when Ida misses Muslims who say "you have misunderstood Islam", she is in reality asking them for something that cannot honestly be said from inside the order they stand in.
And THAT is what every one of you needs to see - quite clearly.
The Muslims who have taken up the fight against the classical reading do not say "you have misunderstood".
They say "that is the classical reading, and I choose another".
The Sudanese Mahmoud Mohammed Taha said it and was hanged for apostasy in 1985. The Egyptian Ali Abdel Raziq said it and was stripped of his title by al-Azhar. It is the honest reformer's sentence, and it costs, because it admits that Khan has the text on his side.
And Ida's own post proves it.
She writes that the third generation is moving towards Khan's views, not away from them. And she writes that far too few dare to stand up to him.
Think about those two things.
If Khan had misunderstood Islam, why would the young, who read more, not less, be moving towards him?
And why would it take *courage* to correct a misunderstanding?
It does NOT take courage to say someone has read it wrong. It takes courage to say something that has text and tradition against it.
Her two observations are right. BUT her explanation of them is WRONG, and the observations are the PROOF.
THINK, FOR F...
It is not that the well-integrated Muslims don't dare. It is that what she is asking them to say is NOT true, and they know it.
You CANNOT build a COMMON fight on your allies having to LIE about their own religion. So they keep quiet. And they don't keep quiet out of cowardice. They keep quiet out of HONESTY!
What you can ask of them is something else, and harder.
Not "say that Khan is wrong about Islam".
But "say that you choose Denmark, even though you know what your religion's scholars say".
That is a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT sentence.
It is TRUE.
And it costs, and we owe those who say it to know what it costs, instead of pretending it is free.
Because it isn't.
I am not out to get Muslims. I never have been. And I never will be.
I am out to get the premise that makes it IMPOSSIBLE to talk honestly about this, and that gets good people to ask other good people to say something they cannot stand behind.
Ida understands - perhaps - her Muslim friends and thinks that is Islam. It is a warm mistake. But it is a mistake, and as long as we build the fight on it, Khan wins.
Because he is THE ONLY ONE in the conversation telling the truth about what is written.
The fight is common.
But it can only be fought on what is true.
Come on.
