While Simon Jenkins rightly asks Muslim scholars to pay attention to “blood-curdling mullahs and madrasahs” rather than “writing platitudes to the Pope”, his assertion that Islamic militants do not “undermine western values” ignores reality (Comment, October 14).
Freedom of expression is already restricted by Islamist intimidation. In many Islamic states equal rights for men and women are curtailed, and such restrictive attitudes are brought to the West by Muslims.
Until the West acknowledges that the conflict with Islamic militancy has deep ideological roots it cannot win the struggle for preserving its freedoms.
Hopefully, the Muslim scholars will join the moderate Muslims in the reform process.
Dr Jiti Khanna
Vancouver, British Columbia
DOUBLE STANDARDS: Jenkins laments the erosion of democratic freedoms in the West due to the paranoia induced by jihadist terrorists. He is right that the threat to the West lies within itself, but he is wrong that “for all its occasional and manifold lapses, capitalist democracy has been tested and not found wanting.”
In the West, the national interest overrides the investigation into corruption in awarding a lucrative contract to a foreign state, and the cash for honours inquiry ends up as a farce. A bank is rescued by pumping in taxpayers’ money. Wars are waged at the behest of a powerful ally. There is no consensus on pollution or global warming. The Islamic world’s venom is directed not at Christianity but at the double standards of the West.
Migel Jayasinghe
Alicante, Spain
PAST GLORIES: William Dalrymple’s article (A lesson in humility for the smug West, News Review) doesn’t make any sense today. Of course, Islam and the East had its golden age and the West learnt from it in all areas of science, politics, economics and culture. But that was 1,000 years ago, when the “thinking” age of Islam came to an end. The Abbasi [clan] invented the sharia and much of the sunnah [the way of the prophet], and the door of “consensus” was closed, much to the merriment of the Muslim clergy.
What worked as an orthodox body of political and social laws under the garb of divine sanction does not work now.
Dalrymple’s proxy chest-thumping on behalf of us Muslims is not only misplaced but also dangerous, as it merely adds to the anarcho-fascist era of Islam. The Muslim mindset has been imprisoned in the ruins of a dead golden age.
His fascination with Mughal India is also misplaced. Ultimately, the Mughals were just hedonists. The Taj Mahal is a wonder, but such projects almost bankrupted the empire.
Izzat Majeed
London W1
COMMUNITY VALUES: To be “a cheerleader for western values”, Jenkins must be happy to watch a society based on greed destroy itself. I would describe myself as a recovering Evangelical Christian but, while I’m now with Richard Dawkins, if there is a religion I admire for its values it would be Islam. If there is a religion with reason to feel under attack from the West it would also be Islam – from Israel’s failure to comply with United Nations resolutions dating back to 1967, to the silence over conflicts such as Chechnya and Bosnia.
In the West the cult of individual has taken over. Islam, with the “umma," has a society. We underestimate the power of this at our peril.
Steve Vickers
