To be honest the decision to upload this torrent was caused (I rarely
upload these days) by some comments made on this site today. It seems that any
rational criticism of islam is synonymous with 'hate', 'far right', 'fascism',
'racism' and 'islamophobia' (a term specially invented to blame all critics of
islam) these days.
What puzzles me more is not that muslims think so
(it's a well known fact that the sunni version of islam strongly underestimate
the value of the Human Reason and the rest of islam is still at the level
equivalent with the Christian scholasticism of the Middle Ages immediately
after Thomas Aquinas - islam must be defended with all costs, difficult to
change something on short term) but that there are enough many westerners, non
muslims, who are equally eager to join them in silencing any legitimate criticism
of islam.
I'm afraid Rationality points elsewhere,
unfortunately islam is indeed sort of Room 101 from Orwell's novel '1984' to a
much greater extent than other religions; there is much to criticize (without
really discriminating muslims, as human beings). The best option for us is not
to try to preserve islam as it is today, I'd say that the lessons of history
show quite clearly that without external pressure, in the absence of
non-trivial reforms, islam tends to return (at least partially) toward its dogmatic
roots. At least a healthy criticism of islam [at academic level] is a must,
unfortunately nowhere do we see at the moment a real, and durable, muslim
Enlightenment (in spite of centuries now of exposure to Modernity). I'm afraid
attempts to secularize islam have no real chance without this.
I do not necessarily agree with all that it is
said in this book but it nails well the fact that the so called 'islamic
tolerance' (among many other myths about islam) is at best a half truth. 'It's
better than nothing' (to quote Bernard Lewis) indeed but it is still irrational
to claim that devshirme was something good, to overlook the extremely
discriminatory parts of sharia regulating the rights of non-muslims living in
muslim lands (variations of the so called 'pact of Umar' which were enforced
over long periods of time), to deny the strong influence of islamic theology in
the muslim expansionism of the past and so on. Overall a decent book.
Download the book
torrent :
Download the password :
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