es to the hypocrisy of so many of their co-religionists who take advantage of that tolerance to sneer at it as a weakness and then plot against it. Just one….not a whole movement away from Islam, I’m not expecting miracles….but just one.
It’s unlikely, though. You’d need someone with the courage of Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Violent retribution is a real threat for any Muslim apostate. It’s easy enough to find scriptural justifications for this, both in the Koran and in the Hadith (the canonical tradition of Islam). Is it then official Islamic doctrine? Well, who’s to say? No doubt the overwhelming majority of Muslims don’t accept that killing apostates is justified, but there are, quite clearly, enough nutters around in this country to make public apostasy a very risky business indeed.
At which point you have to ask the question, well, how much respect should one have for a religion which loudly demands tolerance for itself, but refuses to grant it to others? And, as Charles Moore argues, we’re developing a hypocrisy of our own, where Deputy Assistant Commissioner Brian Paddick – who clearly came top of the class at his police anti-racism awareness course – says that Islam and terrorism don’t go together, but, I would suggest, knows perfectly well that at the present time that, unfortunately, is nonsense.
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