This screed by an ex-Muslim, ex-Syrian, American psychiatrist has been lauded by many conservative Americans and others obsessed with the threat that Islamic beliefs pose, including Geert Wilders of the far right anti-immigrant Dutch Party For Freedom. Like Ayana Ali Hirsi’s Infidel, and her Nomad, it is part autobiography and part an expose of the inherent evils and consequences she sees in all Islamic belief systems. The author relates the cruel practices, fear and intolerance of others in Islam to the hardscrabble existence of pre-Islam Arab bedouins who lived in constant fear of dying of thirst or starvation, and raided and killed or were raided and killed. Her experiences as an abused child in a misogynous polygamous society are heart-wrenching.
The prayers recited five times daily by all devout muslims denigrate Christian’s and Jews. It is disheartening to realize that in the twenty-first century hundreds of millions of people regard the Prophet as beyond reproach and then read that he married a six year old girl, consummated the marriage when she was nine, and after killing more than one hundred Jews, married one of the widows the next day. But then, is it much different than the cognitive dissonance of secular Americans’ who worship Thomas Jefferson who fathered several children by one of his slaves? And the author is simply wrong to assert that Allah’s “repugnant qualities are not to be found in other gods….” as anyone who has read Deuteronomy in the Jewish and Christian Old Testament should realize. Therein, the god of Jews and Christians ordered his faithful to commit theft, rape and genocide.
For a trained atheistic psychiatrist, it seems odd that Sultan does not engage in some analysis of the state of mind of the Prophet and some of the radical modern Muslims. As he is described, any number of labels from the DSM IV manual would seem applicable, and some scholars have suggested that, like Paul on the road to Damascus, he may have suffered from temporal lobe epilepsy to account for his sudden bizarre religious visions.
Sultan does make a clear distinction between Arab and non-Arab muslims, the latter being spared the Arab cultural influences that come from a long history of desert deprivations. She seems to imply that non-Arab muslims, not familiar with the Arabic language, are often unaware of the meaning of the prayers they recite daily and that they may present less of a threat to western culture and democracy than do Arab Muslims. But to depict all members of any world religion as all good or all evil ignores the extreme diversity invariably represented. The numerous Muslim colleagues, friends and patients I have known, including many Arabs, are either ingeniously adept at hiding their contempt for me and for western secularism, or else I am extremely naive, if they really are as devious and evil as Sultan would have me believe.
The writing is a bit repetitive and preachy, and the logic of the arguments is difficult to follow at times. There may well be an urgent need to sound a note of caution about the dangers inherent in accepting Muslim beliefs as a part of western societies, but the alternative of isolating the believers to ramp up their radicalism by mutual reinforcement is not very attractive. Better to engage than isolate.
The Passionate Reader 