National Review touts non-existent moderate Islam

Can you imagine National Review publishing in, say, 1975, a “moderate” Communist manifesto claiming that true Communism stands for private property, the profit motive, freedom of speech, the protection of religion, and strict limits on government power? Yet that is what the current editors of National Review have done for Islam, by publishing a thoroughly dishonest “moderate” Muslim manifesto, written by Mustafa Akyol and Zeyno Baran. The manifesto engages in a transparent trick that has been played a thousand times by apologists for Islam, and has been exposed a thousand times by knowledgeable critics of Islam, yet the brilliant editors of America’s flagship “conservative” magazine seem never to have heard of it. The trick consists in presenting as authoritative the earlier, Meccan suras of the Koran, where Muhammad commands tolerance and acceptance of non-Muslims, while ignoring the later, Medinan suras, where Muhammad abrogates the Meccan suras and commands unending war on non-Muslims.

I’m glad to report that there is some internal dissent on this at NRO. Andrew McCarthy posted a blog entry at The Corner the other day criticizing the manifesto.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at March 04, 2006 11:01 AM | Send