A cordial but concerned reader: “Derb–Are you staking a claim as NRO’s house Islamophile?”

Already did, five years ago. Although in fact the claim is un-stakeable, since plenty of NR writers–most, I think, and quite possibly all–are well-disposed, or at least not bitterly ill-disposed, towards Islam, the religion, whatever they think about the current pathologies of the Middle East, or the likelihood of big Muslim communities assimilating into Western Civ.

*You* may believe that Islam is irredeemably wicked, root and branch, founded by a man who was unspeakably vile. That is certainly a tenable position–though, given the number of Muslims in the world,

and the vast amount of territory and resources they are sitting on, it must lead you to some very depressing conclusions about the future course of history.

If it’s what you believe, it seems to me that you should logically be a “separationist”–one of those who advocate as complete a separation as possible between the West and Muslims, with a ban on further entry of Muslims into Western countries, coupled with measures of various degrees of sternness–ranging from bribery to outright internment and expulsion–for those already here. Again, a perfectly tenable position, which is actually held by many thoughtful people, including some friends of mine whom I admire and respect–Steve Sailer, for example, and Randall Parker.

(Though I note in passing that you can be a “separationist” without necessarily cleaving to the irredeemably-wicked view of Islam and its founder. You might think that the religion is fundamentally tolerable, and its founder a jolly good fellow, but that the faithful have taken a seriously wrong turn in recent years, or decades, or centuries. You might then favor separation until Islam gets its act together. Another reasonable, tenable position.)

Having known some devout Muslims who were perfectly decent people, I find the irredeemably-wicked point of view hard to swallow. I am closer to the Marksteynian position that Islam needs reforming, though I don’t share Mark’s (and George W. Bush’s) confidence that we of the West can do anything to help the reform along, other than by slapping down the nastier kinds of Islamic lunacy with great but **BRIEF** ferocity when they impinge on us or our interests.

So far as the founder is concerned, until I read Karen Armstrong’s book, most of what I knew came from Gibbon (favorable), H.G. Wells (unfavorable), and Hilaire Belloc (weird–he thought Islam was a Roman Catholic heresy). How many full-length biographies of Mohammed have YOU read?

In re Ms. Armstrong herself, having read two of her books all through I am ready to sign affidavits to the effect that at the time of writing the latter of those books (1991) she was definitely not either (a) nuts, or (b) an antisemite. You simply can’t conceal things like that for 500 pages. She might, of course, have been wrong, or careless, or afflicted with a falls-well-short-of-lunacy bee in the bonnet. I agree that some of her later comments are odd: that one Hugh Fitzgerald quoted about Columbus having been “a Jewish convert” for instance. I thought there was only a not-well-substantiated suspicion that Chris was from a convert FAMILY.

Well, I still want to see what she says about Buddha. (A well-known Salman Rushdie joke comes to mind…) Alas, the library on this cruise ship has none of Ms. Armstrong’s books, though they seem to have every single blessed one of Danielle Steele’s.