I again encourage anyone posting here who has not read "Why I am not a Muslim", to get out and buy a copy. Just a brilliant work.

(incidentally, a blatant plug for Robert's "Islam Unveiled"- I just shelled out $CDN25 incl s&h for a copy. The reviews suggest another excellent resource).

Thanks, Earl! I'll buy the kids new shoes!

Cordially
R

As well as being courageous (Shirin Ebadi is courageous -- it isn't enough, not nearly enough) Ibn Warraq is one of the most thoroughly learned, amusing and delightful people in the world, all of which comes shining through much of his work. His article on what it would take to have a genuine reformation in Islam, as opposed to the Ebadi-Sorroush-Noah Feldman--Yale Law-School-kids-let-loose-on-term-projects-to-"empowe-the-reformers" -- can be found on-line; his dismemberment of Edward Said at www.secularislam.org is until now the last word on that monstrous mountebank; Keith Windschuttle did a good job; Robert Irwin has had a few cutting and trenchant remarks en passant about the absurd Said in the TLS (though Irwin, an Islamist and translator of classical Arabic poetry, does not dismiss Said as entirely as he merits); Bernard Lewis' A Reply to Orientalism was brilliantly done (when he is good, not trying to please all of the people -- Muslim and Infidel -- all of the time, he is very very good) and the footnote on "thawra" quietly devastating, Ibn Warraq had the with, and the stamina, to plow o through most of Said -- and it does take stamina. So much of academic or other intellectual life nowadays is taken up with having to plow through the work of people that, in an earlier age, would never have to be bothered with -- god, it is time-consuming, and infuriating. No one who reads any of Ibn Warraq's books with attention will regret it. The only thing he did leave out, as I recall, was the turning of history-on-its-head in the first chapter of "The Question of Palestine" -- where various travellers' reports on the desolation they met with in the area in the 18th and 19th centuries are not only carefully not quoted, but alluded to as if they prove the opposite (compare, for example, how Said treats Volney's account, or those of Mark Twain, Melville, and others -- with the accurate quotation of them in Samuel Katz' Battleground). And right now Ibn Warraq has much bigger fish to fry -- the origins of Islam, which obviously have to do with putting the origins of Islam back into history, which will help Infidels (and some Muslims) to understand how this belief-system, concocted to justify and promote conquest of far more civilized, settled, wealthy, advanced, and numerous peoples by primitive Arab tribes, became fixed and immutable -- and now threatens, with its blend of thwarted world-conquering ambition, and fury that the "religion" which is supposed to dominate in fact seems to everywhere bring failure (a fact which simply cannot be faced up to, admitted to, by Muslims)-- to damage all the rest of us, as it has been damaging Infidel peoples and polities, for 1350 years.

Those who read Ibn Warraq's The Origins of the Koran, What the Koran Really Says, and The Quest for the Historical Muhammad, all of them splendid anthologies of scholarly articles, with his own introduction and other glosses, will not be disappointed.

Ibn Warraq and I are both athiests. Nevertheless, I say wholeheartedly, Thank God for Ibn Warraq!

Hugh - Thank you for the lesson. You have now put Warraq's work into historical context for the rest of us.

Ibn Warraq's work is the basis for everything that I know, and led to the other books, such as RS's.

What is refreshing is that in "Why I...", he takes no credit for anything but being a bibliophile, and of pulling together other scholar's work, including some dense ones (i.e. Crone). The introduction of "Why..." is worth alone the price of the book, as is his condemnation of intellectuals who hate the West in which they live and work.

"Leaving Islam" was the first book of its kind that I read. I found the stories deeply moving and infuriating at the same time and I ended with the question, "How did these particular people manage to wake up and escape, and not the billion others?"

The scholarly collections I found tiring, but that is why I didn't do well in graduate school.

In any case, Warraq is a great place to start to find out the truth, especially since he is a former cult member, and thus is more difficult for Muslims to ignore.

I find the testimonies from anonymous ex-muslims on his website extremely powerful reading:

http://www.secularislam.org/testimonies/index.htm

Before Robert Spencer's two books, there were Ibn Warraq's. Both gentlemen deserve the highest praise for their presentations. One must read both authors to get the best picture.

Ibn Warraq grew up in the stifling culture of Islam yet had the independence and just plain balls to recognize Islam for what it is and leave it. Happily, thanks to what he has written, he left it mortally wounded.

that link above is excellent, i cant believe some of the things im learning about that religion, no wonder rape is one of the biggest crimes perpetrated by muslims, its not punishable!
the quote "christian is life and Islam is death" is spot on..all they seem to talk about is death and destruction, theres death for anything!

I believe that in order for Islam to be reformed, one of the first things that should happen is for the death penalty for apostacy to be abolished. All people, even Muslims should be free to blieve what they feel in their heart.