Making Sense - Sam Harris - #23 — Islam and the Future of Tolerance (Audiobook Excerpts)

00:00:00.000 welcome to the making sense podcast this is sam harris just a note to say that if you're hearing

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00:00:39.140 so today i have something different for you i have an audiobook preview the book i did with

00:00:51.860 majid nawaz islam and the future of tolerance a dialogue has just been released as an audiobook

00:00:57.760 and in this podcast you'll hear about a half hour of the audiobook and about a half hour of the

00:01:04.260 postscript that we recorded especially for the release of the audiobook this postscript was not

00:01:09.680 part of the the hardcover and in it we answer reader questions and talk about how the book has

00:01:15.620 been received and deal with some of our critics but you'll hear i hope that this book was really

00:01:20.400 made to be an audiobook it is in fact a dialogue of course you'll hear the distinction between our

00:01:26.400 reading this dialogue rather than merely producing it extemporaneously but the fact that we're reading

00:01:32.700 it allows us to be precise and on this topic more than many others i think precision is now the key

00:01:39.980 in the postscript we just have a conversation much more like a podcast conversation and you'll hear

00:01:45.060 about a half hour of that as well in any case this was a hugely gratifying collaboration for me i'm

00:01:51.100 just so happy to have connected with majid to have started this dialogue to have produced this audiobook

00:01:56.880 and and the print edition and uh to now be able to call him a friend it's just it's been a win just

00:02:03.120 across the board for me now unfortunately i don't think the problems we discuss in this book are going

00:02:08.020 away anytime soon i think majid's voice in particular is going to be increasingly relevant

00:02:13.580 in the years to come but i'm just very happy to have started this dialogue and i look forward to

00:02:19.340 collaborating with him in any way that i can in the future that will be useful and you all can support

00:02:25.340 our efforts by listening to the book or reading it and talking about it or blogging about it and

00:02:30.200 sharing it with others so now i give you a preview of the audio edition of islam and the future of

00:02:36.960 intolerance a dialogue by sam harris and majid nawas read by the authors

00:02:42.360 majid thank you for taking the time to have this conversation i think the work you're doing is

00:02:52.320 extremely important i'm not sure how much we agree about islam or about the prospects of reforming the

00:02:57.400 faith and it will be useful to uncover any areas where we diverge but i want you to know that my primary

00:03:02.460 goal is to support you that's very kind of you i appreciate that as you know we are working in a

00:03:08.660 very delicate area walking a tightrope and attempting to bring with us a lot of people who

00:03:13.040 in many instances do not want to move forward it is very important that we have this conversation

00:03:19.740 in as responsible a way as possible agreed i'd like to begin by recalling the first time we met

00:03:25.800 because it was a moment when you seemed to be walking this tightrope

00:03:28.660 it was in fact a rather inauspicious first meeting in october 2010 i attended the intelligence squared

00:03:35.460 debate in which you were pitted against my friends ayan hersi ali and douglas murray

00:03:39.180 we met afterward at a dinner for the organizers participants and other guests

00:03:43.680 people were offering short remarks about the debate and otherwise continuing the discussion

00:03:48.500 and at one point ayan said i'd like to know whether sam harris has anything to say

00:03:53.240 although i was well into a vodka tonic at that moment i remember what i said more or less verbatim

00:03:58.080 i addressed my remarks directly to you we hadn't been introduced and i don't think you had any idea

00:04:03.340 who i was i said essentially this majit i have a question for you it seems to me that you have a

00:04:09.780 nearly impossible task and yet much depends on your being able to accomplish it you want to convince

00:04:15.020 the world especially the muslim world that islam is a religion of peace that has been hijacked by

00:04:20.600 extremists but the problem is islam isn't a religion of peace and the so-called extremists

00:04:26.500 are seeking to implement what is arguably the most honest reading of the faith's actual doctrine

00:04:31.300 so your maneuvers on the stage tonight the claims you made about interpretations of scripture

00:04:36.260 and the historical context in which certain passages of the quran must be understood

00:04:40.520 appear disingenuous everyone in this room recognizes that you have the hardest job in the world

00:04:46.320 and everyone is grateful that you're doing it someone has to try to reform islam from within

00:04:51.780 and it's obviously not going to be an apostate like ayan or infidels like douglas and me but the path

00:04:57.700 of reform appears to be one of pretense you seem obliged to pretend that the doctrine is something

00:05:03.280 other than it is for instance you must pretend that jihad is just an inner spiritual struggle

00:05:08.500 whereas it's primarily a doctrine of holy war i'd like to know whether this is in fact the situation

00:05:13.980 as you see it is the path forward a matter of pretending that certain things are true

00:05:18.500 long enough and hard enough so as to make them true i should reiterate that i was attempting to

00:05:23.980 have this conversation with you in a semi-public context we weren't being recorded as far as i know

00:05:29.140 but there were still around 75 people in the room listening to us i'm wondering if you remember my

00:05:33.600 saying these things and whether you recall your response at the time yes i do remember that i'm glad

00:05:39.540 you reminded me of it i hadn't made the connection with you i'm also grateful you mentioned that

00:05:45.000 although we were not on air many others were present to my mind it was just as important inside

00:05:50.840 that room as outside of it for people to take what i was saying at face value in fact my desire to

00:05:56.820 impact muslim minority societies with my message is just as strong as my desire to impact muslim

00:06:02.060 majority societies part of what i seek to do is build a mainstream coalition of people who are

00:06:07.120 singing from the same page that doesn't require that they all become muslim or non-muslim on the

00:06:12.540 contrary what can unite us as a set of religion neutral values by focusing on the universality of

00:06:18.100 human democratic and secular in the british and american sense of this word values we can arrive

00:06:24.780 at some common ground it follows that all audiences need to hear this message even inside that room

00:06:30.680 therefore the stakes were high to lose that audience would be to realize my fear the polarization of

00:06:37.420 this debate between those who insist that islam is a religion of war and proceed to engage in war for

00:06:43.760 it and those who insist that islam is a religion of war and proceed to engage in war against it

00:06:49.660 that would be an intractable situation now moving to the specifics of your question i responded in the

00:06:57.820 way i did because i felt you were implying that i was engaging in pretense by arguing that islam is a

00:07:03.200 religion of peace if i remember correctly you said it's understandable in the public context but here

00:07:09.940 in this room can't you just be honest with us yes that's exactly what i said yes can't you just be

00:07:16.140 honest with us in here implied that i hadn't been honest out there my honest view is that islam is not

00:07:21.880 a religion of war or of peace it's a religion it's sacred scripture like those of other religions

00:07:27.760 contains passages that many people would consider extremely problematic likewise all scriptures

00:07:33.440 contain passages that are innocuous religion doesn't inherently speak for itself no scripture

00:07:39.280 no book no piece of writing has its own voice i subscribe to this view whether i'm interpreting

00:07:44.760 shakespeare or interpreting religious scripture so i wasn't being dishonest in saying that islam is a

00:07:50.420 religion of peace i've subsequently had an opportunity to clarify at the richmond forum

00:07:54.680 where ayan and i discuss this again scripture exists human beings interpret it at intelligence

00:08:01.080 square being under the unnatural constraints of the debate motion i asserted that islam is a religion

00:08:05.960 of peace simply because the vast majority of muslims today do not subscribe to it being a religion of

00:08:11.400 war if it holds that islam is only what its adherents interpret it to be then it is currently a religion of

00:08:18.180 peace part of our challenge is to galvanize and organize this silent majority against jihadism so

00:08:23.840 that it can start challenging the narrative of violence that has been popularized by the organized

00:08:28.120 minority currently dominating the discourse this is what i was really trying to argue in the intelligence

00:08:33.220 square debate but the motion forced me to take a side war or peace i chose peace i understand my

00:08:40.700 interest in recalling that moment is not to hold you accountable to your original answer to me

00:08:44.520 and it may be that your thinking has evolved to some degree but our conversation broke down quite

00:08:49.580 starkly at that point i don't remember how we resolved it i don't remember that we did resolve

00:08:54.600 it well let's proceed in a spirit of greater optimism than may seem warranted by our first meeting

00:08:59.460 because we have a lot to talk about however before we dive into these issues i think we should start

00:09:04.520 with your background which is fascinating your islamism seems to have been primarily political born of

00:09:09.840 some legitimate grievances primarily racial injustice that you began to view through the lens of islam

00:09:15.400 but you haven't said as members of al-qaeda do that you were incensed by the sacrilege of infidel boots

00:09:21.320 on the ground near muslim holy sites on the arabian peninsula to what degree did religious beliefs a desire

00:09:27.580 for martyrdom for instance motivate you and your fellow islamists and if no such ideas were operative

00:09:33.380 can you discuss the religious difference between a revolutionary islamist outlook and a jihadist one

00:09:38.380 yes sure of course there are indeed similarities and differences between islamism and jihadism

00:09:44.620 we shouldn't be surprised by this the same applies when we look at say communism

00:09:48.680 socialists are on one end and communists on the other some are militant and some aren't

00:09:53.760 it's the same with islamism now i've argued that the motivation for islamists and jihadists

00:09:59.420 is ideological dogma fed to them by charismatic recruiters who play on a perceived sense of grievance

00:10:05.020 and an identity crisis in fact i believe that four elements exist in all forms of ideological

00:10:10.640 recruitment a grievance narrative whether real or perceived an identity crisis a charismatic recruiter

00:10:17.200 and ideological dogma the dogma's narrative is its propaganda the difference between hezbo

00:10:23.560 and al-qaeda is akin to the dispute within communism as to whether change comes from direct action

00:10:29.240 and conflict if you take the theory of dialectical materialism in communism and whether we should

00:10:34.720 step back and allow the course of history to carve its own way or intervene to affect it purists of

00:10:40.200 that theory will argue that you don't have to do anything that the means of production will

00:10:43.860 naturally shift from the bourgeoisie to the workers and any intervention is futile because that's just

00:10:48.980 the way history works others will say we must take direct action such differences on a theoretical

00:10:54.280 level also exist between islamists of the political or entryist type those of the revolutionary type

00:11:00.500 and jihadists of course jihadists believe in taking direct action they have an entire theory around that

00:11:06.440 i'd argue in fact that the rise of the so-called islamic state under abu bakr al-bagdadi does somewhat

00:11:12.440 vindicate osama bin ladin's strategy and his belief that making the west intervention weary through war would

00:11:18.680 lead to a power vacuum in the middle east and that the west would abandon its support for arab despots

00:11:23.380 which would lead to the crumbling of despotic regimes from the ashes of that would rise an

00:11:28.220 islamic state bin ladin said this 11 years ago and it's uncanny how the arab uprisings have turned out

00:11:33.480 what i'm trying to get at is the religious distinction i think i detect between the type of islamist you were

00:11:39.940 having been the victim of violent prejudice in the uk and becoming politically radicalized by islam

00:11:44.720 and someone who may or may not have similar grievances but decides to go fight for a group

00:11:49.320 like the islamic state because he genuinely believes that he's participating in a cosmic

00:11:53.840 war against evil and will either spread the one true faith to the ends of the earth or get himself

00:11:58.920 martyred in the process were you thinking about the prospects of your own martyrdom or was your

00:12:03.600 islamism more a matter of politics and ordinary grievances i suppose i'm trying to say that although

00:12:08.640 there's a difference in methodology all islamists believe they're engaged in a cosmic struggle

00:12:13.580 but this cosmic struggle isn't the only reason they're doing it perhaps i'm giving too much credit

00:12:18.680 to critics of my views on this topic but let me bend over backward once more i'm imagining as so

00:12:24.800 many people insist is the case that some significant percentage of highly dedicated islamists are purely

00:12:30.920 political in that they're motivated by terrestrial concerns and are simply using islam as the banner

00:12:36.360 under which to promote their cause aren't there islamists who don't believe in the metaphysics

00:12:40.840 of martyrdom we would simply call them insincere insincere people exist in any movement and under

00:12:47.500 any ideology but if we're going to look at what islamists subscribe to obviously we have to

00:12:52.340 discount the minority who are machiavellian and join only because they want something else out of it

00:12:56.900 but if you consider those who are sincere and i was sincere in what i used to believe you'll find

00:13:02.040 that they're prepared for martyrdom i had to face torturers in egypt and thought i was going to die

00:13:06.480 for my cause in that sense all sincere islamists believe they're engaged in a cosmic struggle for

00:13:11.640 good against evil and they define good as a holy struggle but again to emphasize that is not the

00:13:18.040 only thing they believe though they do certainly believe in martyrdom they also believe in the evils

00:13:23.200 of western imperialism likewise they believe that they're living under arab dictators the grievance

00:13:28.360 narrative kicks in as i said prior to the point of recruitment but at the point of recruitment this

00:13:33.240 grievance narrative is fossilized by ideological dogma which then becomes the vehicle through

00:13:38.160 which they express themselves so it's not one or the other but certainly the cosmic struggle is a

00:13:42.920 consistent element for all islamists another difference between jihadists and islamists is

00:13:48.520 that islamists will seek martyrdom according to their own theory so in hezbo tahrir we were taught

00:13:53.080 that martyrdom is achieved by being killed while holding a despotic ruler to account or spreading the

00:13:57.820 ideology we were taught that if the regime kills you while you're attempting to recruit army

00:14:02.320 officers you'll be a martyr and you should embrace that but we were also taught that you're not a

00:14:07.560 if you blow yourself up in a marketplace because you're killing civilians and other muslims now

00:14:13.200 whereas hezbo tahrir was attempting to incite coups by the existing army jihadists simply said why don't

00:14:19.160 we create our own army why are we bothering with these guys who are infidels anyway for jihadists to

00:14:24.620 die while fighting for their own army is martyrdom that is the difference as long as you're dying in

00:14:29.580 accordance with the view you subscribe to you're a martyr in the eyes of your group so you wouldn't

00:14:34.440 distinguish between jihadists and other islamists as to the degree of religious conviction for instance

00:14:39.860 their level of certainty about the existence of paradise or the reality of martyrdom the difference

00:14:44.780 is purely a matter of methodology yes some jihadists are not pious in the sense of having firm religious

00:14:51.480 convictions they simply prefer the violence the direct action so they're attracted to those groups yet

00:14:57.100 some islamists are incredibly pious and sincerely believe in the holiness of their political cause

00:15:02.200 so piety or the lack of it and religious sincerity or the lack of it fluctuates between and within and

00:15:08.120 among groups this is all fascinating and again extremely useful to spell out but we should clarify

00:15:14.200 another point here because the line between piety and its lack may not be detectable in the way that

00:15:19.500 many of our listeners expect for instance it's often suggested that the 9-11 hijackers couldn't have been

00:15:25.740 true believers because they went to strip clubs before they carried out their suicide mission however

00:15:30.440 to me there's absolutely no question that these men believe they were bound for paradise i think many

00:15:35.700 people are confused about the connection between outward observance and belief that's right the 9-11

00:15:41.280 hijackers were not suicidally depressed people who went to strip clubs and then just decided to kill

00:15:46.180 themselves along with thousands of innocent strangers whether or not they went to strip clubs or

00:15:51.160 appeared pious in any other way these men were true believers yes the strip club thing is a red herring

00:15:57.480 because even in a traditional view of jihad when you believe you're engaged in an act of war you're

00:16:01.960 allowed to deceive the enemy so whether it's espionage or going undercover or war propaganda within

00:16:07.080 traditional thinking as revived by modern jihadism it's permissible during war the 9-11 hijackers being

00:16:14.040 seen in strip clubs is however relevant for use in propaganda against them most conservative western

00:16:19.760 muslims who do not think they're at war with their own countries would find such behavior immoral but

00:16:24.840 you're absolutely right to say that it's not indicative of the hijackers religious convictions

00:16:29.200 or lack thereof this confusion between supposed jihadist religiosity and sex should be clearer now

00:16:35.240 after the world has witnessed buka haram and the islamic state's enslavement and mass rape of women

00:16:39.900 it is not necessarily accurate to assume that say the leaders of the muslim brotherhood are somehow less

00:16:46.120 pious than the leaders of say the islamic state more violence does not necessarily equate with

00:16:51.080 greater religious conviction each group is deeply convinced of its approach to achieving islamism in

00:16:55.960 society and both face much danger in the pursuit of that goal but they differ in methodology and they

00:17:01.720 very much despise each other just as trotsky and stalin eventually did that didn't mean one was

00:17:06.600 lesser communist than the other they had a factional dispute within their ideology some people

00:17:11.240 misunderstand such disputes within islamism they argue what do you mean islamism there's no such

00:17:16.960 thing the muslim brotherhood hates groups like the islamic state and the islamic state would kill

00:17:22.340 members of the muslim brotherhood i always remind them that's like saying there's no such thing as

00:17:27.180 communism just because stalin is said to have killed trotsky it's an absurd conclusion to reach

00:17:31.420 of course there's a thing called communism and there's a thing called islamism it's an ideology

00:17:36.260 people are seeking to bring it about but they differ in their approach degrees of religious

00:17:41.840 conviction are not what will help us understand the differences among jihadists revolutionary

00:17:46.120 islamists political islamists and non-islamist muslims let's take sayd khutb for example khutb was a

00:17:54.260 member of the muslim brotherhood and is now known as one of the founding fathers of the theory that

00:17:59.180 eventually became modern jihadism the egyptian regime killed him for writing a book which he wrote

00:18:04.820 while incarcerated in the same prison that i came to be held in many years later it takes a high

00:18:09.820 degree of religious conviction to die merely for writing a book and that for the brotherhood was

00:18:15.120 martyrdom likewise hezbo tahrir members glorify the death of their members at the hands of the regime

00:18:21.420 but not the death of suicide bombers they prepare their adherents to be killed for trying to overthrow a

00:18:27.260 regime and they tell all the same stories about martyrdom and internal bliss in paradise that jihadists do

00:18:32.260 the only conclusion i can draw from everything you've just said is that the problem of ideology

00:18:37.660 is far worse than most people suppose absolutely but to repeat ideology is but one of four factors

00:18:43.840 albeit the most often ignored i would generally agree although there certainly seems to be many

00:18:49.640 cases in which people have no intelligible grievance apart from a theological one and become quote

00:18:54.760 radicalized by the idea of sacrificing everything for their faith i'm thinking of the westerners who have

00:19:00.960 joined groups like al-qaeda and the islamic state sometimes religious ideology appears not merely

00:19:05.980 necessary but sufficient to motivate a person to do this you might say that an identity crisis was

00:19:11.560 also involved but everyone has an identity crisis at some point in fact one could say that the whole

00:19:16.960 of life is one long identity crisis the truth is that some people appear to be almost entirely motivated

00:19:22.680 by their religious beliefs absent those beliefs their behavior would make absolutely no sense

00:19:27.960 with them it becomes perfectly understandable even rational the problem is that moderates of all

00:19:33.580 faiths are committed to reinterpreting or ignoring outright the most dangerous and absurd parts of their

00:19:39.580 scripture and this commitment is precisely what makes them moderates but it also requires some degree of

00:19:45.320 intellectual dishonesty because moderates can't acknowledge that their moderation comes from outside the

00:19:50.380 faith the doors leading out of scriptural literalism simply do not open from the inside in the 21st century the

00:19:57.860 moderates commitment to rationality human rights gender equality and every other modern value values that

00:20:04.080 as you say are potentially universal for human beings comes from the last thousand years of human

00:20:08.840 progress much of which was accomplished in spite of religion not because of it so when moderates claim

00:20:14.760 to find their modern ethical commitments within scripture it looks like an exercise in self-deception

00:20:20.340 the truth is that most of our modern values are antithetical to the specific teachings of judaism

00:20:26.240 christian christianity and islam and where we do find these values expressed in our holy books they're almost

00:20:31.520 never best expressed there moderates seem unwilling to grapple with the fact that all scriptures contain an

00:20:37.280 extraordinary amount of stupidity and barbarism that can always be rediscovered and made holy and new by

00:20:43.280 fundamentalists and there's no principle of moderation internal to the faith that prevents this these

00:20:49.680 fundamentalist readings are almost by definition more complete and consistent and therefore more

00:20:54.960 honest the fundamentalist picks up the book and says okay i'm just going to read every word of this

00:21:00.080 and do my best to understand what god wants from me i'll leave my personal biases completely out of it

00:21:05.360 conversely every moderate seems to believe that his interpretation and selective reading of scripture

00:21:10.320 is more accurate than god's literal words presumably god could have written the books any way he wanted

00:21:15.920 and if he wanted them to be understood in the spirit of 21st century secular rationality he could

00:21:20.640 have left out all those bits about stoning people to death for adultery or witchcraft it really isn't

00:21:26.160 hard to write a book that prohibits sexual slavery you just put in a few lines like don't take sex

00:21:31.680 slaves and when you fight a war and take prisoners as you inevitably will don't rape any of them and

00:21:37.040 yet god couldn't seem to manage it this is why the approach of a group like the islamic state holds a

00:21:42.400 certain intellectual appeal which admittedly sounds strange to say because the most straightforward

00:21:47.760 reading of scripture suggests that allah advises jihadists to take sex slaves from among the

00:21:52.480 conquered decapitate their enemies and so forth imagine that a literalist and a moderate have gone

00:21:57.760 to a restaurant for lunch and the menu promises fresh lobster as the specialty of the house loving

00:22:03.200 lobster the literalist simply places his order and waits the moderate does likewise but claims to be

00:22:08.880 entirely comfortable with the idea that the lobster might not really be a lobster after all

00:22:13.600 perhaps it's a goose and whatever it is it need not be quote fresh in any conventional sense for the

00:22:19.920 moderate understands that the meaning of this term shifts according to the context this would be a

00:22:24.800 very strange attitude to adopt toward lunch but it is even stranger when considering the most important

00:22:30.720 questions of existence what to live for what to die for and what to kill for consequently the appeal of

00:22:37.920 literalism isn't difficult to see human beings demand it in almost every area of their lives it seems to

00:22:43.840 me that religious people to the extent that they are certain that their scripture was written or

00:22:48.160 inspired by the creator of the universe demand it too so when you say that no religion is intrinsically

00:22:53.920 peaceful or warlike and that every scripture must be interpreted i think you run into problems

00:22:59.360 because many of these texts aren't all that elastic they aren't susceptible to just any interpretation

00:23:04.720 and they commit their adherence to specific beliefs and practices you can't say for instance that islam

00:23:10.400 recommends eating bacon and drinking alcohol and even if you could find some way of reading the

00:23:14.880 quran that would permit those things you can't say that its central message is that a devout muslim

00:23:20.640 should consume as much bacon and alcohol as humanly possible nor can one say that the central message

00:23:26.080 of islam is pacifism however one can say that about jainism all religions are not the same one simply

00:23:32.720 cannot say that the central message of the quran is respect for women as the moral and political

00:23:38.480 equals of men to the contrary one can say that under islam the central message is that women are

00:23:44.400 second-class citizens and the property of the men in their lives i want to be clear that when i use

00:23:49.360 terms such as pretense and intellectual dishonesty when we first met i wasn't casting judgment on you

00:23:55.280 personally simply living with the moderates dilemma may be the only way forward because the alternative

00:24:01.120 would be to radically edit these books i'm not such an idealist as to imagine that that will happen

00:24:06.560 we can't say listen you barbarians these holy books of yours are filled with murderous nonsense

00:24:12.880 in the interest of getting you to behave like civilized human beings we're going to redact them

00:24:16.800 and give you back something that reads like khalil gabran there you go don't you feel better now

00:24:21.440 that you no longer hate homosexuals however that's really what one should be able to do

00:24:26.000 in any intellectual tradition in the 21st century again this problem confronts religious moderates

00:24:31.200 everywhere but it's an excruciating problem for muslims yes i'd agree with that last sentence it's

00:24:38.320 certainly an excruciating one for muslims because it's currently and i've said this openly one of the

00:24:43.600 biggest challenges of our time particularly in a british and european context as witnessed by the sad and

00:24:49.280 horrendous atrocities committed against hostages in syria by british and european muslim terrorists

00:24:54.880 we definitely have to acknowledge that anything we say could apply to judaism and christianity

00:25:00.880 but a particular strand of a politicized version of the muslim faith is causing a disproportionate

00:25:06.560 share of the problems in the world so there are good reasons to focus on that strand i don't dispute any of that

00:25:12.080 just as a side note you say that in the 21st century we should have the right to edit any

00:25:18.960 holy book but of course there will always be value in preserving texts as they once were say a thousand

00:25:25.040 years ago even as historical documents i don't think the issue is the physical state of the texts

00:25:30.240 we're looking at this brings me neatly to everything else you said i think the challenge lies with

00:25:35.120 interpretation the methodologies behind reform where the reformists are in fact continuing a pretense and

00:25:41.520 whether this challenge is insurmountable i think it's about approach let's start with this you're

00:25:48.560 very clearly speaking from an intellectual perspective you're trying to approach this

00:25:52.560 consistently you're trying to approach this with an understanding of the challenges ahead

00:25:56.800 and you're trying to be sensitive and not harm my work i appreciate all of that but you also have

00:26:02.160 to recognize that you're speaking from the luxury of living in were probably born and raised in

00:26:06.960 a mature secular democratic society it can sometimes be very hard to make a mental leap and put yourself

00:26:13.760 into the mind of the average pakistani i know many pakistani atheists who alongside liberal muslims

00:26:19.360 are trying to democratize their society from within pakistan you and i can have this discussion

00:26:24.720 without fear but for them such open discussions can result in death of course and i hear from many of

00:26:31.200 these people i'm well aware that millions of nominally muslim freethinkers are in hiding out of necessity

00:26:36.960 this is one of the things i find so insufferable about the liberal backlash against critics of islam

00:26:42.080 especially the pernicious meme islamophobia by which anyone who thinks that islam merits special

00:26:47.760 concern at this moment in history is branded a bigot what worries me is that so many moderate muslims

00:26:53.280 believe that islamophobia is a bigger problem than literalist islam is they seem more outraged that

00:26:59.200 someone like me would equate jihad with holy war than that millions of their co-religionists do this

00:27:04.720 and commit atrocities as a result in recent days the islamic state has been burning prisoners alive

00:27:10.720 in cages and decapitating people by the dozen and gleefully posting videos attesting to the enormity

00:27:16.480 of their sadism online far from being their version of the milai massacre these crimes against

00:27:22.480 innocence represent what they unabashedly stand for in fact these ghastly videos have become a highly

00:27:28.320 successful recruiting tool inspiring jihadists from all over the world to travel to syria and iraq to

00:27:33.840 join the cause no doubt most muslims are horrified by this but the truth is that in the very week that

00:27:39.840 the islamic state was taking its barbarism to new heights we saw a much larger outcry in the muslim

00:27:45.520 world over the killing of three college students in north carolina amid circumstances that made it very

00:27:50.720 likely to have been an ordinary triple murder as opposed to a hate crime indicating some wave of anti-muslim

00:27:56.720 bigotry in the u.s this skewing of priorities produces a grotesque combination of political

00:28:03.120 sensitivity and moral callousness wherein hate crimes against muslims in the u.s which are tiny in

00:28:09.440 number often property related and still dwarfed fivefold by similar offenses against jews appear

00:28:15.440 to be of greater concern than the enslavement and obliteration of countless people throughout the

00:28:21.120 muslim world as you say even having a conversation like this is considered a killing offense in many

00:28:26.320 circles i hear from muslims who are afraid to tell their own parents that they have lost their

00:28:31.040 faith in god for fear of being murdered by them these people say things like if a liberal intellectual

00:28:36.400 like you can't speak about the link between specific doctrines and violence without being defamed as a

00:28:41.840 bigot what hope is there for someone like me who has to worry about being killed by her own

00:28:46.880 family or village for merely expressing doubts about god so yes i'm aware that one can't speak in pakistan

00:28:53.280 as i do here this raises an intellectual point and a pragmatic point intellectually i don't accept

00:29:00.960 that there's a correct reading of scripture in essence now you can point to many passages in the

00:29:06.000 quran and in a hadith and i've certainly read them because i memorized half the quran while a political

00:29:10.800 prisoner that you would find very problematic very concerning and on the face of it very violent

00:29:16.320 but as i've said to interpret any text one must have a methodology and in that methodology there

00:29:23.040 are jurisprudential linguistic philosophical historical and moral perspectives quentin skinner

00:29:30.400 of the cambridge school wrote a seminal essay called meaning and understanding in the history of ideas

00:29:36.000 this essay addresses the danger in assuming that there is ever a true reading of texts it asks the question

00:29:41.440 does any piece of writing speak for itself or do we impose certain values and judgments on that text

00:29:46.400 when interpreting it i personally do not use the term literal readings because this implies that such

00:29:52.080 readings are the correct literal meaning of the texts i would simply call it vacuous similar to the

00:29:58.400 printing press's influence on the reformation increased internet access has facilitated a more patchwork

00:30:03.840 democratized populist approach to interpreting islamic texts now the key for me and this is only the

00:30:10.880 intellectual point i'll move to the pragmatic in a minute is that if we accept that texts are in

00:30:16.000 fact a bunch of ideas thrown together and arbitrarily called a book and nothing in a vacuous reading of

00:30:21.840 a text makes it better than other interpretations the question is do we accept a vacuous approach to

00:30:27.920 reading scripture picking a passage and saying this is its true meaning regardless of everything else around

00:30:33.120 it or do we concede that perhaps there are other methods of interpretation it comes down to our

00:30:39.120 starting point if one were to assume that a correct unchanging reading of islamic scripture never

00:30:45.280 existed and that from inception to now it has always been in the spirit of its times then the reform

00:30:50.880 approach would be the intellectually consistent one indeed we would expect it to be the majority view

00:30:55.920 today this approach stands in opposition to that of the very organized vocal and violent minority

00:31:01.360 that has been shouting everyone else down if on the other hand we start from the premise that the

00:31:06.800 vacuous reading was the original approach to scripture then the reform view stands little

00:31:11.440 chance of success there may be no answer here i don't think this question has been resolved when

00:31:16.560 it comes to interpreting the u.s constitution or shakespeare or indeed any religious scripture

00:31:22.400 so pragmatically speaking what can be done if somebody in pakistan were to raise with me the issues you

00:31:28.800 have raised they could be killed in such a stifling atmosphere what is the solution i don't want our

00:31:34.560 listeners to think that all muslim majority countries are the same for instance in the middle

00:31:39.120 of ramadan in 2014 turkey witnessed a gay pride march a sensible way forward would be to establish

00:31:45.840 this idea that there is no correct reading of scripture this is especially easy for sunnis who

00:31:50.560 represent 80 percent of the muslims around the world because they have no clergy if a particular

00:31:55.920 passage says smite their necks to conclude despite all the passages that came before it and everything that

00:32:01.120 comes after it that this passage means smite their necks today is to engage in a certain method of

00:32:06.400 interpretation if we could popularize the understanding that all conclusions from scripture

00:32:11.360 are but interpretations then all variant readings of a holy book would become a matter of differing human

00:32:16.720 perspectives that would radically reduce the stakes and undermine the claim that the islamists are

00:32:22.560 in possession of god's words what is said in arabic and islamic terminology is this is nothing but your

00:32:28.240 ijtihad this is nothing but your interpretation of the texts as a whole there was a historical debate

00:32:35.360 about whether or not the doors of ijtihad were closed it concluded that they cannot be closed because

00:32:40.720 sunni muslims have no clergy anyone can interpret scripture if she is sufficiently learned in that

00:32:46.000 scripture which means that even extremists may interpret scripture the best way to undermine

00:32:50.960 extremists insistence the truth is on their side is to argue that theirs is merely one way of looking at

00:32:56.160 things the only truth is that there is no correct way to interpret scripture when you open it up like

00:33:02.000 that you're effectively saying there is no right answer and in the absence of a right answer pluralism

00:33:07.760 is the only option and pluralism will lead to secularism and to democracy and to human rights we

00:33:13.360 must all focus on those values without worrying about whether atheism is the most intellectually pure

00:33:18.560 approach i genuinely believe that if we focus on the pluralistic nature of interpretation and on

00:33:24.160 democracy human rights and secularism on these values we'll get to a time of peace and stability in

00:33:30.000 muslim majority countries that then allows for conversations like this

00:33:36.960 i wanted to also mention one anecdote which uh for for those who are listening um i think they would

00:33:42.400 find uh as another positive example of why this conversation was so important uh just today i spoke to

00:33:49.360 somebody who who's just started with uh with quilliam in fact the the world will know about this through

00:33:55.120 a press release we release tomorrow but i'm telling you here a day in advance that um that there was a

00:34:00.560 group in in britain known as al-mahajirun which was founded by omar bakri muhammad who used to be the

00:34:05.840 leader of my former islamist organization hezbo tahrir in the uk and then he split off and founded al-mahajirun

00:34:12.880 um produced none other than anjum chowdhury as its current uk leader and omar bakri is currently in

00:34:20.720 prison in lebanon after he had his uh permission to remain in the uk rescinded um it's now a banned

00:34:27.440 organization under britain's terrorism legislation um omar bakri's son recently uh was just uh killed

00:34:33.680 in syria fighting for isis um most of europe's support for isis has come from those remnants of

00:34:41.280 the al-mahajirun and their supporters across europe because they then morphed into groups known as

00:34:46.800 islam for uk islam for belgium islam for uh and the rest of the european countries so this group is

00:34:54.240 pretty much responsible for producing isis uh rank and file recruits from europe um a former leading

00:35:01.280 member of that organization who left a long time ago before they were banned um he was omar bakri

00:35:06.400 muhammad's uh one of his right-hand men in in the uk just today joined quilliam and uh there was a

00:35:12.320 great there was it's great news he's been on a journey himself but there was a the reason i mention

00:35:16.480 it is there was a final doubt in his mind that was nagging away him as to whether the term islamism

00:35:22.560 was was uh was a pragmatic term that we were using or indeed had some substance to this point of the

00:35:29.200 distinctions between you know because i i argue that islam is interpreted in many different ways and

00:35:33.600 and and and sufis interpret it in one way uh fundamentalists in another and islamists in yet

00:35:39.120 a third way um and he wasn't sure uh he had this nagging doubt as to whether islamism was indeed

00:35:44.160 another you know phenomenon within the the spectrum of interpretations um and and really you know was

00:35:50.320 trying to come to grips with some of this so i gave him an advanced copy of the book um because

00:35:53.680 we've been obviously uh working with him for a while to get him to the point where tomorrow we're

00:35:57.840 we're going to announce to the world through a press release that he's joined quilliam and uh this

00:36:02.240 conversation just fresh that i've had today with him and he said that he really enjoyed the book

00:36:06.320 he said that 10 years of proselytization known as dower within the islamist networks and actually

00:36:12.720 even within traditional islamic circles preaching um 10 years worth of islamic preaching couldn't have

00:36:18.480 achieved in his view what this one short 120 pages booklet has achieved and uh he's full of praise

00:36:25.760 for the fact that we've embarked on this conversation he is um and also credited the dialogue which i think

00:36:31.360 he's going to put in his statement that he releases tomorrow through quilliam as to why he's joined

00:36:35.680 he credits the dialogue itself to finally crystallizing his notion of not not just using

00:36:42.080 the term islamism but exactly what it is and why it's so important for us to challenge it head on

00:36:46.320 so there's been great progress even on a practical level with somebody like this and i just wanted to

00:36:50.880 convey that to you just to say that there is some positivity that is already emerging around

00:36:55.120 the fact that we've had this conversation oh that's great that's great well that's that's

00:36:58.960 incredibly gratifying and he's someone i would love to talk to at some point i would imagine he

00:37:03.040 would be a great guest on my podcast absolutely yeah if you'd like to continue listening to this

00:37:09.840 conversation you'll need to subscribe at sam harris.org once you do you'll get access to all

00:37:15.200 full-length episodes of the making sense podcast along with other subscriber-only content including

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Making Sense - Sam Harris - December 21, 2015

#23 — Islam and the Future of Tolerance (Audiobook Excerpts)

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