Reza Aslan is Wrong About Islam and This is Why

[FarrenH]

9. Aslan was mostly correct

And Maher was DEFINITELY engaging in essentialism, as in, this is the *real*, monolithic Islam. I'm an open atheist who has had Muslim friends and lovers most of my life. It's an entire world in itself, full of a vast range of opinions - including a large range of interpretations in it's scholarship. When your Muslim friend's father comes back from Haj and tells you it was a moving experience but complains bitterly about how the Saudis treat women, when your hippy Muslim girlfriend earnestly shows you paintings of fairies by her traveller friend from the UK that she spent a few months wandering around the countryside with, when you see the Muslim family that treats you like their son reconcile themselves with their estranged gay son in a tearful reunion at their other son's secular wedding to a Christian, you accumulate a very different impression of Islam. It is not a monolothic entity and smug twits like Maher who engage in that kind of othering only foster more fear, division and ignorance in the world.