Bill Maher had hosted Ben Affleck and author Sam Harris Friday on HBO’s “Real Time With Bill Maher" for a discussion of Islam. Maher stated his belief that Islam doesn’t practice liberal principles. Harris agreed and added, “Islam, at the moment, is the motherlode of bad ideas."
As an orthodox and orthoprax Muslim I view this comment by ignorant atheistic xenophobes towards Islam, positively, because it acknowledge Islam as an ideological competitor of West which has grandiose delusions about it’s IQ. Ben Gurion used to say Pakistan whose constitution is based on Quran and Sunnah, is ideological challenge for Israel which is based on a pseudo-religious racial and secular ideology while Quran transcends racial supremacism and blind and unjust patriotism. The difference is that we consider it mother lode of spiritual gold while xenophobes consider it a mother lode of being bad and evil, something which is inconsistent for those who do not believe in objective evil. It’s likely the majority of Sicily followed Islam by the time of the Norman conquestThe reign of Roger II from 1130 to 1154 was particularly tolerant. It was during his reign that the great geographer al-Idrisi completed his world atlas known as Tabula Rogeriana.
A spiritual Ishmaelite 