Since 9/11, Western leaders have repeatedly insisted that radical Islam has little to do with the religion’s mainstream teachings — and that Islam, as a whole, is good.
But historian and author Raymond Ibrahim argues that this comforting narrative ignores centuries of religious texts, legal traditions, and historical precedent.
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“Unfortunately here in the West, it’s become so mangled and, you know, apparently an impossible question to answer,” Ibrahim tells Freitas.
Islam, Ibrahim says, is “actually very simple, and every Muslim knows what Islam teaches.”
Some of what people believe is simply “radical Islam” are beliefs like “killing the apostate or having slaves, having sex slaves, concubines, treating the non-Muslim inferior, as an inferior subject,” and “killing someone because he blasphemed against Muhammad.”
“All of these
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