Building on an earlier study with a similar title, Shaikh portrays Islam as a political movement which has conquered peoples around the world. Born a Muslim in India in 1928 and so fervent in his early faith that he killed three non-Muslim men in the riots of 1947, Shaikh has renounced Islam and become a leading spokesman against it. Shaikh sees Islam as a form of Arab imperialism, one he finds far more enduring than the British variant: if the latter required armies to be maintained, the former does not. Instead, it has become self-perpetuating by virtue of having conquered peoples' minds.
Like many anti-Islamic polemicists, Shaikh dwells on the career of the Prophet Muhammad, searching it out for inconsistencies (his attitude toward freedom of religion before and after reaching power) and unsavoriness (the Islamic portrayal of paradise shows that, in Islam, "sexual gratification is the ultimate goal of life"). Shaikh goes beyond other critiques in finding that the Qur'an portrays Muhammad to be God's superior and even "the only God"; from this he concludes that "Islam is Muhammadanism." The purpose of this religion, he finds, is "invented Islam to glorify Arabia." And the scheme worked, bringing "imperial dignity to the Arabs," subordinating huge numbers of non-Arab converts and their offspring to "Arab cultural hegemony," and making them permanent allies for the Arab cause. In his pungent words, every non-Arab Muslim has "turned into a moth, restless to cremate itself on the flame of Arab imperialism."
Shaikh has lived in Great Britain since 1956; he sees his writings, which have prompted some twenty edicts against his life, as his way to atone for the three murders a half century ago. Unlike Salman Rushdie, he lives openly ("Everyone is aware of my address") and, when asked if he expects to die violently, replies, "I want to die honourably."
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Nov. 25, 2006 update: The sad news is that Anwar Shaikh died today. The good news is that he died peacefully.
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