Eric Ormsby, an Islamic apologist at McGill University (who has been featured at LGF before), writes about a “well-intentioned” book by a “moderate Muslim,” Feisal Abdul Rauf: What’s Right With Islam. (Hat tip: sharona.)

One of the more puzzling and, indeed, agonizing aspects of the aftermath of 9/11—especially for those who, like myself, have spent many years teaching and writing about Islam—has been the relative silence of American Muslims, a silence that by and large continues unbroken. In “What’s Right With Islam,” Mr. Abdul Rauf makes an effort to come to grips with this disastrous passivity on the part of Muslims, but his comments fall far short. To state that “suicide bombing is a tragic phenomenon that strikes at us all” and to follow this up with the remark that “it takes a terrible toll of innocent lives, while it also reflects the deep despair and hopelessness of its perpetrators” hardly seems commensurate with the magnitude of the disaster.

And of course, that remark about “despair and hopelessness” gives the lie to Ormsby’s claim of “good intentions.” This is the formulation universally used by Imams and Sheikhs when they wish to appear “moderate”—“condemn” suicide bombing, then, often in the same sentence, justify it. The message gets through loud and clear to their followers, while Western Islamic experts like Ormsby have a hook on which to hang their cherished illusions.

Even lunacy like this doesn’t change Ormsby’s “admiration,” although Abdul Raf’s attempt to graft shari’a onto American democracy does make Ormsby gulp:

Mr. Abdul Rauf’s strangest and most startling views are of America, which he sees as what he calls a “Sharia compliant” nation—that is, a nation whose underlying principles correspond to Islamic law. He bases this claim on an eccentric reading of the history of monotheism, allied with what he calls “the Abrahamic ethic.” Monotheism, he holds, implies social equality, so American “democratic capitalism” is somehow inherently Islamic. I can think of no compelling logical connection between monotheism and democracy; historically, indeed, the two have rarely gone together. That America is based on the same Judeo-Christian foundations as Islam would seem to me to account for the correspondences that Mr. Abdul Rauf detects. Some of his ethical pronouncements are equally suspect: “What you feel in your heart as good and right is the very foundation of divine law,” he claims, but how does this apply to someone like Muhammad Atta or his henchmen?

Ormsby concludes with a classic example of Western condescension mixed with dhimmitude, as the Islamic “expert” from the US claims a better grasp of Islam’s traditions than the Imam born and raised with them:

Islam certainly could use some sympathetic elucidation; but on the evidence of this book, too many Muslims, sadly unaware of their own traditions, might benefit by it even more.