Reader Randall Parker pointed out this UPI story about the leader of a “small” Muslim reform movement (if there’s a “large” reform movement I haven’t heard about it), who warns the West about the true goals of Islam.

“The dialogue is not proceeding well because of the two-facedness of most Muslim interlocutors on the one hand and the gullibility of well-meaning Western idealists on the other,” said Bassam Tibi, in an interview with United Press International.

Syrian-born Tibi, who claims to be a direct descendant of the prophet Mohammed and teaches political science at Goettingen University in Germany, appealed for intellectual honesty between both parties in these exchanges.

“First, both sides should acknowledge candidly that although they might use identical terms these mean different things to each of them. The word ‘peace,’ for example, implies to a Muslim the extension of the Dar al-Islam — or ‘House of Islam’ — to the entire world,” explained Tibi, who is also a research scholar at Harvard University.

“This is completely different from the Enlightenment concept of eternal peace that dominates Western thought, a concept developed by (18th-century philosopher) Immanuel Kant.”

“Similarly, when Muslims and the Western heirs of the Enlightenment speak of tolerance they have different things in mind. In Islamic terminology, this term implies abiding non-Islamic monotheists, such as Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians, as second-class believers. They are ‘dhimmi,’ a protected but politically immature minority.”

According to Tibi, the quest of converting the entire world to Islam is an immutable fixture of the Muslim worldview. Only if this task is accomplished — if the world has become a “Dar al-Islam” — will it also be a “Dar a-Salam,” or a house of peace.