103would be patently ridiculous to say that colonialism
played no role whatsoever. I bring up the history
simply to highlight a relative point. Islamist and
jihadist refusal to cohabit with non- Muslims is
relatively worse today than in the past. Witness the
Islamic State’s desire in Iraq to slaughter Yazidi
men and enslave their women wholesale because
they do not fi t a narrow defi nition of “ people of the
book.” However, the area known today as Iraq has
been Muslim- majority for centuries; India, too, was
ruled by Muslims for centuries. Yet in the former,
Christians and Yazidis remained a minority without
wholesale slaughter, and in the latter, Hindus re-
mained a majority. This jihadist inability to recon-
cile anyone but Jews and Christians as protected
people (if that) is a modern twist on our worst me-
dieval prejudices.
Ibn ‘Arabi’s theories, and the view of followers of
Imam al- Ash’ari that only malicious, arrogant rejec-
tion was deserving of the label kafi r, practically do
away with the concept of infi del, to be honest. I’m
arguing that these debates were mostly settled. But
they’ve been revived for vari ous ideological, socio-
economic, and postcolonial reasons.
Let’s take your second central message of the
Qur’an, paradise. I have every res pect for Ali A.
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