46their religious beliefs. Absent those beliefs, their
be hav ior would make absolutely no sense; with
them, it becomes perfectly understandable, even
rational.
As you know, the public conversation about the
connection between Islamic ideology and Muslim
intolerance and vio lence has been stifl ed by po-
liti cal correctness. In the West, there is now a large
industry of apology and obfuscation designed, it
would seem, to protect Muslims from having to
grapple with the kinds of facts we’ve been talking
about. The humanities and social science depart-
ments of every university are fi lled with scholars
and pseudo- scholars— deemed to be experts in
terrorism, religion, Islamic jurisprudence, anthro-
pology, po liti cal science, and other fi elds— who
claim that Muslim extremism is never what it
seems. These experts insist that we can never take
Islamists and jihadists at their word and that none
of their declarations about God, paradise, mar-
tyrdom, and the evils of apostasy have anything to
do with their real motivations.
When one asks what the motivations of Islamists
and jihadists actually are, one encounters a tsunami
of liberal delusion. Needless to say, the West is to
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