DEAR Islam,
You are facing a crisis of your own making. Your Sunni and Shia factions hate each other and are engaged in fruitless wars across the Islamic world.
You seem to appreciate the secular freedoms offered by 21st century Western nations (such as the right to build mosques near established churches), but cling to outdated beliefs like covering women from head to toe.
You put too much faith in a holy book — the Koran — written 1400 long years ago.
And a small but very violent minority of your supporters takes great delight in committing unspeakable atrocities against innocent people.
I am what you what call an infidel. An unbeliever. A kuffar. A crusader. An allegedly lesser being than those who follow Allah. You have many disparaging terms for people like me.
Yet because I’m not religious, I’m capable of seeing its flaws.
Take the Koran. You regard it as quite literally the holy word of God. Very little in this book can be abandoned because to deny any one part of Allah’s thoughts is to deny them all.
Read the full article by Tom Elliott at the Herald Sun (subscriber only).