Nathan Lean: It’s not the marriage of cherry-picked verses and literal fundamentalism — the usual modus operandi of Islam’s harshest critics — that is of greatest concern here. Instead, it’s the way in which their calls for reform morph into a sort of liberal religious jingoism. The idea that there’s a right way to do religion is far too simplistic, and Hirsi Ali and Nomani appear not to see that. Their didactic spiels offer to Muslims one of two options: their allegedly enlightened brand of Islam or the flawed version of the masses. Any hesitancy to adopt the former suggests wholesale acceptance of the latter. The values they claim to champion — gender equality, nonviolence, rationality, and self-critique — are virtuous for sure, and ones that, in their view, any reasonable human being should welcome. The problem, though, is that they elevate themselves above the rest of the Muslim community and, looking down upon it from their throne of high morality, delineate the acceptable parameters of practicing religion. It is against their world and its paradigms that all followers of Islam must measure themselves. […] The soft Islamophobia of Western expectations, to paraphrase a Bush speechwriter’s axiom — is luring. It is tempting to lust, hastily, after the values of liberalism without considering how the process of arriving at those values may undermine them altogether, in this case barreling so headstrong into the winds of Islamic reform that the voices of Muslims worldwide, who can articulate their desire and plans for such things if they wish, are lost as Hirsi Ali, Nomani, and their supporters buzz by them with a new and improved version of their religion. The idea that reform is necessary has a haughty ring to it, anyways. It’s premised on the idea that there’s something wrong with Islam, and while examples of reform within the tradition do exist, Muslims who find meaning in their religion as it is shouldn’t be compelled to change their beliefs at the whims of others. In the case that some Muslims choose a path of reform, it won’t be because activists with books to plug go on cable television and lay out their preferred rules of play. It will be because those Muslims decided that such a thing was needed to begin with, and then, on their own accord, determined the religious path that best reflects their values. The message of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Asra Nomani, and their troupe of fellow reformists presents to Americans and Europeans an opportunity to confirm their place in the global hierarchy of good values, and reinforce the woeful plight of Muslims who, in their view, would do well to adapt a verse from Psalms: Taste and see that the West is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in it. It’s a variation of the words in the Book of Matthew, though, that best sum up this group of activists: “Watch out for false prophets. For they come to you in sheep’s clothing, but they’re not sheep at all.” More here.