Thinking About Islam and Public Policy

How Western governments deal with the threat of militant Islam is a vexed issue. Easy answers are hard to come by. Yet a new volume seeks to carefully explore such issues. I refer to Human Rights and Public Policy, edited by David Claydon (Acorn Press, 2009).

The nineteen essays contained in this book deal with a number of aspects of Islam, and how politicians and policy makers should think about this faith. It examines a number of topics, including: sharia law, the role of women in Islam, the nature of jihad, Islamic financing, the place of Muhammad, and the state of human rights in Muslim nations.

Although this is mainly an Australian work (it is published in Australia and 9 of its 15 authors are Australian), most of this volume looks at Islam from a global perspective. Only several chapters deal specifically with the Australian situation. Thus all Western policy makers can find much of profit in these pages.

Australian expert on Islam Mark Durie has written a number of…