Believers and Deceivers

Mark Durie is an Anglican pastor and research fellow at the Centre for the Study of Islam and Other Faiths at the Melbourne School of Theology. I hadn’t read his book The Third Choice: Islam, Dhimmitude and Freedom, published in 2010, until the other day. It is a must read for anyone wanting or needing to understand Islam. In the latter category, I would particularly single out genuinely moderate people who are Muslims and also non-Muslim apologists for Islam. Clearly, both groups have no idea what Islam stands for and are in dire need of education.

Durie’s book is far scarier than the scary polemical works of Mark Steyn or even Oriana Fallaci. It is scarier because it is a work of scholarship and authority. It is too late in the date for me to review the book and, anyway, I am not remotely qualified to do so. I have two purposes: one – the main one – is to give a sense of 8¾ of the book’s 9 chapters; the other is to wonder aloud what the heck the remaining one-quarter of…