One cannot discuss Islam in today’s society without being called a bigot or an Islamophobe if one chooses to offer an ounce of criticism of the religion.

One can question the religious motives of a Christian abortion clinic bomber without question, but if you dare ask if Islamic texts have anything to do with a group such as the self-proclaimed Islamic State, you’re a racist bigot.

This language and protection of Islam has been brought to the mainstream by such pseudo-liberals as Max Blumenthal and Glenn Greenwald who will bend over backwards to protects Islamists from religious criticisms.

This is the very problem being discussed in the new book by atheist Sam Harris and Muslim reformer Maajid Nawaz, Islam and the Future of Tolerance.

What makes this book so unique and so troubling to those pseudo-leftists, or as Nawaz calls them, the regressive left, is that Nawaz himself is a Muslim. This is troublesome because it negates their claims that only white male atheists discuss Islam and try to peg the discussions as racist.

Though as we have seen with Nawaz and ex-Muslim Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the regressive left step into their own racism and basically accuse the two of being race traitors.

This book is anything but racist or bigoted and instead is an in-depth discussion of Islamism, the Quran and the role Islamic beliefs and teachings play in the lives of groups like ISIS and Al Qaeda. While at the same time allowing the discussion to look at the political motives for the violence, something the regressive left will claim the book fails to do without reading a word.

Harris asks tough and honest questions about the subject and allows Nawaz more than enough room to answer and explain what Harris may have gotten right and sometimes totally misunderstood. You can quickly gauge the slight tension coming from the fact that it is well known that Harris thinks all of Islam is a myth, but Nawaz doesn’t let that deter him from stating his mission as a Muslim reformer.

Harris is also quick to offer his help in making sure Nawaz has the help he needs from the secular world to allow someone like Nawaz to hold his beliefs while working to eradicate the extremism that he believes has taken Islam hostage.

Harris argues well that Islam cannot be a religion of peace with texts that condone such violence, a charge that Nawaz has answers for but agrees are hard to turn a blind eye to.

Islam and the Future of Tolerance may be the best book on the subject on the market today for someone interested in diving into this discussion. While you can read Nawaz’s memoir, Radical or Hirsi Ali’s Heretic for a more in-depth look at the religion and the extremism plaguing it at the moment, Islam and the Future of Tolerance dives right into the questions many atheists or non-atheists alike have about what is being done by moderate Muslims in an effort to curb the extremism we are seeing today.