At what point did atheists' informed criticism of religions give way to a single-minded and irrational focus on the 'evils' of Islam and spawn an Islamophobia industry?

‘Religious wars’ have been raging for millennia, but increasingly, it appears, it doesn’t need an organised religion for the sparks to fly. A ‘flame war’ has been in the works over the past fortnight, with a godless flock of atheists coming in for pointed criticism on the grounds that their “secular” sneering of religions of all hues had, since the September 2001 terror attacks, given way to an excessive criticism on Islam – and to blatant Islamophobia’.

The debate had been stirred by two recent articles, one in Salon and another on Al Jazeera’s website, but the pot has been kept boiling with the thrust and parry of heated debate. As Firstpost had noted last week, Nathan Lean, author of the Islamophobia Industry, wrote that a new crop of atheists, who claim that they were motivated by scientific rationalisation of their irreligious views, had been emboldened by the newfound religious fervor in the wake of the terrorist attacks into joining “a growing chorus of Muslim-haters, mixing their abhorrence of religion in general with a specific distaste for Islam.”

In particular, Lean called out three leading New Atheists — Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens — for their “anti-Muslim hate”, which had forced them to shift their attention away from “trying to convince people that God is a myth” into embracing the “monster narrative of the day.” That, he said, is “not rational or enlightening or ‘free thinking’ or even intelligent. That’s opportunism.”

Similarly, Murtaza Hussain, a Toronto-based scholar of Mideast Politics, offered a critique of the atheists’ excessive preoccupation with painting Islam as evil and likened it to those from an earlier era who justified racism on pseudo-scientific grounds.

That led to a spirited challenge by Harris, one of those who felt libelled by the Hussain article, who had a long email spat with Guardian columnist Glenn Greenwald, who had Tweeted out the article. (A brief summary here.)

But no truce has been called in that godless war yet. After the email exchange with Harris, Greenwald doubled down with yet more trenchant criticism of Harris’ work, and noted in a Guardian column, with extensive citing of Harris’ published works, that Harris’ worldview amounted to an acute case of Islamophobia.

Harris and others like him, wrote Greenwald, “spout and promote Islamophobia under the guise of rational atheism.” The key point, he adds, is that Harris “does far, far more than voice criticisms of Islam as part of a general critique of religion. He has repeatedly made clear that he thinks Islam is uniquely threatening..., has insisted that there are unique dangers from Muslims possessing nuclear weapons, as opposed to nice western Christians (the only ones to ever use them) or those kind Israeli Jews, (and) in his (book) End of Faith, he claimed that ‘Islam, more than any other religion human beings have devised, has all the makings of a thoroughgoing cult of death.’”

Greenwald waded in even further to say that when criticism of religion “morphs into an undue focus on Islam - particularly at the same time the western world has been engaged in a decade-long splurge of violence, aggression and human rights abuses against Muslims, justified by a sustained demonization campaign - then I find these objections to the New Atheists completely warranted.” That he said, was just as true of Dawkin’s proclamation that "[I] often say Islam [is the] greatest force for evil today" and of Hitchens' “various grotesque invocations of Islam to justify violence, including advocating cluster bombs because ‘if they're bearing a Koran over their heart, it'll go straight through that, too". And it was just as true of Harris' argument of many years that Islam poses unique threats beyond what Christianity, Judaism, and the other religions of the world pose.

Harris, however, responded on his blog to defend himself against and dismiss the charge of Islamophobia.

“Contrary to Greenwald’s assertion,” Harris writes, “my condemnation of Islam does not apply to all members of a group or the group itself based on the bad acts of specific individuals in that group.’ My condemnation applies to the doctrines of Islam and to the ways in which they reliably produce these ‘bad acts.’”

Unfortunately, in the case of Islam, adds Harris, “the bad acts of the worst individuals—the jihadists, the murderers of apostates, and the men who treat their wives and daughters like chattel—are the best examples of the doctrine in practice. Those who adhere most strictly to the actual teachings of Islam, those who expound its timeless dogma most honestly, are precisely the people whom Greenwald and other obscurantists want us to believe least represent the faith.”

At this moment in history, writes Harris, “there is only one religion that systematically stifles free expression with credible threats of violence. The truth is, we have already lost our First Amendment rights with respect to Islam—and because they brand any observation of this fact a symptom of Islamophobia, Muslim apologists like Greenwald are largely to blame.”

Harris then issued a public dare to Greenwald: that they settle their dispute by holding what he called “simultaneous cartoon contests”. Greenwald, he said, could use his Guardian blog to solicit cartoons about Islam, and he would use his website to run a similar contest for any other faith on earth. But Greenwald, he claims, did not take up the challenge. “As will come as no surprise, the man immediately started sputtering non-sequiturs,” adds Harris.

The gloves came off even further. Harris writes: “Liberals like Greenwald, who are so eager to swing the flail of Islamophobia, display a sickening insensitivity to the plight of women, homosexuals, and freethinkers throughout the Muslim world.” At this moment, he adds, “millions of women and girls have been abandoned to illiteracy, compulsory marriage, and lives of slavery and abuse under the guise of 'multiculturalism' and 'religious sensitivity.' And the most liberal Muslim minds are forced into hiding. The best way to address this problem is by no means obvious. But lying about its cause, and defaming those who speak honestly in defense of a global civil society, seems a very unlikely path to a solution.”

The final word on this impassioned debate may not have been said. Read Greenwald’s searing critique of Harris' Islamophobia here, Harris' counter-punch here, and another defence of Harris here.