On Islam: We Are Ignorant
Read the conversation in order here, here and finally here.
And we are "determined to miss the obvious."In 19th-century parlance, “Islamism” and “Islam” were synonymous, and meant to be equivalent to “Catholicism,” “Protestantism,” and “Judaism” — not to “radical” or “fundamentalist” sects of any of these religions. Sir Henry Layard, the British archeologist, writer, and diplomat, described an abhorrent spectacle of such “Islamism” (i.e., Islam) that he witnessed in the heart of Istanbul, during the autumn of 1843:
An Armenian who had embraced Islamism [i.e., Islam] had returned to his former faith. For his apostasy he was condemned to death according to the Mohammedan law. His execution took place, accompanied by details of studied insult and indignity directed against Christianity and Europeans in general. The corpse was exposed in one of the most public and frequented places in Stamboul, and the head, which had been severed from the body, was placed upon it, covered by a European hat. [Early Adventures in Persia, Susiana, and Babylonia, London, 1887, pp. 454-55.]