We Need to Talk About Islam

Why liberal democracy requires us to confront the one ideology we are forbidden to criticize.

A version of this essay was published in White Rose Magazine.

Societies and sub-communities are defined by what they tolerate, not by their high-minded manifestos. When a group refuses to enforce its own moral guardrails—especially when social, financial, or political incentives push it to look the other way—its stated values erode until they become meaningless. While this story is not exclusive to Islam, it is arguably the defining story of Islam. And if we continue to self-censor out of fear and politeness, it may become the defining story of the West—a cautionary tale of how enlightened liberal democracies surrendered their own freedom by failing to enforce their core values.

In a healthy pluralistic democracy, accountability relies on a double guardrail. First, sub-communities self-police. Internal shaming and social disapproval are the first line of defense when a member violates foundational norms. This self-correction works best when it comes from within the tribe. Ongoing violations should result in more severe social consequences, up until total excommunication from the group. But if a group fails to discipline its violators, the behavior metastasizes, forcing the broader host society to step in with escalating social and legal consequences. Catching and stamping out illiberalism early, inside the group, is always less painful than resolving a full-blown institutional and cross-tribal crisis later.

For decades, however, anyone who raised concerns about the illiberal and violent elements within Islamic orthodoxy was routinely branded an “Islamophobe.” That label worked like a social threat, teaching millions of people to self-censor simply to avoid public stigma (disclosure: I was one of those people). Rationalized under the guise of politeness or cultural humility, this enforced silence has allowed serious threats to liberal democracy to grow unchecked.

To break this silence, we must draw a clear line: genuine hatred, dehumanization, and bigotry directed at individual Muslims simply for their faith are vile and deserve total rejection. But honest, principled critique of an ideological and political system is not bigotry. Weaponizing “Islamophobia” to collapse the distinction between anti-Muslim hatred and legitimate theological critique is a bad-faith maneuver designed to make an entire belief system immune to questioning.

Silence is not empathy. It is a surrender of the liberal order. We need to talk about Islam directly, because it presents a unique, large-scale, and structurally unchecked challenge to liberal democracies—and because it remains the one global ideology we are discouraged from confronting.

The Dominance of Orthodoxy

To treat Islam as merely one of many equivalent personal faiths is to ignore its history, theology, and foundational texts. Islam is not simply a system of private devotion; it is a complete social order that explicitly claims authority over both the individual and the state (din, dunya, dawla).

Islam holds no monopoly on dangerous scriptures or followers inclined to interpret them violently. Christianity and Judaism contained plenty of illiberal doctrines, and their reform was neither easy nor peaceful. It took centuries of brutal conflict, internal dissent, and immense personal sacrifice by brave reformers to ensure that moderation won out and religious authority yielded to secular law. That struggle established a vital precedent: divine law must submit to individual conscience and democratic legislation. Mainstream Islamic orthodoxy has built no comparable, functioning self-limiting mechanisms.

Whether one views fundamentalism as inherent to the foundational texts or as a historically contingent reality, the practical outcome is the same: hardline interpretations currently hold institutional dominance. The reason reform has failed to take root at scale is not a lack of moderate Muslims who reject Sharia and jihad. It is that orthodox Islam remains structurally totalizing, claiming jurisdiction over both adherents and non-believers. This places internal reformers in immediate physical and social peril the moment they challenge traditionalist authority. But while internal dissidents face immense personal risk, broader civil society faces no such constraint. Host societies have a duty to apply uncompromising normative pressure—demanding a clear, explicit line that makes religious practice and what it preaches compatible with liberal democracy.

Where other major traditions were forced to recontextualize their violent and illiberal scriptures, dominant Islamic institutions continue to preserve doctrines incompatible with a free society:

• Political Jihad: The doctrine of coercive or subversive struggle to advance the political dominance of the faith.

• The Supremacy of Sharia: The claim that divine law overrides democratic legislation, denying equal rights based on gender or creed, and demanding severe penalties for apostasy and blasphemy.

Nowhere is this surrender clearer than in our self-imposed taboos surrounding the depiction of the Prophet Muhammad. Following repeated threats and acts of violent retribution, Western media, publishing houses, and public institutions quietly capitulated—adopting a de facto Islamic blasphemy code out of fear. When a liberal democracy allows violent intimidation to dictate what can be drawn, written, or published, it accepts that religious dogma takes precedence over its first and most essential right: freedom of speech. And if we have already agreed to compromise on our most treasured right, then is it that unthinkable that we’ll eventually succumb to the same degradations of our liberal democracy that have been seen in Europe, from “no-go zones” to Sharia councils to public calls for prayer?

If Islam is to coexist with liberal democracy, it will require a formal theological break—one where a critical mass of Muslim moderates explicitly severs ties with fundamentalist orthodoxy and builds institutions that openly repudiate political jihad and Sharia legal claims. Until that happens, a community that refuses to purge its radical elements will inevitably be defined by them.

The Voices We Fail to Listen To

We are often told that outside critique of Islam is inherently bigoted. Yet much ink has been spilled by current and former Muslims, as well as courageous scholars, warning of the structural dangers posed by unchecked orthodoxy. From internal reformers pleading for theological reinterpretation to ex-Muslim dissidents who face real physical threats for speaking out, the most unsparing assessments of Islamic doctrine frequently come from those who know it best.

These critics point to a fundamental distinction between Islam and other major world religions. As scholar A. C. Rosenthal articulated recently, while most modern faiths have accepted a boundary between personal conscience and public law, orthodox Islam remains uniquely structured around asserting political and legal jurisdiction over people who never chose it.

The tragedy is that when Western gatekeepers shut down honest debate to prevent “Islamophobia,” they do not protect vulnerable minorities—they betray the very reformists and dissidents fighting for freedom from within. By treating orthodox institutions as the sole voice of the Muslim community, the host society starves internal reformers of the support they desperately need to challenge fundamentalist authority.

The Institutional Incentive Problem

This failure of support creates a dangerous incentive structure within traditionalist institutions. It is easy enough for public figures or religious organizations to issue boilerplate condemnations of terrorism after a tragedy occurs—though even then, political leaders often hesitate when pressed to denounce specific extremist networks or hostile foreign regimes.

The real test lies in what is tolerated and rewarded from the pulpit and the flock day in and day out. While comprehensive empirical data on internal congregational dynamics is difficult to gather, the underlying incentive structure facing religious leaders is stark: Which cleric is more likely to face internal pushback, loss of funding, or a drop in followers—one who unequivocally denounces political jihad, rejects Sharia legal supremacy, and champions absolute freedom of conscience, or one who speaks the traditional language of orthodoxy?

When fundamentalist interpretations carry low social costs and high communal rewards—while reformist positions carry severe personal risks—the trajectory of the institution is set. Recent polling indicating that 44 percent of Muslim Americans hold a favorable view of Hamas, whatever the methodological caveats, points to a troubling reality: support for illiberalism and violence is not a negligible fringe, but a metastasizing strain that internal and external gatekeepers have failed to contain.

This challenge is exacerbated when sub-communities form insular physical or social enclaves. Geographic concentration and cultural isolation make it easier for fundamentalist norms to grow unhindered by the assimilative pressures of the host society. When insularity is combined with a host society terrified of being labeled bigoted, a dangerous shield is created. Whether dealing with radical pulpit rhetoric or systemic corruption within community institutions—such as the recent public oversight failures surrounding insular programs in Minnesota—any outside effort to enforce universal legal or moral standards is routinely met with accusations of racism or “Islamophobia.” Too often, host-society gatekeepers back down, allowing illiberalism to entrench itself within the enclave until the damage is already done. Without strong, external normative pressure from broader civil society demanding adherence to liberal democratic guardrails, the radical fringe will continue to control the mainstream.

Reclaiming Civic Enforcement

To understand how host societies must respond, we need to be precise about what enforcement actually means. State coercion, speech suppression, and religious tests have no place in a free society. The state’s role is strictly bound by the rule of law: it must intervene only when statutes are broken, or when sub-communities demand legal exemptions that violate equal treatment under the law.

Beyond the law lies the essential realm of civic boundaries. Pluralistic societies depend on strong cultural taboos to protect their foundational values: individual liberty, equal rights regardless of gender or creed, and the absolute separation of church and state.

When individuals or institutions advocate for doctrines that directly conflict with these principles, the response of civil society must not be polite silence or accommodating deference. Shaming illiberal ideas is a necessary cultural tool. Those who promote doctrines incompatible with democracy—along with the opportunistic politicians who court them—must be publicly challenged, named as anti-democratic, and socially ostracized.

This is not a call for McCarthyism, permanent blacklisting, or “canceling” Muslims. To prevent civic enforcement from devolving into mob rule, a liberal society must always maintain the open door principle: a permanent offer of redemption. Ostracism is directed specifically at those who explicitly advocate for illiberalism and those who refuse to police their own ranks. But the door remains open to anyone ready to renounce fundamentalism, reject Sharia legal supremacy, and explicitly align with the foundational values of a free society.

We must extend to Islam the exact same unsparing intellectual critique that we apply to any other belief system. To remain silent out of social fear is not tolerance. It is an act of cowardice that abandons internal reformers, destabilizes host communities and societies, and surrenders the liberal order to the very doctrines seeking to dismantle it. We need to talk about Islam—openly, critically, and without apology.