After ISIS: A Conversation with Robert Reilly
Robert Reilly, author of the Closing of the Muslim Mind and a veteran information specialist in the Iraq War, talks about the future of Islamic terrorism in the wake of ISIS's territorial demise.
Robert R. Reilly Subscribe
Robert R. Reilly is director of the Westminster Institute. He has taught at National Defense University (2007), and served in the Office of The Secretary of Defense, where he was Senior Advisor for Information Strategy (2002-2006). He participated in Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003 as Senior Advisor to the Iraqi Ministry of information. Before that, he was director of the Voice of America. He is the author of The Closing of the Muslim Mind: How Intellectual Suicide Created the Modern Islamist Crisis (ISI Books, 2010) and The Prospects and Perils of Catholic-Muslim Dialogue (Isaac Publishing, 2013) .
August 27, 2017.
The Joint Operations Command announced Iraqi forces held all 29 districts of the city of Mosul and were pursuing final mopping up operations. (AHMAD AL-RUBAYE/AFP/Getty Images)Trivializing Freedom at Its Source
Let me begin by saying that I love France. It is a country to which I have traveled often, and whose language I have struggled to learn. I am grieved to see her harmed by these latest murderous attacks.
However, I am also ashamed for her. To see emblazoned in lights on the Arc de Triomphe the words, “Paris est Charlie” and to hear “Je suis Charlie” chanted by large crowds and reproduced on innumerable placards, moves me to say, “Je ne suis pas Charlie.” I would have been happy, by the way, to say, “Je suis Juif,” in solidarity with the French Jews who were executed in the Jewish grocery store on that terrible day. Why not Charlie?
Is the Islamic State Islamic?
Instead, We Played Music
Reflecting on waning American influence in his country as shown by a recent poll, German finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble sarcastically said: “Perhaps now more of those in power in the United States will ask themselves: Why is America’s soft power, even though it is the indispensable nation, not so great as to be understood by the dumb Germans?” Actually, Americans in and out of power have for some time been asking themselves this question, as it applies to the entire world. It seems to puzzle us. Why have we lost our influence? Can’t the great communicators communicate anymore? Or is there…
The Formidable Philosophical Obstacles to Islamic Constitutionalism
In response to: Islam and Constitutionalism
Tunisia's Constitutional Assembly, November 2011Sohail Hashmi makes what seems to be a very reasonable case for the compatibility of Islam and constitutional government, and for the role of a reformed sharia as the foundation for the development of constitutionalism today. However, his case founders upon his not having given sufficient weight to the obstacles to this development, though his prescription for its achievement is essentially correct. Hashmi contends that "there is no obvious or inherent incompatibility between [constitutionalism] (or, for that matter, democracy) and Islamic political theory," though he leaves unmentioned the Islamic teaching of dīn wa-dawla (religion and state inseparably combined). He then more…
More Responses
In his essay, “Islam and Constitutionalism,” Sohail H. Hashmi boldly confronts a difficult question: Are Islam and constitutionalism compatible? On his account, a functioning constitutional system has three essential features: (1) limited and accountable government; (2) adherence to the rule of law; and (3) protection of fundamental rights. While virtually all majority-Muslim states have embraced…
I’m deeply grateful for Professor Hashmi’s lead essay and would recommend it to anyone interested in the intellectual history of Islam or curious about the distinctions between a modern Islamic view of the relationship between government and religion and the modern, dominant view of the Christian and post-Christian West. It is not, in fact, my…
Istanbul's Hagia Sophia (LALS Stock/Shutterstock.com)