Reddit reviews Citizen Islam: The Future of Muslim Integration in the West

I'm sure I'm to the left of this sub, but that's irrelevant.

You've misquoted me, I didn't say Islam is incompatible with Western culture, I said
>Maher's anti-religiosity isn't Islam specific, Islam just has the most incompatibilities with western culture of the popular religions at present.

Yes, there are plenty of Muslims who have had incredible contributions to systems used in the West and to western nations generally but the values and ideas that shape the west have had a lot more time to brush up against Judaism and Christianity which have been popular in the west for centuries. Both Judaism and Christianity also have had popular interpretations with huge volumes of incompatibilities with western culture but over time both religions have morphed into less regressive / oppressive versions of themselves through cultural combat with enlightenment values.

A strict reading of significant parts of the Torah and New Testament will result in a very long list of incompatibilities with our current culture as well but these readings have been depopularized over time while coexisting with liberal values. Interpretations that de-emphasize the areas of incompatibility and emphasize the areas of compatibility are possible within Islam just as they were possible with Judaism and Christianity.

It's inarguable that Western culture and Islam have developed largely in separate ecosystems which has given Islam less time for creative destruction with enlightenment values that are needed to reconcile some of these conflicts. Short of taking a cultural relativist approach to this disconnect, I'm not sure how any liberal could contest this. That relativism would also come with strings attached that prevent criticism of the repression present in many of these countries in which the more harmful or regressive interpretations of Islam are popularized as well which I'd hope liberals would find unacceptable.

At this point there aren't really any Christian theocracies that are burning witches or holding inquisitions, but there are still Muslim theocracies that are killing apostates and pushing sexist, homophobic, and anti-pluralistic policies and laws that need to be directly addressed and condemned. Maher is right to call out these injustices and those who've followed him for any length of time are aware that he's an equal opportunity offender in that he criticizes illiberalism (as he sees it) whether it's in Utah or Riyadh. Maher uses the 'American Taliban' label to refer to the Tea Party and other Christian conservatives who try to tear down the barrier between church and state; 'Religious' his documentary-of-sorts on the subject went through all sorts of pseudo-science and focused far more on Christiainity than Islam.

I don't think Maher is the best voice on the subject, but I do think he gets more flak on the subject than he deserves and I think liberals make themselves look bad by dismissing some of what he says in the way they do with derisive claims of 'Islamophobia' conflating his beliefs with those of actual Islamophobes.

Maajid Nawaaz is a fantastic source for quality writing on the subject and he frequently raises these challenges in productive conversations. The book, Citizen Islam does a very good job of establishing how the incompatibilities between some interpretations of Islam that are popular today are not fundamental to Islam itself and how Muslims can integrate into western society very successfully without having to give up on their cultural and religious heritage.