Sir, – Your call for liberals and feminists to deepen their knowledge of the Muslim world is welcome ("Rise of radical jihadism", Editorial, Irish Times, September 7th).
However, these are the very people whose simple-minded belief in a rational world and contempt for the West’s Judeo-Christian heritage are part of the problem. This blinds them to the fact that our concepts of democracy, liberalism and secularism are seen as alien in many parts of the world.
The influential Islamist thinker Sayyid Qutb (1906 – 1966) argued that the concept of Islam as a totality (“Tawhid”) made it unique. This doctrine makes it impossible to separate Islam from every aspect of life and government. Perhaps this helps explain why 45 Muslim-majority states have now rejected the 1948 UN Declaration of Human Rights in favour of the rival 1990 Cairo Declaration. It states that all human rights, especially women’s rights, are subject to sharia law.– Yours, etc,
KARL MARTIN,
Bayside,
Dublin 13.