Anyone who has been a regular reader of my words over the last decade will know where I stand regarding the difference between Islam and Muslims. My position, that I vehemently dislike Islam but this dislike does not extend to individual Muslims, has not always gone down well with some readers, either on blogs or on social media. I believe that my dislike is justified because of what Islam does both to societies and to individuals.

I can understand the viewpoints of those who disagree with me on this matter and can understand their concerns that the archetype of the integrated, thinking and moderate Muslim, who I call the ‘Joe Mohammed from the tyre shop’ type, is unrealistic. Those who disagree with me on this matter believe that at some point ‘Joe Mohammed’ will turn suddenly into a raging jihadi either because they’ve freely decided to go raging jihadi or they are coerced into being this way by other Muslims.

I can see where my critics are coming from, because as any observation of Muslim cultures and societies shows us, these cultures and societies which are created or ruled under the auspices of Islam, are often hell holes of violence, oppression, ignorance and death. But that attitude doesn’t take into account that there are outliers in Islamic cultures and societies, Muslims who think differently and who ask awkward questions about Islam and Islamic attitudes.

These thinking Muslims are going out and challenging established hyper-conservative religious views on everything from women’s rights to freedom of expression and on the Jew hatred that has been baked into Islam since Mohammed’s time. Sometimes, as in the case of the liberal Muslim I’m extensively quoting below, they have to fight back against bad Islamic attitudes whilst living in countries where doing this is difficult or dangerous.

When I encountered this liberal Zionist Muslim’s thread on the X platform I was transfixed. I was delighted to read the words of a Muslim who had come to what to my mind is clearly a liberal belief position through study and being open minded. I’m putting the whole of this liberal Muslim’s thread from X up in in its entirety because it’s really worth reading.

Although the world is facing terrible problems and ongoing atrocities where the blame for them can be laid at the feet of Islam and some of its followers, people like this person give me hope and represent the sort of Muslim that makes me want to dance around my kitchen singing ‘Od Yavo Shalom Alienu’. Islam as an ideology should rightly in my view be looked on with some suspicion and indeed similar suspicion as we would look at other similar all encompassing ideologies, such as Marxism, Fascism and National Socialism, but that doesn’t mean that every Muslim should be under suspicion. Some like this person, have seen Islam’s bad side and wish to stand with those outside Islam to counter the wrongness that they’ve also seen. We should not be suspicious of liberal and thinking Muslims, on the contrary we should protect, promote and praise them.