Dear Sir,

I am writing in response to Jonathan Starling’s column “Islamophobia and Orientalism”, which appeared on March 26.

Muslims, like anyone else, deserve dignity, protection and equality under the law. That should be obvious. But religion itself is not a person. It is a collection of claims about the nature of reality, and like any other set of claims it must remain open to criticism. Treating criticism of Islam as if it were hatred of Muslims is not tolerance — it is a way of shutting down discussion and placing certain beliefs beyond scrutiny.

It’s also essential to distinguish Islam from jihadist Islamism, just as we distinguish Christianity from Christian nationalism or Judaism from Orthodox Judaism. Islam, like Christianity, is a vast and diverse religion practised by ordinary and kind people who work, raise families and reject violence. Jihadist Islamism, however, is a political ideology that draws selectively from religious texts to justify authoritarian rule, repression and violence carried out in the name of faith on the far fringes of that religion.

Attempting to blur that distinction serves no one. It unfairly implicates ordinary believers while obscuring the real threat posed by extremists.

The same pattern appears across many belief systems. Every ideology — religious or political — has the potential to produce radical fringes. Those fringes must be confronted wherever they arise, whether in jihadist movements, Christian nationalism, far-right politics, or other forms of ideological absolutism.

Even movements that begin with admirable intentions can drift in troubling directions when the extremes within those movements are allowed to rise to the top of its platform. The civil rights movement inspired by Martin Luther King Jr was grounded in much needed universal principles of equality and justice. Yet, alongside that tradition there have also been radical factions such as Farrakhanism that replaced those principles with racial tribalism, hate baiting and religious grievance. When identity politics replaces universal values, societies don’t move forward — they fracture, as has our own in many ways tied to this very divisive racial extremism.

The rise of modern jihadist Islamism — sometimes accurately described as Islamofascism — is not a Western invention. It refers to an ideology that combines religious absolutism with authoritarian governance, suppressing dissent while claiming divine authority for its rule. Recognising that such movements exist is not Islamophobia; it is a necessary part of protecting secular society and defending the rights of Muslims and non-Muslims alike who are often the first victims of those ideologies.

Islamophobia refers to prejudice against Muslims as people. Criticism of extremist ideologies or theocratic political systems is something else entirely — it is part of defending a secular and pluralistic society.

Acknowledging the dangers of religious extremisms, no matter their doctrines, does not require pretending that Western governments are blameless. US policy toward Iran under the contemptible Trump/MAGA administration has been — by design — reckless and destabilising. Such policies deserve extreme criticism. But flawed Western policy does not transform theocratic repression into something benign.

Iran remains a state where ultimate authority lies with unelected clerics and where dissent has been met with decades of repression. Yet one of the most striking realities of recent years has been the resistance of the vast majority of ordinary Iranians themselves. Waves of protests have made it clear that many Iranians want greater freedom and democratic reform to return. Any honest discussion of Iran should recognise that reality rather than portraying the country as if its people were uniformly aligned with its rulers.

The casual use and abuse of terms such as “Islamophobia” to try and silence criticism follows a familiar pattern. So does the tendency to label critics of religion as “New Atheists”, as though scepticism toward religious claims were some newly invented ideology. In truth, the writers commonly grouped under that label — Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris — simply argued in unison that religious ideas should be examined with the same intellectual standards applied to any other claims about reality.

No belief system should be beyond criticism, especially when certain interpretations of those beliefs can and do inspire intolerance or violence.

Speaking personally, I approach these questions as an atheist, an anti-theist and a secular humanist who is forced to confront our known reality. I believe humanity ultimately needs to rely on reason, evidence and shared human values rather than ancient doctrines. Religion belongs in the historical record of human civilisation — studied, debated, appreciated and understood — but it should not determine how modern societies are governed.

If democratic societies are going to endure, they must be willing to challenge extremist ideas wherever they appear and question the dogmas that sustain them. That requires consistency.

When moderates refuse to confront the extremists within their own movements, those extremists eventually take centre stage, allowing other extremes to rise in rebellion. This is not a sustainable societal endeavour.

And if we criticise only extremism when it appears among our opponents, then we are not opposing extremism at all — we are simply choosing which version of it we are willing to tolerate or use to our advantage.

CORY POWELL

Warwick