From Sydney to Peshawar – Islamic extremists are civilisation’s common enemy

Yesterday it was Sydney. Today it is Peshawar. Yesterday a coffee shop. Today a school. Yesterday a lone gunman. Today a gang of them. If anybody wondered about the global and diffuse nature of the challenge that Islamic fundamentalism poses, the last 24 hours have given another demonstration of the problem.

Yet what is amazing, after all these years, is how unconcerned many people remain with working out what is going on. How could the Taliban have chosen to attack a school in Peshawar? Why did Boko Haram steal the Nigerian schoolgirls? Why did the Sydney attacker fly that flag? Why do Isis fly theirs?  The Western world in particular seems to be made up of not only exceptionally slow, but actually reluctant, learners.

This week there is a new book out by the renowned scholar of Islam, Patrick Sookhdeo (I have had the honour of writing the introduction). It is called ‘Dawa: the Islamic strategy for reshaping the modern world’. It not only lays out what Islamic fundamentalists around the world are trying to do, but how a coalition of Muslims and non-Muslims can come together to defeat them. It is, I would suggest, fairly vital reading to educate people about what is going on. But that brings me to one other point.

A considerable – and growing – number of people worldwide now recognise that Muslims and non-Muslims are involved in a war against the literalists and fundamentalists within the Muslim religion. It is a war that is likely to continue for many decades to come, and the propaganda war, as much as the actual war, matters.

Which brings me to this morning’s Daily Mail front page. Last week the Democrat party in the US issued a deeply uninformed and damaging report which they appear to have hoped would damage the previous Republican administration.