Islam & Freedom: A Conversation with Rory Stewart (Episode  

Rory says that only Muslim scholars should be allowed to criticise Islam but that's actually the root of the problem: IT'S NOT ALLOWED.

The logic of "neither you nor I are Muslims, therefore we don't have the right to criticise Islam" is quite funny to me because, guess what? When I was a Muslim-as a native Arabic speaker-I didn't have the right to criticise Islam either. You know why? Because that could've cost me my life. So it seems like even Muslims themselves aren't allowed to do so.

Sam Harris is a rare example of intellectual honesty.

Decent people lived in Nazi Germany. Most people in Stalin's USSR were decent. Because most Muslims are decent doesn't mean Islam is not a truly awful doctrine in the round.

This guy starts off saying he could never be friebds with a Nazi. Then, by the end, he's acknowledging that he's friends with people who would demand the murder of apostates

Sam Harris is not bigoted at all and as Muslim I am very grateful that he cares so much about our religion and I say he is trying to show what is the problem with our religion so he is in a way trying to just diagnose what is the problem in our religion and not a person attacking a civilization but rather trying to help

It is Islamophobic to say that all Muslims are pro-Jihad/terrorism (which, of course, they are not). But it is NOT Islamophobic to say that Islam, as a religion of millions, has - in certain specific quarters - a deep problem of intolerance, violence and terror. That is what Sam is saying.

Rory’s arguments: “Not all” “I have friends” “All humans are like this” “It’s not a big deal”

Rory has a degree of status in the UK that he would never jeopardize by seriously confronting this issue.

Rory started with an apology, but ended up as an apologist. A strange character arc.

"All my defenses of Islam require ignoring all the texts of Islam"

Wow that was explosive! As an exmuslim I found Rory’s apologism to be based in his own self interests rather than examining what it actually being said about Islam. Rory cares about Rory first and foremost he doesn’t want to disavow dangerous aspects of Islam as he benefits from visiting the Islamic world perhaps to do business or other endeavours! In any case I really appreciate you shedding light on our plight as exmuslims: we’re one of the most invisible yet targeted groups on earth we need all the support we can get!

Kudos to Rory for having the guts to come back on and apologize in the way that he did. That was tremendous and an example of how we should all strive to behave.

When he tried to talk about meditation instead of Islam you could tell where this one was going. The deflections and distractions were embarrassing.

As an Arab I want to say as much as I think Sam is more accurate than most of the ignorant westerners he's still giving too much credit to Islam and Muslims. The issue that differentiates islam Islam is it is inherently a much more horrible ideology coming from the scripture itself. But it's really difficult to make this claim to a believing Muslim. otherwise as the guy kept claiming there are different "islams" so you can't claim that Islam holds a terrible set of ideas. You can cherry pick Islam to fit with western countries. the issue is that Islam has very few cherrys to pick and A LOT of poison that is very hard to ignore.

Sam has patience of true zen master. I genuinely admire this kind of patience having the same conversation for over 10 years and people still not grasping basic arguments over and over again.

Sam absolutely nails it here.

I'm in SE Asia. I don't know if Rory eventually answers Sam's question in the paid version of this podcast, but here he clearly dodges talking about how apostates might be treated in Indonesia and Malaysia because he knows they will be unsafe: at the very least any ex-Muslims who dare renounce the religion will be ostracized by family and friends, and potentially lose their jobs and livelihoods, and in the worst case they will be in fear for their very lives.

Rory, you are experiencing the intellectual turmoil that comes from rejecting reason ... don't fight it, you are a smart guy.

Rory really needs to grow out of his Lawrence of Arabia fantasy. I'm now going to have to sign up to finish the rest of this one. You finally got me Sam. 😂

There's a saying...''when someone shows you who they are the first time, believe them'...11 minutes in, after issuing a fair apology, he basically states that he will prefer to speak on anything except the complexity of seperating Islam from Islamophobia with the armour that he's lived in Muslim majority countries. The very example of a person who should be more than ecstatic about breaking down misunderstandings for that very reason. Not off to a great start.

I'm picking up on some real stockholm syndrome from Rory. Good god man.

”Not all muslims” was his major defense point. A defense that has nothing to do with Sam’s arguments. Fascinating discussion.

This guy is thoroughly outmatched by sam .

I only wish I could express logic and truth like Sam Harris does.

I love when Sam Harris has someone who disagrees with him on the podcast. Great to see how two intelligent minds with different beliefs make sense of and resolve their differences.

The only reason that a lot of Muslims are not as violent as the extremest is because they diluted their faith liberal value, not because there is a more benevolent version of it.

Thank you sam, i'm from saudi and you are 100% correct.

Just two days ago, a woman wearing a top with some Arabic words on it was surrounded by a mob of 300 in Pakistan and was threatened... while she cowered in a corner in terror. She was finally rescued by a brave police officer who argued and pleaded with the crowd (hats off to her!). The point is, not one of these 300 could read Arabic but assumed the words were blasphemous and not one of them could 'see' a terrified lone woman. It turned out the Arabic word printed on her dress was 'harmless' and had nothing to do with Quran (lucky for her because who knows what would have happened otherwise). In what world is this reality not fundamentalist? This takes nothing away from Muslims who don't subscribe to these ideas and practices, but to ignore this reality is to bury your head in sand.

Psychologist George Weinberg coined the term "homophobia" in the late 1960s to describe an irrational prejudice against homosexual persons. The term really took off in the 1980s while I was in graduate school studying clinical psychology. I and some of my peers had qualms about pathologizing bigotry as if it was something akin to a visceral fear of snakes or germs, but subsequent research on disgust sensitivity and negative reactions to homosexuality persuaded me that there was something at least clinically plausible about the use of the term. I do think that in using the term phobia, one is suggesting a visceral negative reaction such as disgust or raw fear. Phobias are not cognitively mediated at all. That's why you can't simply talk people out of them. Therapies must address the visceral reaction. For example, exposure therapy overcomes the negative visceral phobic response. I think that collectively, as a culture, we've overcome a great deal of homophobia because so many lgbt people are out and all of us know gay people toward whom we have positive feelings. Collective exposure therapy has greatly reduced homophobia in Western societies. I don't think that fear of Islam is primarily visceral. I think it's very much cognitively mediated. It's arises from beliefs about Islam, whether correct or incorrect, not from some direct visceral reaction. So I do think phobia is a misleading use of a clinical term when applied to fear of Islam, and something of an ad hominem to discredit anyone who suggests that there are dangers posed by present-day Islamic ideologies. I'm also struck by the irony of hijacking a term used to describe disgust and fear of homosexulity and creating a comparable term to describe a fear of a religious ideology that is widely supportive of homophobia. I see it as a mind-fucking attempt to suggest a false moral equivalence between homophobia and Islamaphobia with a liberal audience that has largely rejected homophobia. "I'm not homophobic, so I certainly don't want to be Islamophobic." But there's a moral and clinical equivocation in play that seems meant to deceive and confuse those with cognitively mediated reasons for their concerns about the impact of Islam in our world.

Love the appology in the beginning, a true example to follow! Then he just avoids the points and duck the questions as if everything is fine and dandy just because his experience is excellent, ignoring the fact many others repeatable have a another experience as we know. No urge to listen to the rest because of that.

Rory is a politician and as such is comfortable in the world of anecdote and narrative.

I feel for Rory and his determination to be kind and see the good in people, but it's coming at a cost

Thank you for exposing Mr. Stewart as a master of obfuscation. He is smooth as a snake.

I CANNOT wait to hear the full thing tonight when I go to sleep. Then, re-listen on my way to work because I fell asleep 5 min into the night session.

A phobia is only a phobia if the fear is irrational. If you feel fear or are concerned in the presence of an aggressive venomous spider that is not arachnophobia. Having a negative reaction to all spiders irrespective of their species or behaviors is. The same can be applied to a lot of what is discussed in this conversation. If people are motivated by rational fears and concerns, and are free to talk about them, they will produce, on the most part, sane and measured solutions to problems. Bigotry is only compounded by not being able to think and discuss the specific of the issues here.

Sam's patience with what seems like willful obtuseness is extraordinary.

I have spent much time in Malaysia. I know people from Malaysia and Indonesia who have considered apostasy, and people who have apostatised. While they may not be murdered for doing so, the consequences are severe. My brother in laws wife was denounced by her family for denouncing Islam. She had to do it for immigration reasons, so that she could live with her child and husband in Malaysia, as he is not Muslim and we told him he must not convert. The cruelty her family displayed when she was in utter distress was shocking. The religion is more important than your own family, even in the most moderate of countries. I agree with Rory that many Muslims are wonderful people and that there are many great things about Islam, but it does not excuse the fact that there is a rot at the centre of Islam that can emerge at any time, and until that rot is dealt with appropriately, Islam will be a threat to humanity. Sam Harris is doing the great work of exposing the rot. I think it all really boils down to Muslims being able to admit that Mohammed was not perfect, and not everything he said was the word of God.

Yet again, I realize that I give people with British accents much more credit than they deserve

I am hearing this and I am subscribed to the podcast feed. You rock Sam Harris!

Yes. I am phobic towards belief systems that are sexist and violent. Is that a bad thing? Is it bad to be phobic of violence?

Rory, rather like lynchings, the penalty for apostasy does not have to be executed very often for it to be effective.

Even though Rory's apologies seem genuine, I'm still very disappointed. I gained a high opinion of him during various interviews about Brexit. He struck me as a mature, level-headed politician on the conservative spectrum. Him so easily act as a genuine intellectual on the podcast and then turn around and flip the entire character of the conversation vis a vis a third party is a significant breach of trust.

Thank you Sam for exposing these pseudo intellectual hypocrites.

Born in one of the colonies, on to Eton, then Balliol and... yihaa! - straight into the Diplomatic Service, followed by cabinet post under Cameron. Lives in Kensington and a country house in Cumbria. Honestly, Rory, how often do you visit Blackburn?

Men are only 10% more disagreeable than women on average, and yet they make up the vast majority of criminal populations because this population is represented in the edges of the probability distribution. Yet nobody says "we are waging war against men" for that reason. Your entire experience might be informed by meeting the best men, but that doesn't change the above-stated statistical reality. I think Rory's misunderstanding boils down to the same fallacy.

This was a great episode! And it gave me a lot to think about. I love how both parties were so respectful of each other. Would love to see more people like Rory on your show, as in people who are willing to discuss about topics which you have a different view on in such a respectful manner.

If you have to constantly interrupt someone when speaking then you’re not listening to what they’re saying… if you’re not listening then how can you comprehend what they’re saying to even have a rebuttal.

as an afghan practicing muslim, i hold that islamophobia is a very flawed term. i feel pateronized and infantalized when somone says "criticizing islam is islamophobia." we are capable of having a rational debate. plz dont think of us as explosive oversensitive childish creatures

When you confuse race with belief.

Commending Rory for such humility! In a world dominated by ego bot many people would offer a genuine apology. I wish people would learn from this behavior. Something to instill in children. The art of apologizing with dignity is really a skill everyone should practice.

Rory should look at the polls that show the extreme viewpoints that the muslim community holds, rather than using his anecdotal experiences. Science 101. Anecdotal experiences are not representative of reality. Most muslim majority countries have very harsh laws and this is easy to understand if you can see that majority of the muslim population is far less liberal than what Rory likes to believe.

Great conversation. Also, in some ways, kinda... devastating to the pro-Islamic view. Rory is about as gentle, intelligent, well-spoken, patient and honest a interlocutor that Sam could find to take up the opposite position... and he (Rory) failed absolutely miserably. He just basically kept coming back to "but not ALL Muslims" defense. Great guy, great intentions, but shockingly little in the way of actual counterpoints to Sam's arguments.

Rory is being dishonest here. Islamophobia is used almost as a synonym for racism in the UK too.

I will be subscribing again just to hear the rest of this. We need more debate type convos from Sam.

Omgosh these at episodes that should’ve be free!!! I mean we would a benefit so much from these conversations Sam 🙏🙏🙏🙏.

Rory didn’t really put up much of an argument if we are being honest here

Rory's argument is 90% whataboutism and red herrings... But at least he's polite

It takes a good amount of courage to apologize. Good on you Rory. Also I so appreciate that when there are disagreements, misunderstandings between two people that they can sit down and talk about it. Good on both of you.

It seems they agree on all but two things: 1. How much is doctrine and how much is historical contingency 2. How big is the threat and how much should you emphasise this issue.

Thanks Sam!

“My experience in Muslim majority countries [as a male, straight, white, wealthy, well educated, well connected, agnostic Brit] was very good.”

One of the best podcasts in the series. A master class in sincere and productive exchange of ideas. Kudos to Sam for inviting a guest who has an opposing view and kudos to Rory for demonstrating the etiquette of respectful discord. Whatever one may think of the content, we can learn a lot from the styles and techniques of the long-forgotten craft of sincere debate. A welcome break from the echo chambers..thank you for this.

Good, Sam. Much much respect!

You tried, Sam. Instead of addressing the substance of your claims, your guest kept moving the goalposts: - Well, in the UK, we use Islamaphobia differently. - Well, Islam is not really one religion but varies across the world. None of the above is relevant to the claim that Islam contains a set of ideas that intentionally spreads suffering on a massive scale. I have doubts about the intellectual acumen of this guest.

I think Rory Stewart is an interlectual lightweight and siolist. That's bad enough but I am also skeptical of his willingness to engage in good faith, he seems to have more faces than a clock tower.

The proportion being higher is huge, when there are 2 billion people following the religion

A day after October 7th, I entered a grocery store in Haifa (mixed city in Israel), I was afraid the Arab worker would stab me or something. A day later we started talking and got to know each other. He admitted that the Arabs are "barbaric" (his own words, I would never suggest that). I'm a left wing Israeli. Today, my opinions would be considered extreme left maybe. To suggest that there is nothing wrong with Islam is blindness, ignorance, and wishful thinking. But - Islam won't go away, so the only option is reform. Let's not forget there are many gems in Islam, along with much ugliness and cruelty, some of it has roots in the Quran. How is it to be done, I have no idea.

Rorys entire argument is "your large view analysis is wrong because I have muslim friends that are nice" Im sure there were many confederate racists that were good hosts, yet most agree their ideology correlates heavily with violence.

Without religion we will be left with Epicurus, Marcus Aurelius, Sam harris, Steven Pinker etc. They teach us the good ideas such as treasuring every moment OF THIS LIFE. Let us also then appareciate liberalism that has provided us with the fastest methodology for peace and prosperity.

Rory seems like a genuinely good human being agree or disagree with his points. I respect him more for coming back on!

Sam is criticizing a system of ideas. Criticizing beliefs isn't the same as racism or attacking people personally. This is the same glitch that has bedeviled countless Dawkins/Shermer/Krauss/Hitchens/Harris/etc. debates about religion. (I think Sam is 100 percent right that many pro-religious debaters of all types encourage this confusion as a tactic to make it harder to talk clearly about religion.)

Rory Stewart is a walking contradiction. He’s been advocating for everything the party he was an MP for have been tearing down for the last two decades. The more I listen to him the less I understand.

I can only presume this was recorded BEFORE the events in the UK Parliament last week, which would have further eviscerated Rory's claim that the UK is not under threat as an open society from Islam. For those who don't know - a vote on Gaza in Parliament was thrown into chaos because the Labour Party feared some of their MPs would face physical threats if they didn't vote for a ceasefire. The Speaker (in charge of the House of Commons) had to change the terms of the vote in light of this threat, causing uproar. I just wish Sam had had this fact to hand or it had come to light before the recording. Rory's claims look ridiculous in light of it. Rory also chose (knowingly, i presume) to omit the killing of David Amess MP in his ledger of the threat posed by Islam, and the fact that a teacher in Leeds had to go into hiding because of threats to his life, after showing a picture of Mohammed in class. Rory knows all this and relied on Sam's lack of UK current affairs to even the score. Sam focussed on Mike Freer which was a good case study, but the events in Parliament really do put the cherry on it.

I love Sam, and listen to all his podcasts. I consider him to be one of the most level-headed, rational people around. Plus he's the one person who's successfully introduced meditation to me. In this conversation, I found myself agreeing more with Rory's perspective. Sam's view on Islam, while courageous and well-thought out, is very one-sided, and it was fantastic to hear him debating with someone with a strong, alternative perspective.

Rory Stewart's life ambition was to reach the top of the heap in UK politics. He wants his name to be mentioned alongside Churchill. It would probably have happened but for the fact his political career coincided with the birth of social media and the rise of RW populism which pushed out "civilised" and "nuanced" voices..... That said, hes only 51 and if the opportunity arises, he could still make a return to politics in some guise. For that reason, he could never engage with Sam in a fully honest and open discussion about Islam because it would torpedo any future election hopes. As a reddit poster astutely observed, he is also of a class of British elites that has a benign view of foreign cultures simply by dint of them being, in his own mind, primitive, less developed and in need of sympathy and guidance. It's easy to be benevolent about Islam when you only mix with the 1 percenters, live in a country house in Scotland and spend most of your time flying around the world attending charity events and talks. Not so easy if you live in a poor area that has been ghettoized in recent decades and someone has beem stabbed by a fundamentalist a mile down the road....

Rory should talk to ex-Muslims.

I think it’s obvious this conversation was done before the ends that transpired in parliament last week whereby Islamist groups altered proceedings… I think Rory made good points overall, especially regarding that when you take a poll it may present views worse than they are in conversation, but he seems really naive about the threat Islamists (I.e. the extreme) are having on the UK. I suppose this is because he talks fondly of Islam, which I understand and already pointed out is valid. But it doesn’t change the fact, and he never gave a good answer to this, why there is only one group that you can’t stand up and criticize without genuine fear for your life.

Rory is fantastic at red herrings

Oh, wow. I didn't expect this so soon. What happened after the initial conversation was unfortunate. Listening now with the hope that this second conversation is as civil and informative as the first one.

Rory is talking like a Politician running for office trying to please everyone including his Muslim voters

This podcast was a gift for both Sam and Rory, not to mention for all that listened. One of the best I've heard.

Rory Stewart said at the beginning that he felt he hadn't done a good enough job standing up for Islam and his experience living in the Islamic world. Well, thanks Sam for standing up for 'us'. I can't even say who 'us' means for very obvious reasons. 😉

It doesn't - contra Rory - make sense to say that a religion cannot be unitarily defined. Any religion that cannot be so defined is not - by definition - a religion! So, according to Rory, Islam is not a religion. Reductio ad absurdum!

Even if you grant Rory's apologia that extremism, repressive views and violent intolerance in Islam are purely circumstantial, it is frankly laughable to deny that its a real problem when the overwhelming majority of recognised terrorist organisations in the world are explicitly adherent to Islamic ideology. The solution, according to these people, is not to force change through criticism but to tolerate and outright validate them in the name of inclusivity.

My ancestry is from the former Yugoslavia (Mother Serbian, Father Bosnian). For me, Islam never felt right, for starters most of my fathers side of the family were closet drinkers, so I would not call them real muslims. I grew up in Australia and going to the mosque there was weird, it was mostly Pakistani's and us Bosnians. All of us kids hated learning Arabic to read the Quaran, so we would go out in the back yard and play cricket, Pakistani kids love cricket and Australians love cricket, so that was it for us. When I moved to Ukraine a decade ago, I was baptised into the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, thus correcting a mistake my father's ancestors made in the Balkans hundreds of years ago because of the Ottoman Turks. Anyway, thanks for the scholarship Mr. Harris and I hope this comment helps as a kind of "value add" to your quite lively discussion with Mr. Stewart!

The UK meaning of Islamophobia is the same as the USA. It’s basically calling someone racist. Rory was not being honest.

I've not listened to the full thing because I'm not (yet) a subscriber but what I've heard strikes me as a likely example of both perspectives having validity because each has come from a different experience: Sam primarily from focus on the ideas and awareness of both their potential and actual practice in the real world, Rory from the point of view of lived experience with other human beings who happen to share some or all of those dreadful ideas whereas neither he personally nor his loved ones have suffered as a result of, say, the expected punishment for apostasy. Someone very close to me has what I would call some appallingly intolerant ideas towards some sections of society, which I find disturbing and wrong, yet is still a warm and loving human being to me and to many others. However, I think I would feel differently toward her were I to be in the group she hates.

This was one of episodes where I really wanted to listen to the whole conversation.

I won't be told what not to be afraid of. Not all dogs bite but I approach all dogs with caution.

Out of all the Making Sense previews, this one particularly made me want to hear the full discussion.

Only scholars being allowed to criticize Islam is like saying you have to be a chef to criticize food. If I taste something and don’t like it, that’s a valid opinion and I should be able to say it. Chefs/scholars can get into the nuances but they aren’t the purveyors of truth.

Sam politely giving historic and statistics facts and getting back "you can't say that, i have so many islamic friends".

Sam is a hero of mine

Dear Sam, you are a paragon of intellectual honesty and civility. Your calm in confronting Rory was truly admirable.

The Spanish Inquisition is so current and relevant.

Thank you for holding ground and not back peddling to the nonsense

I’ve met thousands of Muslims because of my job and was never afraid of one of them. However, because of the sheer population of Muslims and the intensity of their beliefs even a small percentage of them supporting violence in the name of their religion is a major problem. And Sam is right. There are a LOT of people who have to go through life pretending to believe in something in order to keep their head attached to their shoulders.

All/none claims aren't useful, since there's always a counterexample. The main point Sam should've made much quicker here is that Islam has a *critical mass* of followers who are either very violent themselves, supportive of violence, or indifferent to it. This violence is expressly encouraged by the religious texts. There is an inverse relationship between the level of Islamic piety and respect for human rights in both individuals and countries with Islamic governments alike.

As someone raised in the Islamic faith, I believe in the importance of scrutinising all ideas. However, it's counterproductive to stigmatise an entire religion instead of focusing on specific ideas. Islam, like any other belief system, has beautiful concepts such as human equality, while other aspects, like apostasy, may be more contentious. If we criticise specific ideas irrespective of who holds them, I think we will get lot better response. However, by making such claims against a whole religion makes everyone defensive and force them to play identity politics.