Muslim Desires Diaologue
In 'Wandering Lonely in a Crowd’, S M Atif Imtiaz's desire for genuine discussion about Islam in Britain is striking and compelling, writes Charles Moore.
Imtiaz takes conventional, if moderately expressed, positions against the Iraq war, George Bush, Tony Blair and so on. What is different is his desire for genuine discussion. I first heard of him when he emailed me, wanting to talk. British Muslims are bad at this, he says, partly because the most able ones tend to be trained in the sciences rather than the humanities. They become doctors or accountants, and do good service to British society in the process but “we (he includes himself in this) remain culturally delinquent and are unable to recognise the subtleties required for the art of persuasion”.
