The non-Muslim discussion of Islam differs in basic ways in Western Europe and in North America, as indicated by the very title of Raddatz’ important book. From God to Allah implies that God is the Judeo-Christian divinity, while Allah is the Muslim one – in other words, they are not the same. Or in the words of Alain Besançon, a leading French Catholic thinker, “there is no continuity between the Bible and the Qur’an”1 – a theological argument virtually unheard of in the North America, where virtually no one takes issue with the muliculturalist trend toward including Muslims in a “children of Abraham” triad.
The author, a Ph.D. in Islamic studies who worked at length in the Middle East for German corporations, then founded a software company, has gone back to his scholarly roots to demonstrate to his countrymen how modern liberalism, in addition to its inherent problems, is particularly ill-suited for dealing with an increasingly assertive Muslim presence within Germany.
In a classically Germanic way, Raddatz takes a long running start to set the stage by devoting the first half of the book to an extensive history of Christianity, Islam, and their civilizations through the ages (including a substantial discussion of premodern philosophy). In the heart of the book, he argues that as Western society dissolves into a series of “dialogues” and exhibits of “tolerance,” it is experiencing a structural decay. These tear down the established culture and authority in favor of special enclaves of privilege for minorities. Turning specifically to Islam, he finds that this soft Western approach logically must overlook those who would use the language of Islam for their intolerant purposes and for their political agenda . A whole range of consequences follow, such as the abandonment of the objective study of Islam, the Church hardly resisting Islamic influence, and an acceptance of women’s low status. Raddatz expects that if Germans do not change their ways, Muslim migration will have a totalitarian and anti-Semitic impact on their country.
1 Alain Besançon, Trois tentations dans l’Église (Paris: Calmann-Lévy, 1996), p. 172.
