The debate about Islam’s compatibility with Western freedoms often seems to have reached an impasse. Everyone knows that most Muslims are not violent extremists or actively working to undermine liberty. Everyone also knows that Muslims are more likely than other communities to support (at least in principle) the coercive imposition of religious norms. Thus, we play the game of essence and accidents: is this or that anti-liberal tendency of a particular Muslim community the result of Islam’s deep essence or of more culturally contingent accidents?
I doubt such questions will ever be settled. Not because I think there is no right answer or that Islam doesn’t have an essence—as a Muslim, I am committed to thinking that there is, and it does—but because in a pluralistic society, we should not expect agreement on the essence of any religion. The various schools and sects of Islam disagree as to which beliefs follow from the tradition’s core theological and scriptural commitments; non-Muslims also disagree sharply as to how best to characterise those commitments.
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