This Week In TIME Magazine: What Ayaan Hirsi Ali Gets Wrong (Supposedly)

Carla Power, the chick TIME chose to rebut Hirsi Ali, is so in love with the Koran that she authored a book giving it a rave review. It is thus no surprise that she's not exactly enamored of Ms. Ali, whom she accuses of "not getting" Islam. First and foremost of what she supposedly doesn't get is--try not to giggle now--this:

Islamic law is more flexible than many think

...Too often, non-Muslims and Muslims alike don’t know enough about Islam to see how flexible Islamic laws can be. Like the violent extremists she rightly opposes, Hirsi takes the Quran and the Prophet Muhammad’s example to be an unbending set of rules and Islam to be “the most rigid religion in the world.” However, its flexibility was one of the reasons it could spread so effectively from Arabia through Asia and Africa, allowing local practices to remain as long as they didn’t contravene its basic tenets.

Well, I'll grant you that the rules are pretty simple. But did it really spread so widely because of its "flexibility" or due to jihad, the holy war that's at the heart of the religion and that has always provided the incentive for Muslims to conquer and cow large populations of infidels?

Does Power really think Islam would have spread so widely without jihad?

Also--sharia? Flexible? Yeah, it's a veritable Gumby. But surely not in a good way.



The "flexibility" of sharia law in action--here in Saudi Arabia,
where uppity chicks are beheaded...



...and here in Iran, where they're stoned to death.

Update: If you want to know the truth about Islamic jurisprudence, watch this.