He seems to think so.
But I don't.
I mean, for goodness sake. Look at his list of positive developments.
If you think that the most minor deviations from this list of nightmarish sharia barbarity is positive-then you have something wrong with your brain.
That is to say that we should not be applauding this very small steps away from abject barbarity to slightly less barbarity. That is the scale we are dealing with. Here's the list. Maybe I'm crazy, but applauding these things seems to me preposterous:
"Already in this young century, a few positive signs in this direction can be discerned. Note some developments concerning women:"
• Saudi Arabia’s Shura Council has responded to rising public outrage over child marriages by setting the age of majority at 18. Though this doesn’t end child marriages, it moves toward abolishing the practice.• Turkish clerics have agreed to let menstruating women attend mosque and pray next to men.• The Iranian government has nearly banned the stoning of convicted adulterers.• Women in Iran have won broader rights to sue their husbands for divorce.• A conference of Muslim scholars in Egypt deemed clitoridectomies contrary to Islam and, in fact, punishable. [Ed. note: this means NOTHING on the ground.]• A key Indian Muslim institution, Darul Uloom Deoband, issued a fatwa against polygamy.
"Other notable developments, not specifically about women, include:"
WOW GREAT PROGRESS.• The Saudi government abolished jizya (the practice of enforcing a poll tax on non-Muslims).• An Iranian court ordered the family of a murdered Christian to receive the same compensation as that of a Muslim victim.• Scholars meeting at the International Islamic Fiqh Academy in Sharjah have started to debate and challenge the call for apostates to be executed.
Now seriously, these are moves in a good direction?
Richard Pipes is brilliant. Daniel Pipes is a dreamer.
