As others have noted, letters such as this really don’t go far enough.
And, professor, we don’t need to go outside of Muhammed’s lifetime to already see the practical implications of Koranic doctrine. The blood and guts were already flowing with Muhammed at the helm. So what if later commentators spurred Muslims to spill more blood and guts? And everyone knows that the context of the “No compulsion in religion” is of the early Koran when Muhammed was weak. Plus, even if there is “No compulsion in religion”, it is driven by a desire to keep other religious communities around in order that they may pay the jizya and provide psychological satisfaction to Muslims by being dominated. Wow, I get to keep my religion so long as I pay an extra tax? Sign me up, that sounds awesome!
The Koran is fine as a manual to create a primitive, simple civilization based on tribe and clan. The problem, obviously, is that history and humanity have moved on from such simplicity into more complexity. Tough if you can’t keep up. Science and modernity are going to keep putting the pressure on you until your simplistic system cracks.
I personally don’t care about metaphorical BS like comparing to Koran to cool water, all of which metaphors appear in a variety of religions and can hardly be considered original or even relevant. No, the only thing that I care about with any religion is how it treats non-believers, since I don’t believe in any of them. On that score, Islam fails most miserably, both in terms of the severity of the failure as well as its current-day virulence.
Another problem, professor, is that you are, if you are sincere in opposing the jihadis, just as much a target of theirs as anyone else. Only, as a Muslim, you have the option of reverting to their interpretation of Islam at the “right time”, i.e. when the sword is over your head when they accuse you of apostasy. You think I, or any reasonable person, should take your sincerity at face value in that context? On what basis? That you’re a nice guy? Just as it’s said “There are no atheists in foxholes”, I doubt there are Muslim apostates who won’t join the jihad when the chips are down. Simple cost-benefit analysis tells me that’s the optimal choice for “moderate” Muslims once their more radical brethren make enough inroads to power.
