10 Questions with ‘The Closing of the Muslim Mind’ author Robert R. Reilly

What is your take on the current controversy surrounding the Ground Zero Islamic center and mosque?

I think the Cordoba project is a very imprudent and provocative act. It so clearly does not meet Imam Faisal Rauf’s announced objective of reconciliation that one naturally seeks other explanations for it (especially in light of his statement in Arabic that “I don’t believe in interfaith dialogue). The one that immediately comes to mind is expressed by the Arab word siyada, which means Islamic supremacy. Achieving siyada is the goal of the Muslim Brotherhood, to which Rauf’s father belonged. The construction of mosques with minarets taller than the tallest spires of any nearby churches is the most common architectural expression of siyada.

We know that the twin towers were destroyed as a symbol of the U.S. That symbol is now being replaced by another symbol. What is its meaning? The likely answer, or the most likely way in which it will be understood by Muslims overseas, is siyada.

I am also very wary from having read that Imam Rauf’s most admired Muslim thinkers are al-Ghazali, ibn Taymiyya and ibn Wahhab. That is a disturbing intellectual genealogy. As I show in my book, it is these thinkers who led to the closing of the Muslim mind.

9)   What are the three most important books that have influenced your thinking on this subject?

It’s extremely hard to narrow down to three; so I am going to cheat a little.

George Hourani, Reason and Tradition in Islamic Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985).

Malise Ruthven, Islam in the World (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984).

Stanley Jaki, Jesus, Islam, and Science (Pickney, Michigan: Real View Books, 2001).

Bassam Tibi, Islam’s Predicament with Modernity (New York: Routledge: 2009).

Richard C. Martin and Mark R. Woodward, Defenders of Reason in Islam (One World, Oxford, 1997).

Also, an indispensible article:

Imad N. Shehadeh, “The Predicament of Islamic Monotheism,” Biblotheca Sacra 161(April-June, 2004).

And, of course, The Regensburg Lecture, by Benedict XVI.