If Muslims ruled the world

They'd be killing each other. The only broad consensus among Muslims is their hatred of the West, personified by the US and Israel. In the WSJ today, Amir Taheri (subscription req'd) has a piece comparing Islam in Britain to Russian nesting dolls.

These are deeply divided on matters of faith. Sunnis never set foot in Shiite mosques, and vice-versa. Salafis regard all other Muslims as heretics, and the latter repay the compliment by labeling the Salafis "deviants." In their original countries, the various sects often murder one another in the name of the rival boutiques of Islam. Shiites are not allowed to have a mosque in Cairo while Sunnis are denied that right in Tehran.

"We have more religious freedom in Britain than in any Muslim country," says Aazam Tamimi, a pro-Hamas British Islamist. "Our grievances against Britain are not religious but political." And that is the heart of the problem. Convinced that they can never agree on a common understanding of Islam, Muslim sects in Britain have sought unity based on a political program: Islam, in its broadest expression in Britain, is a political movement. It has adopted part of the anticapitalist discourse of communism, adding to it some anti-Semitic and anti-Christian themes of Nazism, and completing the mix with Third-Worldist lamentations against racism and imperialism. This Islam is an ideology masquerading as a religious faith.

Thanks, Stuart, for the link.