Brad Thor on Islam

Brad Thor's latest thriller

From the pages of his latest thriller, the following words captured my attention ...

".... To paraphrase Churchill, individual Muslims may show splendid qualities, but Islam's fanatical frenzy is as dangerous in man as hydrophobia is in a dog. It's been over a hundred years since he spoke those words and yet there is still no more dangerous retrograde force in the world.


"And before you give me that tired argument that the fundamentalists have perverted the faith, let me be perfectly clear on something.  A religion must stand or fall on its own writings and holy books.  The fundamentalists haven't perverted anything.  In fact, Osama bin Laden is the best practicing Muslim out there.  He is practicing Islam exactly the way that violent nutcase Mohammed wanted it practiced.


"It's the world's peaceful Muslims, the majority of the followers of Islam, who have perverted the faith.  They have strayed.  If Mohammed came back today you can bet there'd be hell to pay.  He'd be lopping off heads left and right.  And he'd have a lot of help too because in case you haven't noticed, the largest killer of Muslims in the world isn't us filthy infidels, it's other Muslims.  Fundamentalist Islam is booming, if you'll pardon the pun."

This is a bit of a conversation between two of the book's characters, a Catholic priest who goes by the name of Padre Peio, and another they call "the troll," an underworld merchant known simply as Nicholas.  These are Nicholas' words.  I found them interesting because they run exactly 180 degrees counter to conventional wisdom.  They run counter to descriptions of Islam in Vince Flynn novels, too, which I find extremely interesting, being an avid reader of those.  Who to believe!

So, whom do you believe?