Islam doesn't laugh

Fantastic essay by Roger Scruton in today's Wall Street Journal -- alas, it's not available online. In it, the English philosopher says that the problem with Islam is that it has no sense of irony, as shown by the extremely thin skins most Muslims have -- and therefore we should wonder if terrorism is as alien to Islam as people would like to think. Excerpts:

This readiness to take offense is not yet terrorism -- but it is a sign of the deep-down insecurity of the Muslim psyche in the modern world. In the presence of Islam, we all feel, you have to tread carefully, as though humoring a dangerous animal. The Koran must never be questioned; Islam must be described as a religion of peace -- isn't that the meaning of the word? -- and jokes about the prophet are an absolute no-no. If religion comes up in conversation, best to slip quietly away, accompanying your departure with abject apologies for the Crusades. And in Europe, this pussyfooting is now being transcribed into law, with "Islamophobia" already a crime in Belgium and momvements across the continent to censor everything at which a Muslim might take offense, including articles like this one.

Scruton goes on to say that it is wrong to give gratuitous insult to anyone's faith, and that we non-Muslims should extend to Muslims the same toleration and goodwill we'd expect them to give us. But you have to wonder, says Scruton, where Muslims stand on this matter. They are in many cases fanatically intolerant. Writes Scruton: "Ordinary Christians, who suffer a daily diet of ridicule and skepticism, cannot help feeling that Muslims protest too much, and that the wounds, which they ostentatiously display to the world, are largely self-inflicted."

Hear, hear. Scruton concludes by saying that Christians and Jews are "heirs to a long tradition of secular government" that maintains that human societies should be governed by human laws that should take precedence over religious edicts. Citizens must obey the state, and whatever they do with their spiritual lives is between them and God. Against this tradition -- which Scruton says is enshrined in Christianity by what Kierkegaard and Hegel identified as the Christian faith's "spirit of irony," which is to say the ability to stand outside of yourself and see things from other perspectives -- comes the humorlessness of the Muslim fundamentalists, whose belief that all secular laws are blasphemous the rest of us see as a sign of fanaticism, but which many pious Muslims see as a religious requirement.

Once the Muslim world learns not to take itself so seriously, then we can talk about making peace, says Scruton. To that end, check out these Muslim comedians.