Mass Insanity (free UK delivery)

The people warning the West about Islam often do not understand it. The people defending Islam often refuse to examine it. Mass Insanity challenges both.

The lands that became Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Egypt, Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan were once predominantly non-Muslim. Islam eventually became dominant, while many older religious communities shrank or disappeared. Muslim populations are now growing across Europe, North America and Australia. Is this simply demographic change, or the beginning of a far deeper transformation of the West?

Theo Alistair’s Mass Insanity examines the question through the Qur’an, the principal sources of sharia and the history of Islamic movements. It addresses the subjects routinely avoided or distorted in public debate: terrorism, misogyny, female genital mutilation, the refugee crisis and the changing populations of Western countries.

It also tells a forgotten story from within the Muslim world. Medieval philosophers challenged sharia, mocked religious dogmatists and attacked many of the ideas now promoted by radical Islamic organisations. Some of the book’s sharpest and funniest chapters show how these thinkers used reason and sarcasm against fanaticism. The humour is not a diversion from the argument; it is one of its weapons.

Mass Insanity also investigates the relationship between Western universities and the Islamic regimes and organisations that fund them. What does this money purchase: scholarship, prestige, silence or influence?

Theo Alistair’s investigation began after 9/11, when he was living in New York City. He wanted to understand not only the men who carried out the attacks, but also those who supported them. He spent the next twenty years studying radical Islamic movements, interviewed hundreds of extremists and travelled to Iraq, Iran, Lebanon and Syria.

The West has spent decades arguing about Islam without understanding it. Mass Insanity removes that excuse.

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Listen to audio excerpts here.