The Counter-Jihad's fairy-tale version of Maajid Nawaz

My title is a direct satirical jab at the title of a recent essay on Jihad Watch by one of Robert Spencer's contributing writers there, a Brit named Joshua Winston -- namely, "Maajid Nawaz’s fairy-tale version of Islam".

This fairy tale version of that transparent snake, Maajid Nawaz, becomes evident within Winston's first paragraph:

He doesn’t believe in the sharia punishment for apostasy or blasphemy. These are all fundamental aspects of Islam. He’s a Muslim who is following a fairy-tale version of Islam, an Islam that doesn’t exist anywhere else but in his mind.

What Winston meant to say -- but apparently hasn't the brains to say -- is:

He SAYS he doesn’t believe in the sharia punishment for apostasy or blasphemy. These are all fundamental aspects of Islam. He’s a Muslim who is PRETENDING TO follow a fairy-tale version of Islam, an Islam that doesn’t exist anywhere else but in his CLEVERLY LYING JIHAD-OF-THE-TONGUE.

Clever enough, indeed, to fool intelligent supporters of the Counter-Jihad like Joshua Winston. (Hence, my coinage of the term "Better Cop Muslim" to describe these wilier, oilier Muslims like Nawaz.)

Winston even gives us an example, a glimpse, in his very next sentence, into why we should suspect Nawaz:

And yet while he denounces Islam, he also lies about its teachings and defends it.

And Winston's example of this Nawazian habit follows:

There’s a hadith in which saintly Muhammad had rubbish dropped on his door every morning by a neighbouring Jew. Then, good Samaritan that he is, Muhammad went to check on the Jew when he awakened one morning to find no rubbish had been dumped at his door. He wanted to make sure the Jew wasn’t dead or ill. This is the picture Maajid Nawaz painted of Muhammad on one of his radio shows. Meanwhile, Nawaz is neglecting to tell listeners that Muhammad was fond of having his critics killed and tortured, and very fond of killing Jews, even young Jewish boys with so much as one pubic hair.

At this juncture, Winston has only two options:  Either conclude that Nawaz has cleverly constructed his reformist persona for the sake of Stealth Jihad; or conclude that he's "confused" and suffering from cognitive dissonance, caught in a psychocultural dilemma between his Islam and his desire to assimilate into the modern West (a desire which the asymptotic Jihad Watchers seem to assume exists among innumerable -- perhaps most -- Muslims).

Naturally, Winston opts for Door #2 (sort of), gestured to by the lovely hand model as Don Pardo intones the complementary gift he'll receive, the reward of his ethical narcissism:

So what is he? Muslim or non-Muslim or alleged reformist Muslim for pay? If Muhammad is the perfect exemplar and role model for all mankind, who is Maajid that he gets to criticize and denounce his prophet’s teachings and example? ... Or is Maajid saying that he is better or more knowledgeable than Muhammad? If Maajid is all for liberalism and democracy, why is he a Muslim?... Maajid comes across, to my mind, as an atheist more than a religious person.

Note too that phrase "alleged reformist Muslim for pay" -- which assumes that the only reason Nawaz would pretend to be a reformist is not out of fanatical devotion to Islam (thus doing stealth jihad), but out of the all-too-human weakness of greed.