Khaled Abou El Fadl, a prominent critic of Islamic puritanism, leads off this lively debate by arguing that Islam is a deeply tolerant religion. Injunctions to violence against nonbelievers stem from misreadings for the Qur'an, he claims, and even jihad>, or so-called holy war, has no basis in Qur'anic text or Muslim theology but instead grew out of social and political conflict. The debate underscores an enduring challenge posed by religious morality in a pluralistic age: how can we preserve deep religious conviction while participating in what Abou El Fadl calls 'a collective enterprise of goodness' that cuts across confessional differences?
