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On the Incompatibility of Islam with Western Civilization: Anatomy of an Unreformed Dogma from a Quebec Perspective
Paperback
IslamGeneral Political Science
ISBN13: 9781997127000
Publisher: Les Editions Arcana Rationis
Published: Sep 3 2026
Pages: 448
Weight: 1.31
Height: 0.91 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
What happens when a religious legal tradition encounters the principles of a modern liberal democracy?
Who defines the norms by which a society is governed: its citizens, or a law regarded as divine and therefore beyond human revision?
This question is not limited to Quebec. It concerns every liberal democracy grappling with the relationship between religious authority, civil law, individual rights, secularism, and freedom of conscience.
In the classical Islamic tradition, sharia is understood as having a divine foundation. This raises fundamental questions when its traditional legal and theological principles are examined alongside the foundations of modern Western political order: freedom of conscience, equality before the law, freedom of expression, religious neutrality, and the primacy of civil law.
Drawing on the Quran, hadith literature, and major works of classical Islamic jurisprudence, Antoine Pomerleau examines these questions through the doctrines and legal principles themselves.
In this essay, you will examine:
- The classical Islamic conception of law, sovereignty, and divine authority;
- The treatment of apostasy and blasphemy in classical Islamic jurisprudence;
- The doctrine of jihad and the legal status of non-Muslims;
- The status of women under classical Islamic law;
- The relationship between religious law and civil authority;
- The obstacles encountered by attempts to reform inherited Islamic doctrine;
- The tension between classical Islamic jurisprudence and principles central to liberal democracy;
- What the experience of Quebec can reveal about these broader questions of secularism, state neutrality, integration, and religious authority.
Quebec as a case study
Quebec provides a particularly revealing case study because its own institutions underwent a profound process of secularization during the twentieth century.
From the Quiet Revolution to the debates surrounding religious accommodation and Bill 21, Quebec offers a concrete setting in which to examine questions faced elsewhere in the Western world: How should a liberal democracy maintain common civic norms while respecting freedom of religion? What happens when religious claims come into tension with principles of secularism, equality, or civil law?
The Quebec experience is therefore not presented as an isolated provincial issue, but as a case study within a broader Western debate.
An essay for readers beyond QuebecThis book is intended for readers interested in political philosophy, Islamic law, secularism, freedom of conscience, freedom of expression, religious reform, integration, and the relationship between Islam and Western political institutions.
Whether the reader is in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, or elsewhere in the Western world, the underlying questions remain relevant: What authority should determine the law? Where are the limits of religious authority in a liberal democracy? And can inherited religious norms be reconciled with a political order based on human legislation and equal citizenship?
This book does not judge the faith of individual believers. It examines a body of doctrines and legal traditions and subjects them to the same critical scrutiny that applies to any system of ideas.
Antoine Pomerleau is an essayist and independent researcher in political philosophy.
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Pomerleau, Antoine
De l'incompatibilité de l'islam avec la civilisation occidentale: Anatomie d'un dogme irréformé à la lumière de l'expérience québécoise
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