The University of North Carolina is being taken to court by the Family Policy Network for requiring its first-year students to read a book about Islam ( Approaching the Qur’an: The Early Revelations , by Michael A. Sells) for an orientation class at the start of the year.

Now, the FPN may have had some sort of point about it being unconstitutional for a publically funded university to make it mandatory for all students to read book on a particular religion (or to write a short paper about why they won’t read the book). In an interview on Fox News between the professor who chose the book and talk show host Bill O’Reilly (more on that in a minute), about the only reasonable thing O’Reilly manages to say is that there would be an outcry if students were forced to read and write about the Gospels or the Bible. He’s probably right. Of course, the FPN wouldn’t be taking the university to court over that, now would they?

No, they would not, because their argument is ultimately not about the constitutionality of assigning a book on religion, it’s about assigning this particular book on this particular religion.

In attempting to defend their argument that the book assignment is unconstitutional, the FPN (and O’Reilly, for that matter) completely shoot themselves in the foot by falling back on the claim that this particular book is wrong not because it is about a religion, but because, according to FPN president Joe Glover, it "presents nothing controversial about Islam" - that is, it doesn’t mention the "slaying of infidels" bits in the Koran that people completely unfamiliar with the religion of Islam have jumped all over to try to convince the unknowing public that Islam is nothing but a religion of violence ( Franklin Graham , I’m looking at you).

Glover says his problem is that, "Anybody who has read this book and this book alone is still going to be ignorant about why people are killing other people in the name of Allah". Actually, I somehow suspect that anybody who has read this book might suddenly get the clue that "Islam" does not automatically equate to "Islamic fundamentalist terrorist" any more than "Christianity" automatically equates to "Seventh-Day Adventist". It’s called broadening one’s horizons. It’s called overcoming one’s biases to try to gain a better understanding of the bigger picture.

Maybe Approaching the Quar’an is not the ideal book to introduce people to Islam. I don’t know. I haven’t read the book (though a short, intelligent discussion of it by its author can be found here ). But to argue against the book because it doesn’t portray Islam in a bad enough light (the FPN would say a "neutral" light) seems to reveal a pretty big anti-Islam bias - one that seems to be shared by Bill O’Reilly when he says that he just doesn’t get why we should even be looking at "our enemy’s religion".

The question arises as to why any book related to Islam should have been chosen in the first place. It seemed kind of surprising to me, too, I have to say. It’s not surprising that religion should show up in a university - I took several theology and philosophy of religion classes in college and they were fascinating - but rather that a book on the Koran should be the first book to be discussed by all students entering UNC this year.

As far as I can tell from roaming around reading articles on the Web, the answer to this question is simply that people want to learn . They want to educate themselves on Islam. They want to understand what we’re dealing with when we’re dealing with the "Islamic world" (a term so vague and generalized that I hesitate to use it at all). The FPN managed to rope several anonymous students into their court case, but the general opinion amongst students seems to be that it’s good to read this book, and that if you don’t like it or are offended by it - well, "welcome to college", as the president of the UNC student body said. Being challenged is part and parcel of receiving a higher education.

Anyway…with some fairly stupid comments (including the "enemy’s religion" one), Bill O’Reilly, host of The O’Reilly Factor on Fox News, has managed to get himself into the papers on this issue. And, for a laugh, I urge you to by all means read the transcript of the interview O’Reilly gave to the professor who assigned the book, Robert Kirkpatrick. The entire thing - except for O’Reilly’s single valid point, which I mentioned earlier - is a joke.

Okay, so O’Reilly’s thing, apparently, is to be provocative and play advocatus diaboli and all that. Well, he plays his role to a T, and the end result is an interview that makes Robert Kirkpatrick sound like the most calm, rational, intelligent guy on earth and Bill O’Reilly sound like a panting moron.

Just a few points. First of all, according to O’Reilly, "we know what the basic tenets of Islam are" so there is no need to read a book like this. By "we", presumably he means "Americans", or maybe just "college students", I have no idea. I would really like to hear what Bill O’Reilly thinks the basic tenets of Islam are. His in-depth analysis of the Koran is that there "isn’t anything else to the Koran…other than theology." Wow. Yeah, he’s got a real firm grasp on the fundamentals of Islam. No need for any further reading on his part, then.

Then we have the obligatory indoctrination bit. O’Reilly is afraid that the problem with this book is that it is "an indoctrination into the religion" of Islam. Excuse me, but since when is a book about something an indoctrination into something? Why do some people seem to find it impossible to grasp the concept that you can read something or hear something or be exposed to something or even study something without being mindlessly indoctrinated into it?

And why on earth would the University of North Carolina want to convert all of its incoming students to Islam?? It’s about education, for pity’s sake, not indoctrination - but I guess there’s no difference between the two for fundamentalists of any stripe.

And then there is O’Reilly’s utterly ridiculous (or is it?) comparison between assigning this book to be read now and hypothetically assigning Mein Kampf to be read in 1941. Here’s a bit of the transcript of the interview:

O’REILLY: …If I were going to UNC in 1941, and you, professor, said, Read "Mein Kampf," I would have said, Hey, professor, with all due respect, shove it. I ain’t reading it.

KIRKPATRICK: Why? Well, is that because you think you would have been converted to — if you read it?

O’REILLY: No. It’s because it’s tripe.

Tripe.

KIRKPATRICK: How do you know if you haven’t read it?

Zing! Brilliant! O’Reilly’s comeback was that he would have read a "summary" of it, which would have been enough. A summary! All I have to say here is that if more people had read Mein Kampf in 1941 - no, no, try 1925! - then maybe come 1945, there wouldn’t have been a Dachau or an Auschwitz to liberate. Know thine enemy, Billy-boy.

There is, however, a rather frightening aspect of this whole affair. Michael Sells, the author of the book, now apparently "spends a lot of time defending his patriotism and trying to make the point that teaching about Islam is not the same thing as proselytizing it."

"Defending his patriotism" - I guess that’s what it’s come to. To a situation in which presenting certain topics in a certain way has become taboo lest you fall foul of the avid defenders of American patriotism and American morals and are seen to be on "their" side - the side of the "evildoers".

Calling Operation TIPS , come in TIPS…

Further reading…