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Muslims living in the west are accustomed to the daily grind of misinformation, casual racism and accusations about our faith and position in society. The environment we find ourselves in after 9/11 has made it very difficult for our community to simultaneously continue living an Islamic life and meeting the demands of our daily existence. This atmosphere has given rise to what can only be called a liberal inquisition, the constant reminder that we should be defensive about our faith and that what we believe is somehow out of sync with modernity. I have argued before, through well-planned strategies, governments either side of the Atlantic have deliberately tightened the legal and acceptable framework by which we live out our lives. Aimed at making us uncomfortable about our faith and who we are. As a result, many within our community, especially the young, have all too often opted to live a lifestyle and adhere to a set of values that would be at odds with the true essence of Islam.

In this febrile atmosphere, some have called for more radical action to affirm the faith of our families and community. If the next generation is to survive, maybe we need to more proactively build community institutions that nurture true conviction and assert more readily our priorities, free from the tedious scrutiny of wider society. This is where Muslims have engaged with the Benedict Option of Rod Dreher. Dreher, an American Christian, argues that we now live in a ‘post-Christian world’ and if Christians want to preserve their faith they will have to segregate themselves to some degree from liberal society. The Benedict Option was named after the 6th-century monk Benedict of Nursia, who after witnessing the depravity of the dying days of Rome, opted to flee the city to maintain his commitment to God. Dreher argues, in this post-Christian world, for religiosity in any meaningful sense to survive, believers must take radical and purposeful action.

To discuss the notion of a Muslim Benedict Option we have invited Ismail Royer, no stranger to the Islamic scene in the United States and a keen commentator on social affairs. Royer serves as a Director at the Religious Freedom Institute, a Washington, DC-based non-profit organization. He converting to Islam in 1992 and has studied religious sciences with traditional Islamic scholars. I ask Ismail to engage with Dreher’s option, about its plausibility and whether we can escape to the hills? But also whether the Benedict option is fundamentally at odds with the Message of Islam and our duty to carry the Islamic message?