[T]aqiyya had become a central pillar of the far-right’s rendition of Islam. Because I am a masochist, I spent a few days trying to source all the quotations in one report, “Taqiyya about Taqiyya” by Raymond Ibrahim, a virulent Islamophobe associated with David Horowitz…  It would be too easy to say that distorted facts and quotations proliferate in such pieces because of a disregard for the truth. Raymond Ibrahim and his fellow Taqiyyists have inordinate regard for a central truth: that Islam is evil. This truth flattens everything else—the seventh century and the twenty-first form part of a single tapestry of intelligibility. Everything makes sense. It’s impossible to refute Ibrahim. He has certainty, where I can offer only ambiguity and nuance. That’s not much of an answer. As ever, paranoia is far more coherent than real life.

Concerning “Craze’s” charges, the reader is free to evaluate my article, “Taqiyya about Taqiyya”—originally the expert report portion of my affidavit in a legal case concerning taqiyya—and see if it “distorts facts” and has a “disregard for the truth.”  (Curiously, although Craze linked to and documented every other article he referenced, including those he was critical of, he failed to link to mine, which is here.)

Of more interest is his point, that, when it comes to Islam, people would rather have certainty—which apparently culminates into “paranoia”—rather than what he offers, “ambiguity and nuance.”  He continues in this vein:

As I read more articles and doom-scrolled deeper into the universe of the right-wingers, I gave them a name: the Taqiyyists. The central tenants [sic] of their faith introduced a basic epistemological conundrum. If Muslims were liars, and many Muslims—like myself—were in hiding, how was one to tell who the real Muslims were?

How, indeed.  Here we finally come to it, the significance of his meandering piece:  If there is evidence that Muslims are encouraged to deceive non-Muslims—and there is, plenty—how does one know when a Muslim is or isn’t being deceptive?

Fundamentally, this is a philosophical question of the “burden of proof” variety: Which of two parties is required to prove something in order to earn the trust of the other? Under normal circumstances, person X will rely on universal criteria when determining whether or not to believe person Y.

However, when Y is openly following a creed—Islam—that teaches its adherents to be hostile, even hate non-Muslims, and do virtually everything possible—including lying—to dominate them, then the entire calculus must change, including by placing the burden of proof on the Muslim, certainly when it comes to sensitive, potentially lethal, situations.