I think Nietzsche must have been a student of Islam—his notion of the “will to power” is so nakedly on display there. But the will to power is generally more concealed, and particularly in the realm of ethics it is supposed to be moderated, questioned, even rejected. But Islamic ethics seem to dispense with that nicety. (How often does one hear or see the phrase “1.3 billion Muslims”? How seldom the phrase “2.1 billion Christians”?)

One religious culture is taught to feel shame for its imperial past (Allah, no doubt, making them stupid and weak), the other wants nothing more than to return to it.

I feel a gagging, shuddering disgust at the thought of being “dominated” by such contemptible know-nothings.

“If one does not believe that there is any value in this, or in God, I do not see why it should be troubling.”

This suggests that the only possible value God or a way of life respecting him could have is to ultimately manifest itself in the domination of others and the total mastery of earth—likewise a turn of mind of contemptibly childish narrowness.

Andrew Norfolk got the quotes from Yoginder Sikand’s article “Origins and Growth of the Tablighi Jamaat in Britain” published in the journal “Islam and Christian Muslim Relations” in 1998.