Ninety-nine percent of Christians can’t explain the theological differences between evangelicals, Baptists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, or any of the hundreds of protestant versions of Christianity nor the differences between protestantism, Catholicism & Orthodox Christianity.

So why are all the Assadists experts on Islam? They throw around Wahhabism, Salafism, Sunni, & Shia like epithets when they don’t know their way around their own catechism. In colloquial language, it’s called blowing smoke.

It is important to understand the dialectics of theology & politics in Syria & the rest of the Middle East. Not as a way to impugn Islam as a religion fostering terrorism–any more than Catholic theology fostered inquisitions & colonialism–but to understand the complex interaction of ideology & autocracy, whether feudalism or capitalism.

In “Burning Country: Syrians in Revolution & War” by Robin Yassin-Kassab & Leila Al-Shami, there is a valuable discussion of the rise of Islamism in Syria & a bibliography to broaden ones study. Once you get a handle on this issue one is less inclined to engage in pissing contests with Assadists who employ epithets to mask ignorance & Islamophobia.