A Reality Check For Islam

The numbers speak loudly.

“You are the best community produced for mankind…”
— Qur’an 3:110

Really?

That is not a timid claim. It is a claim of superiority. Not merely that Islam is true, but that the community shaped by it is the finest community produced for humanity.

Claims of superiority deserve something better than applause. They deserve comparison.

So let us compare.

Take every country in which Christianity is the largest religious affiliation and every country in which Islam is the largest religious affiliation. Compare them using the ordinary measures by which modern societies evaluate themselves: purchasing-power-adjusted income, healthcare, freedom of expression, and human development.

These are not Christian measures. They are not Islamic measures. They are the same international benchmarks used by governments, economists, and development agencies throughout the world.

The pattern is remarkably consistent.

Christian-plurality countries produce substantially higher average incomes. And that one little Jewish state built on a postage stamp desert plot seems to be doing quite well.

The Christian and Jewish nations rank higher in healthcare. They rank higher in freedom of expression. They rank higher in human development. The comparison is not between a handful of exceptional nations, nor between the richest countries on earth. It is an average across all countries in which each religion is the largest religious affiliation.

Then narrow the comparison to the birthplace of Islam itself.

Compare Israel with the surrounding Middle East using the same measures. Again, Israel scores markedly higher in income, healthcare, freedom of expression, and human development than the regional average..

If a civilization, a community, or a way of life claims to be the finest produced for mankind, it is entirely reasonable to ask whether that excellence is reflected in the ordinary conditions of human life.

If superiority is claimed in this world, it should leave some measurable footprint in this world.

The data presented here do not appear to support that claim. The evidence is what it is. It does not appear to show the world’s highest-performing societies clustering where the claim of superiority is made. It appears to show the opposite.

A civilization may still believe itself exceptional. But belief and demonstration are not the same thing. If one insists on the former, one should at least be willing to look honestly at the latter.

As a bit of a kicker, let’s compare the numbers on emigration from Muslim-majority to Christian-majority nations and then take a look at the reverse.

You know what they say about people voting with their feet?

So with all due respect to their noble prophet, it looks like something has gone wrong.

It reminds me of some students I’ve had that, in spite of their C-, nevertheless can’t be persuaded that they are not the smartest kid in the class.