Boreal

A Letter to the Prime Minister About a War

Ottawa Ontario

K1S 3S9

November 9, 2015

The Right Honourable Justin Trudeau

Office of the Prime Minister

80 Wellington Street

Ottawa, ON K1A 0A2

Dear Prime Minister,

Congratulations.

In the hope of contributing to an informed vigorous discussion within the PMO of the book that inspires Islamic State and which represents the greatest threat to what Mark Lilla, professor of the humanities at Columbia University describes as "the fragile exception"* please accept a complimentary copy of Jihad in the Koran.

Sincerely Yours

 

_________________________

Bernard Payeur

Author, Pain, Pleasure and Prejudice, The Koran arranged by topic and explained in a way we can all understand, Boreal Books, 2012

cc: Ms. Katie Telford

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* After centuries of strife, the West has learned to separate religion and politics – to establish the legitimacy of its leaders without referring to divine command. There is little reason to expect the rest of the world – the Islamic world in particular – will follow. We in the West find it incomprehensible that theological ideas still inflame the minds of men, stirring up messianic passions that can leave societies in ruin. We had assumed that this was no longer possible, that human beings had learned to separate religious questions from political ones, that political theology died in 16th-century Europe. We were wrong. It's we who are the fragile exception.

Mark Lilla, The Stillborn God: Religion, Politics and the Modern West (2007)