Is Islam compatible with Western liberal democracy?

“There’s really three ways you can use the word Muslim,” he said.

For some, Muslim identity is cultural. Bannister describes one friend who identifies as Muslim but does not practise the faith, saying: “He eats bacon sandwiches. So, clearly not practising, but he’s from Syria, so that’s his culture.”

Others, he says, are “very orthodox”: “They try and keep the five pillars of Islam. They go to mosque. They read the Quran. They pray.”

But Bannister says there is also a third category: “Muslims for whom it’s a political identity.” This includes, he said, “the Muslim Brotherhood and those kind of groups who really want to reshape society in their image.”

It is this spectrum, from orthodox Islam through to Islamism, that Bannister believes creates deep tensions with Western liberal democracy.

“I will be really direct,” he said. “I do not think Islam is compatible with Western values. I simply think it isn’t.”

The heart of the issue, Bannister argues, is the relationship between religion and politics. Western liberal democracy has generally operated with some distinction between religious authority and state power, even if that boundary has sometimes been imperfect or “porous”. Islam, he argues, has historically developed differently.

“Traditionally, Islam is a religion that hasn’t separated politics out,” Bannister said. “Muhammad was a political leader, and Muhammad was a religious leader. The Quran is a political text and a religious text. And so those two streams have always run together.”

That creates a particular difficulty when Muslim communities live as minorities within liberal democracies. Bannister quotes the late British Muslim leader Zaki Badawi, who once observed: “Muslim theology has always been a theology of the majority. Being in a minority was never seriously considered.”

For Bannister, this is one of the key theological and political challenges facing Islam in the West.

“The challenge for the Muslim community here is, how do they rethink through what it means to be a minority community?” he said. “That’s not easy. It’s not an easy position when your texts don’t support you.”

Bannister was particularly concerned about freedom of speech and freedom of religion. “We’ve built Western society on the idea that all ideas are up for grabs,” he said.

Yet he warns that criticism of Islam is increasingly becoming contested. He pointed to the recent attempt by policians in the UK to bring in a definition of Islamophobia which would have effectively acted as an Islamic blasphemy law. Bannister said: “You’ve had Muslim MPs who are very clear that’s just the beginning and want any critique of Islam to be banned.”

Bannister also draws a direct comparison between Jesus and Muhammad when considering the relationship between faith, violence and public power. He acknowledged that Christianity has its own serious historical failures.

“Christianity went through its period where, if you said something critical, life did not go well,” he said.

But he argues that there is a difference between abuses done in the name of Christianity and the teachings of Jesus.

“If you compare that to the actual teachings of Jesus, there’s not a clear link,” he said. “If you compare the Islamism ideas to the teaching of Muhammad, there is a direct link.”

Bannister then quoted a former Muslim friend who had become a Christian.

The friend said, “Now as a Christian, I realise when I encounter a Christian who is behaving violently or rudely in the way they’re treating others, I want to … get them as close to Jesus as I can and say, ‘What are you doing?’ If I meet a Muslim friend who is behaving that way, I want to drag them as far from Muhammad as I possibly can, because them reading Muhammad’s biography and the traditions is not going to help.”

Bannister concludes, that is the crucial comparison, “Jesus versus Muhammad, as it’s always been.”

For Bannister, this makes the comparison between Jesus and Muhammad central to the wider question of whether Islamism can coexist with liberal democracy. The issue is not simply whether individual Muslims can be peaceful, kind and democratic, because many clearly are. The question is whether the founding texts, traditions and exemplary figure of Islam provide the same theological resources for limiting power, protecting dissent and allowing criticism that Christians can find in the teaching and example of Jesus.

However, Bannister’s response is not to encourage hostility towards Muslims. Quite the opposite. He urges Christians and others to treat Muslims with dignity and kindness.

“The first thing I’d say… is to treat other people with respect and dignity,” he said. “We’ve forgotten how to disagree well.”

He added that Christians who are concerned about Islamism should not confuse political concern with personal hostility.

“Treat the Muslims in front of you with kindness,” he said. “They’re here in the country. You might disagree with them being here, but they are here, and you may be the first Christian they know.”

Bannister also warned Christians against triumphalism, or getting dragged into any kind of Christian nationalism. Attempts to create religious states, he said, should make Christians humble about their own history.

“We have tried this at times in history, and it doesn’t end well,” he said.

“The moment that anyone gets into power, whatever their religious background, grabs hold of the levers of power and goes, ‘I’m gonna use those levers to try to make more people believe like me,’ it doesn’t end well.”

So, is Islam compatible with Western liberal democracy? Bannister’s answer is no. He argues that orthodox Islam, where it retains a traditional fusion of religion, law and public power, sits uneasily with Western values such as free speech, religious liberty and pluralism.

But Bannister’s warning is not simply about Islam. It is about any ideology that seeks to capture the state and use power to silence dissent.

The challenge, then, is twofold: to defend liberal freedoms robustly, and to do so without dehumanising Muslim neighbours.

As Bannister put it: “Yes, you can have views about the bigger political scene but love the person in front of you.”