Islam and the Future of Tolerance

2018 • 88 minutes

About this movie

After publicly clashing in a debate over the concept of Islamic reform in the Muslim world, prominent atheist philosopher Sam Harris and Islamist-turned-liberal-Muslim Maajid Nawaz reconnect several years later in an attempt at civil and honest dialogue. Sam and Maajid attempt to explore their real or imagined divides by clearly and rationally dissecting their disagreements. Through the course of their discussions, they tackle troubling passages from the Quran, the importance of the precision of language and terms (such as “Jihadism,” “Islamists,” and “radical,”) and the difficulty in finding helpful and honest responses in a fraught political terrain. Ultimately, this unlikely collaboration sheds light on the many confusions that afflict the public conversation about Islam and emphasizes how the virtues of open dialogue can help foster both understanding and tolerance in an increasingly polarized world.

Ratings and reviews

The film really only explores two things: Maajid's personal history and the notion of nested commitments to Islam as represented by concentric circles. The former is an interesting story, with details given by Maajid describing his experience as a committed Islamist and imprisonment, right up until the present day - he is a vocal anti-theocrat and anti-jihadist. The latter is a point that is repeated for the last 30-40 minutes of the film, and the film makers do nothing more with it. It's just given visually, verbally several times and... that's it. Bizarrely, there is only a single scene where Sam and Maajid are in the same room, and it's shot from afar, comes much too late and is delivered with what seems to be the most anti-climactic sense of pacing possible in the context of the film. When we want to see them really dig in deep, the film makers are already packing up... The ideas in the film are great, worth spreading and fairly presented. However, these ideas can be detailed better, with less repetition and presented in a more meaty context elsewhere.

6 STAR. This is an extremely well done documentary about the debate between anti-islam and pro-islam. It explains you well all kinds of definition of islam before you even start the debate. Whatever, it emphasize that "human right" is much bigger than any religion, by which you can make a lot of good decision in your later life.

A must-watch for everyone. The arguments in this documentary hit all the right dominoes in your brain. A topic that should've been discussed a long time ago, is elaborated and articulated by Dr. Harris and Majid Nawaz and the more you follow the film, the harder it is to think about anything but it.