Criticism of Islam can take many forms, including academic critiques, political criticism, religious criticism, and personal opinions. Subjects of criticism include Islamic beliefs, practices, and doctrines.
Criticism of Islam has been present since its formative stages, and early expressions of disapproval were made by Jews, Christians, and some former Muslims like Ibn al-Rawandi.De Haeresibus by John of Damascus. See Migne. Patrologia Graeca, vol. 94, 1864, cols 763–73. An English translation by the Reverend John W Voorhis appeared in The Moslem World for October 1954, pp. 392–98. Subsequently, the Muslim world itself faced criticism after the September 11 attacks.Ibn Kammuna, Examination of the Three Faiths, trans. Moshe Perlmann (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1971), pp. 148–49.Mohammed and Mohammedanism , by Gabriel Oussani, Catholic Encyclopedia. Retrieved 16 April 2006.
Criticism of Islam has been aimed at the life of Muhammad, the central prophet of Islam, in both his public and personal lives.Ibn Warraq, The Quest for the Historical Muhammad (Amherst, Mass.: Prometheus, 2000), p. 103. Issues relating to the authenticity and morality of the scriptures of Islam, both the Quran, the hadiths, and his personal life (such as the child marriage with Aisha) are also discussed by critics.Bible in Mohammedian Literature , by Kaufmann Kohler and Duncan B. McDonald, Jewish Encyclopedia. Retrieved 22 April 2006. Criticisms of Islam have also been directed at historical practices, such as the recognition of slavery as an institutionBrunschvig. 'Abd; Encyclopaedia of Islam.Focus on the slave trade , BBC News.The persistence of history , The Economist. as well as Islamic imperialism impacting native cultures. More recently, Islamic beliefs regarding human origins, predestination, God's existence, and God's nature have received criticism for perceived philosophical and scientific inconsistencies.
As of January 2025, at least 89 countries have anti-blasphemy laws, according to Humanists International. |url-status=live }}</ref> By 2017, 13 Muslim countries imposed the death penalty for apostasy or blasphemy.Which countries still outlaw apostasy and blasphemy? , Pew Research Center, 29 July 2016.
Muslim scholars have historically responded to criticisms through apologetics and theological defenses of Islamic doctrines. Amid the contemporary embrace of multiculturalism, there has been criticism regarding how Islam may affect the willingness or ability of Muslim immigrants to assimilate in host nations.
Historical background
Early Christian reactions to Islam, such as those by St. John of Damascus around fifty years after the Hijrah, were shaped by theological opposition and political conflict. According to Norman Daniel, John's depiction of Islam confused it with pre-Islamic paganism, associating Muslim practices with idol worship at the Ka'bah. Christian polemical writing at the time took an "unusually severe attitude" toward Islam, condemning whatever Muslims believed, even when it was partially correct according to Christian teaching. Daniel notes that the method used against Islam applied established Christian techniques of theological debate, often favoring aggressive refutation over genuine understanding. This early pattern of prejudice, Daniel argues, continued without dilution into later European Orientalist scholarship, influencing views of Islam well into the modern period. Medieval Muslim society also produced unorthodox voices—such as Ibn al-Rawandī and Abū Bakr al-Rāzī—whose radical critiques of prophecy provoked vigorous rebuttals from both theologians and philosophers, illustrating the period's lively culture of intellectual debate al-Ma'arri, an eleventh-century antinatalist and critic of all religions. His poetry was known for its "pervasive pessimism." He believed that Islam does not have a monopoly on truth. Apologetic writings, attributed to the philosopher Abd-Allah ibn al-Muqaffa (), include defenses of Manichaeism against Islam and critiques of the Islamic concept of God, characterizing the Quranic deity in highly critical terms.Tilman Nagel Geschichte der islamischen Theologie: von Mohammed bis zur Gegenwart C.H. Beck 1994 p. 215Camilla Adang, Hassan Ansari, Maribel Fierro, Sabine Schmidtke Accusations of Unbelief in Islam: A Diachronic Perspective on Takfīr Brill, 30 October 2015 p. 61 The Jewish philosopher Ibn Kammuna, criticized Islam,Ibn Warraq. Why I Am Not a Muslim, p. 3. Prometheus Books, 1995. Norman A. Stillman. The Jews of Arab Lands: A History and Source Book p. 261. Jewish Publication Society, 1979 reasoning that Shari'a was incompatible with the principles of justice.Norman A. Stillman. The Jews of Arab Lands: A History and Source Book p. 261. Jewish Publication Society, 1979
At the same time that dissenting voices like Ibn al-Rāwandī appeared, mainstream Muslim scholars were actively strengthening Islamic doctrine against both internal and external critiques. As Hodgson notes, a range of thinkers—including the traditionalist Aṯharīs, the Ashʿarīs, and the Māturīdīs—developed vigorous defenses of revelation, sometimes by strict adherence to transmitted texts, sometimes through rational systematization. Rather than avoiding controversy, they treated public debate as a responsibility, working to articulate an intellectually coherent and resilient Islamic worldview that Hodgson describes as one of the most creatively active climates of medieval history.
During the Middle Ages, Christian church officials commonly represented Islam as a Christian heresy or a form of idolatry.Christian Lange Paradise and Hell in Islamic Traditions Cambridge University Press, 2015 pp. 18–20 Daniel emphasizes that for much of the medieval period, Christian understanding of Islam was based more on inherited stereotypes and polemical tradition than on direct engagement with Muslim sources. They viewed Islam to be a material, rather than spiritual, religion and often explained it in apocalyptic terms. In the early modern period, some Christian thinkers shifted their critiques toward questions of political loyalty and religious authority. In A Letter Concerning Toleration (1689), the philosopher John Locke argued that Islam’s perceived fusion of religious and political authority—drawing in particular on the Ottoman Caliphate—raised concerns about whether Muslim subjects living under Christian governments could maintain undivided allegiance to the civil state. Locke contrasted this with Christian traditions that, in his view, distinguished ecclesiastical authority from civil governance.Locke, John. "Toleration." McMaster University Archive. 1689. 16 December 2025.
In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, European academics often portrayed Islam as an exotic Eastern religion distinct from Western religions like Judaism and Christianity, sometimes classifying it as a "Semitic" religion. The term "Mohammedanism" was used by many to criticize Islam by focusing on Muhammad's actions, reducing Islam to merely a derivative of Christianity rather than acknowledging it as a successor of Abrahamic monotheisms. By contrast, many academics nowadays study Islam as an Abrahamic religion in relation to Judaism and Christianity. The Christian apologist G. K. Chesterton criticized Islam as a heresy or parody of Christianity,G. K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man, 1925, Chapter V, The Escape from Paganism, Online text David Hume (), both a naturalist and a sceptic, considered monotheistic religions to be more "comfortable to sound reason" than polytheism but also found Islam to be more "ruthless" than Christianity.
The Greek Orthodox bishop Paul of Antioch accepted Muhammed as a prophet, but did not consider his mission to be universal and regarded Christian law superior to Islamic law.Hugh Goddard A History of Christian-Muslim Relations New Amsterdam Books, 5 September 2000 p. 65. Maimonides, a twelfth-century rabbi, did not question the strict monotheism of Islam, and considered Islam to be an instrument of divine providence for bringing all of humankind to the worship of the one true God, but was critical of the practical politics of Muslim regimes and considered Islamic ethics and politics to be inferior to their Jewish counterparts.The Mind of Maimonides, by David Novak. Retrieved 29 April 2006.
In his essay Islam Through Western Eyes, the cultural critic Edward Said suggests that the Western view of Islam is particularly hostile for a range of religious, psychological and political reasons, all deriving from a sense "that so far as the West is concerned, Islam represents not only a formidable competitor but also a late-coming challenge to Christianity." In his view, the general basis of Orientalist thought forms a study structure in which Islam is placed in an inferior position as an object of study, thus forming a considerable bias in Orientalist writings as a consequence of the scholars' cultural make-up.
Points of criticism The expansion of Islam In an alleged dialogue between the Byzantine emperor Manuel II Palaiologos () and a Persian scholar, the emperor criticized Islam as a faith spread by the sword.Dialogue 7 of Twenty-six Dialogues with a Persian (1399), for the Greek text see Trapp, E., ed. 1966. Manuel II. Palaiologos: Dialoge mit einem "Perser." Wiener Byzantinische Studien 2. Vienna, for a Greek text with accompanying French translation see Th. Khoury "Manuel II Paléologue, Entretiens avec un Musulman. 7e Controverse", Sources Chrétiennes n. 115, Paris 1966, for an English translation see Manuel Paleologus, Dialogues with a Learned Moslem. Dialogue 7 (2009), chapters 1–18 (of 37), translated by Roger Pearse available at the Christian Classics Ethereal Library here, at The Tertullian Project here , and also here . A somewhat more complete translation into French is found here This reflected a common view in Europe during the Enlightenment period about Islam, then synonymous with the Ottoman Empire, as a bloody, ruthless, and intolerant religion. More recently, in 2006, a similar statement of Manuel II, quoted publicly by Pope Benedict XVI, prompted a negative response from Muslim figures who viewed the remarks as an insulting mischaracterization of Islam. In this vein, the Indian social reformer Pandit Lekh Ram () thought that Islam was grown through violence and desire for wealth,"Américo Castro and the Meaning of Spanish Civilization", by José Rubia Barcia, Selma Margaretten, p. 150. while the Nigerian author Wole Soyinka considers Islam as a "superstition" that it is mainly spread with violence and force."Debating the African Condition: Race, gender, and culture conflict", by Alamin M. Mazrui, Willy Mutunga, p. 105
This "conquest by the sword" thesis is opposed by many historians who consider the transregional development of Islam a multi-faceted phenomenon involving a range of political, social, and economic processes. The first wave of expansion, the migration of the early Muslims to Medina to escape persecution in Mecca and the subsequent conversion of Medina, was indeed peaceful. In the years to come, Muslims defended themselves against frequent Meccan incursions until Mecca's peaceful surrender in 630. By the time of Muhammed's death in 632, most Arabian tribes had formed political alliances with him and embraced Islam voluntarily, creating a foundation for future regional expansion. In the centuries that followed, Islam extended beyond Arabia through a combination of military conquests and non-military means. While the early Islamic empires expanded into Syria, Persia, and North Africa, Islam often remained a minority religion in those regions for several generations, a pattern that some scholars cite as evidence that political conquest did not inherently produce widespread religious conversion.