The Claremont Review of Books is one of those publications I kick myself for not reading more frequently. Edited by the always-insightful Charles Kesler, its high quality is the mirror opposite of its low public profile. I was excited to see that Dalrymple wrote a book review for last Fall’s issue, and hopefully this is the start of many such pieces, although I now see that he has written for them infrequently in the past.

This piece is a review of Heaven on Earth: A Journey Through Shari’a Law from the Deserts of Ancient Arabia to the Streets of the Modern Muslim World by Sadakat Kadri. Dalrymple says Kadri’s book is far from a clear look at sharia law but is rather evasive and dishonest, evincing a troubling morality:

Sadakat Kadri is appalled by a cartoon, but not by the criminal and mendacious mullahs who, in their treacherous efforts to stir up trouble against the country that had welcomed them and provided them with a very decent living, added to the cartoons in question some that were never published; nor by efforts to kill the cartoonists; nor by the primitive, stupid, and vicious behaviour of inflamed crowds that ended in the deaths of quite a number of people. He is a lawyer specializing in human rights; one can only suppose that he leads a double life. Whether he does or not, his book is a dishonest, ill-written, and disgraceful performance…

The CRB costs $19.95 per year, but this article is free.