Reflections on Islam mostly comprises more than four dozen columns about Islam and terrorism written by author and National Post columnist George Jonas between 2001 and 2006. The new material – a postscript and an introductory piece entitled “Letter to a Liberal Friend” – while more intimate in tone than any of the columns, doesn’t add any structure or arc to the collection, which is organized chronologically – presumably for lack of any better way to organize so many short and unconnected pieces.

Distinguishing between Islam (a religion) and Islamism (as he sees it, a political ideology), Jonas argues that the latter has been co-opted by extremists and terrorists, and that the rest of the world had better watch out. Jonas seems to be in favour of pre-emptive strikes against unstable nuclear (or potentially nuclear) powers. He is not in favour of, as he puts it, “going to war for makeup” (also known as women’s rights). Most of the columns deal with typical fodder: polls, other columnists, what’s in the papers, etc. In some he comes across as paranoid, striking out at vague left-wing enemies (“the appeasers at the New York Times”; “Hollywood’s lefty confuseniks”). In others, he writes from a dark, unhappy world view, obsessed with evil and sin.

These columns read like, well, newspaper columns, which is to say they have dulled with age and were never the full story. Complexity and debate are rarely found in an opinion column that charges from peg to conclusion in a few hundred words. And Jonas makes too much use of qualifiers, which tend to undercut his own arguments. Is Islam “a Petri dish in which a culture of fundamentalism thrives? Arguably, yes,” Jonas writes. Arguably, indeed.