Lamin Sanneh, suffering, and the central contradiction of Islam

Lamin Sanneh over at Yale is himself an ex-Muslim Christian (and a Catholic one, at that). He is one of the best anaylzers of Islam that I have ever read. Here is a great quote:

It remains, surely, one of the supreme ironies that the suffering that radical violence wishes to inflict on the West is in the name of a God who is immune to suffering and yet who will receive sacrifice on His behalf. Right-minded people must press this contradiction and ask how morally plausible it is to lay down one's life for God when God is forbidden to lay down His life for humanity. [...] Few of those Muslims who who denounce the methods of radical terror have been willing to reject the end for which it is being undertaken, which is the punitive drive to convert an infidel West. It gives the radicals little incentive to cease and desist.

Sanneh, Lamin. 2008. 'Foreword' in Jesus and the Cross, David Singh ed. Regnum. p viii.

I recommend this book of his for curious parties.