One's own religion is neither a marker of one's expertise on it, nor does it give one an exclusive right to comment on the subject.
Anyone nurturing misconception on this topic ought to listen to the Fox News interview with Reza Aslan, author of Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth.
Fox host Lauren Green's line of questioning intimated that Mr Aslan, as a Muslim, was incapable of providing an unbiased academic account on the Christian faith. In response, Mr Aslan pointed out that he was an academic and an expert on religions who just happened to be Muslim.
To be sure, there are several instances of such overlaps: many books on Islam have been written by Christian scholars. Similarly, there are examples of Muslims commenting cogently on Christianity.
But while the lesson is that an author's scholarship could not be discounted purely on the basis of their religion, the outcome of the cringeworthy and notorious interview is not so unpalatable: the controversy boosted the book's profile and put it in the No 1 spot on Amazon.com.
And that presents the solution to this. When it comes to assessing the veracity of Mr Aslan's work, we ought to read it.
