Non-fanatic

To Italians, the Senegalese Muslims give the impression of being very different, though not in a threatening way: their brand of Islam is considered by many "reassuring" and "non-fanatic".

I remember how Egypt used to absorb all fanatics in its civilization and reshape them and turn them into non-fanatic Egyptian citizens.

Perhaps the believers in the narrative of the mystical marriage could not recognise the reign of the sober and distinctly non-fanatic William and Mary as the happy ending of Sion in Distress or the miracle Keach represents it as being on the front cover of Distressed Sion Relieved: 'the late Admirable and Stupendious Providence which hath wrought such a sudden and Wonderful Deliverance for this Nation, and Gods Sion therein'.

The first obvious observation to be made is that the fanatic never sees himself as a fanatic ; it is only the non-fanatic who can recognize him as a fanatic ; so that when this judgment, or this accusation, is made, the fanatic can always say that he is misunderstood and slandered.

However, as a green non-fanatic and, it must be said, non-patriot, in those noble and desperate days in Dublin, I should have felt awkward, among the quick and heroic (and I call some of my then-friends heroic without irony, as I know they hold their lives ready for Ireland at all hours — to my great wonder) — but I do not remember to have been embarrassed.

Hence, the intensity of the community's values may tend to drive the non-fanatics out.