Why Islam doesn’t need a reformation

The Guardian ^ | Sunday 17 May 2015 | Mahdi Hasan

[Cronos]

In recent months, cliched calls for reform of Islam, a 1,400-year-old faith, have intensified. “We need a Muslim reformation,” announced Newsweek. “Islam needs reformation from within,” said the Huffington Post. ..After all, Christianity had the Reformation, so goes the argument, which was followed by the Enlightenment; by secularism, liberalism and modern European democracy. So why can’t Islam do the same?

Yet the reality is that talk of a Christian-style reformation for Islam is so much cant. Let’s consider this idea of a “Muslim Luther”. Luther did not merely nail 95 theses to the door of the Castle church in Wittenberg in 1517, denouncing clerical abuses within the Catholic church. He also demanded that German peasants revolting against their feudal overlords be “struck dead”, comparing them to “mad dogs”, and authored On the Jews and Their Lies in 1543, in which he referred to Jews as “the devil’s people” and called for the destruction of Jewish homes and synagogues. As the US sociologist and Holocaust scholar Ronald Berger has observed, Luther helped establish antisemitism as “a key element of German culture and national identity”. Hardly a poster boy for reform and modernity for Muslims in 2015.

...The truth is that Islam has already had its own reformation of sorts, in the sense of a stripping of cultural accretions and a process of supposed “purification”. And it didn’t produce a tolerant, pluralistic, multifaith utopia, a Scandinavia-on-the-Euphrates. Instead, it produced … the kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Wasn’t reform exactly what was offered to the masses of the Hijaz by Muhammad Ibn Abdul Wahhab, the mid-18th century itinerant preacher who allied with the House of Saud? He offered an austere Islam cleansed of what he believed to be innovations, which eschewed centuries of mainstream scholarship and commentary, and rejected the authority of the traditional ulema.

[matt1234]

After Tsarnaev’s conviction, his mother posted that he was “the best of the best.”

[nathanbedford]

The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth deserves more attention from historians and students than it has received. You are quite correct, there was toleration and a degree of post-medieval society there but I cannot connect the dots between the PL Commonwealth and the thinking of the framers and the writers of the First Amendment concerning speech and religion, can you?

[windsorknot]

“Reformation” of Mohammedanism will attain the same success rate as Alchemy.

[Cronos]

Kościuszko and Ben Franklin. the demise of Poland was widely known in the 18th century

[jocon307]

I suppose he makes some good points, but while he accuses others of oversimplifying he does the same thing.

First off the Reformation was about more than just Martin Luther, and secondly when people call for a “reformation” in Islam I think they are using the word in its own pure sense, not really referencing the Christian Reformation of centuries ago.

But at least he seems to acknowledge that things can’t go on as they are.

And, quite frankly, I don’t care how religious you want to be, or what religion you are. If you want to wear a burkha, I may think that is silly but I don’t really care. But when you start to kill people and blow stuff up, then I have a big problem with you and your religion.

[jocon307]

“No one seems to be taking them seriously. That is working quite well for them.”

Very well said. And I agree with you. And I keep thinking that this or that horror will be what wakes people up.

But nothing seems to really do it.

And then there’s the spectacle we’ve been treated to this weekend after the jury in Boston gave the death sentence to that little pig Tsarnaev (I’m sure I speed that wrong, but I can’t be bothered to look it up) - of the MSM wringing their hands over it and talking about how everyone up there feels bad about it.

Which a couple of Freepers here have said is just not true. And my kid who knows some pretty liberal people up there said is just not true.

I dread to think what it will take to make people realize we are in a fight to the death, maybe not with “all of Islam” but with a very large portion of Islam. I don’t think we went around in WWII saying: gee not EVERY German is a Nazi, we should give them the benefit of the doubt.

[relictele]

He said he reckoned a body could reform the old man with a shotgun, maybe, but he didn’t know no other way. - Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 5.

[nathanbedford]

I was thinking more in terms of Luther's Reformation and the enlightenment creating the conditions for the kind of toleration expressed in the First Amendment. In other words, I was applying a "but for" test: but for the Reformation and the enlightenment there could have been no First Amendment.

I cannot apply that same test the albeit relatively enlightened Poland- Lithuanian Commonwealth.

[don-o]

bfl

[Travis McGee]

[Lady Heron]

it is not that islam does not need a reformation it is that islam can not have a reformation, ever....unlike the Christian reformation islam is doing what it teaches, it is as good as it is ever going to get because it teaches evil...murder, rape, enslavement of women, iron control over its population.

Christianity could go through a reformation because the Bible was not in the language of the people who followed it and only a few could read it and control that information. Reformation came about when the people could read God's word for themselves and question how they were being led for themselves.

[Georgia Girl 2]

Islam needs an eradication.

[Ray76]

The Reformation did not alter fundamental doctrine - the divinity of Jesus or His teachings, love your neighbor.

It is ignorant to claim a “moslem reformation” is necessary, it’s fundamental doctrine is the problem - kill your neighbor. What is needed is abolishment.

[John O]

Islam doesn’t need reformation. It needs eradication.

[bluejean]

“I dread to think what it will take to make people realize we are in a fight to the death, maybe not with “all of Islam” but with a very large portion of Islam. I don’t think we went around in WWII saying: gee not EVERY German is a Nazi, we should give them the benefit of the doubt.”

Exactly. It’s distressing to think it’s going to have to go that far for the Sleeple to wake up. But it sure looks that way.

[central_va]

Reformation.

[JimSEA]

I think the Sufi came first. I’m not knowledgeable about the Turkish mystics beyond their religious “dancing”. My interest in India lead to what I know about the Sufi and the blending of Islam with Hindu philosophy (until they got “slapped down” by the Sunni).

[momincombatboots]

Not offended by the Luther criticism.. In fact, I came to terms with the Replacement theology by rejecting it. My DH and I did a study on this together and I was shocked to find the Reformation’s role in destroying European Jewish lives and property. I was equally shocked to find and hear that replacement theology is alive and well today. Some folks just say (on this forum, no less) you don’t really need the Old Testament, you can just skip that part of your Bible. Anyway, safe to say, the New Testament doesn’t teach that either.
Islam doesn’t need a reformation, it is happy to rape, enslave, murder, destroy and steal from whomever it deems “the enemy” and those tenants aren’t going anywhere.
It needs to be saved by the Blood of Jesus Christ.
We don’t need a bunch of religious fanatics repeating the cleansing of the Reformation.. we need a bunch of religious fanatics praying and reaching.

[Cronos]

But this should be treated as a socio-historical criticism of Luther, not a dogmatic criticism.

Luther was no anti-semite in the sense that he hated jews because of their race. He wrote nasty things against people of the jewish religion, but he wrote nasty things against Catholics, Zwingli etc. -- those who didn't like what he said :) -- but he would have been appalled by the Nazis.