thanks, needed that !
Posted on 08/02/2011 5:54:56 AM PDT by Kaslin
The question is in no way meant to be provocative, let alone insulting. But the world, including vast numbers of Muslims, needs this question answered.
After having studied Arabic at college and lectured on comparative religion for decades, and having devoted years to writing my upcoming book comparing American values with leftist and Islamist values, I have become convinced of two things regarding Islam: It must be reformed, and it can be reformed.
Both suppositions are highly controversial. Few believing Muslims think that Islam needs to be reformed; the suggestion would strike most religious Muslims as absurd, if not insulting and ultimately blasphemous. And it would strike many non-Muslim critics of Islam as naive. As Lord Cromer, British consul-general in Egypt from 1883 to 1907, put it in a quote known to all Western students of Islam, "Islam reformed is Islam no longer."
Let's deal first with the question of whether Islam needs reforming.
The case for it is compelling. Here are a few reasons:
-- Majority-Muslim and Islam-based countries are not, and have not been, free societies. According to the 2010 Freedom House "Freedom in the World" survey, of the world's 47 Muslim-majority countries, only two are free, 18 are partly free, and 27 are not free. There is no honest explanation for this nearly total absence of liberty in Muslim countries that does not reflect in some way on Islam.
-- Muslim treatment of Jews and Christians in places like medieval Spain was morally far superior to the treatment of non-Christians by European Christians during the same period. But in the modern period, nowhere that Islam has controlled has afforded non-Muslims anywhere near the equality that non-Christians have taken for granted in the Christian world.
-- There was a burst of intellectual and scientific creativity in the Muslim world for a few hundred years, but then the opponents of reason came to dominate Islam, and with it came a loss of scientific and intellectual curiosity.
How could it have been otherwise? The dominant Muslim view was that the natural world had no laws. Everything that occurred did so solely because Allah willed it. If an arrow hit its target, it was not because of the archer's ability or wind patterns or laws of physics; it was because Allah willed it.
According to a United Nations report written by Arab scholars, the Arab world's lack of interest in the non-Arab and non-Muslim worlds is so great that in any given year comparatively tiny Greece translates more books into Greek than all the Arab countries combined translate into Arabic.
-- Regarding women, one cannot name a culture or religion in which the status of women is as low as it is in many Muslim societies. Moreover, the status of women has actually declined in many Muslim societies in the present generation. For example, the veil is more common in Egypt today than it was a hundred years ago.
-- In nearly every Muslim country in which non-Muslims live (usually Christians) -- from Nigeria to Egypt to Iraq -- they suffer persecution.
-- A very small percentage of Muslims are terrorists. But nearly every international terrorist is Muslim. And according to every poll I have seen, at least 70 million of the world's more than a billion Muslims support Islamist actions and theology.
-- Every state that calls itself an Islamic Republic and rules according to Islamic law is a totalitarian state, and it is usually a bloodthirsty one. Saudi Arabia is an example of the first; Taliban Afghanistan, Islamist Iran and Islamist Sudan are examples of both.
So, yes, Islam needs to be reformed. This is no insult to Muslims. Judaism and Christianity have undergone major changes. And needed to.
Can Islam be reformed? I do not agree with Lord Cromer. I believe it can.
What is necessary is that Muslim reformers:
1. Honestly acknowledge the Muslim moral record -- i.e. the lack of liberty in Muslim nations, the killing of large numbers of non-Muslims, the low status of women, etc. This does not necessitate rejecting the Quran or Islam.
2. Eschew incorporating Sharia into state law and oppose the establishment of any Islamic theocracy (which is not, in any event, Quran-based, according to moderate Muslims).
3. Publicly and unambiguously condemn all violence in the name of Islam, including violence against Israel.
4. Express a deep appreciation of the moral record of America, including its superb treatment of both its Muslim citizens and Muslim immigrants, along with a complete rejection of the Islamist notion that America is hostile to Muslims.
5. Fully accept the existence of Israel as a Jewish state, and distance themselves from the Muslim/Arab obsession with Israel.
At this very moment, there are Muslim reformers who believe and express all five of these propositions.
Examples include University of Delaware Professor Muqtedar Khan, who runs www.ijtihad.com: "American Muslims really have no reason to feel they are victims of anything ... ." The Muslim American community is thriving, proof of "America's benevolence and tolerance of Islam."
Another is Ahmed al-Rahim, a professor of religious studies at the University of Virginia: "The most important message is that we condemn all kinds of hate speech, including anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism, and that we come out as boldly as possible against violence committed by Muslims in Iraq, in Israel ... . "
Regarding the Muslim obsession with Israel, Khan has written: "It is time the leaders of the American Muslim community woke up and realized that ... Islam is not about defeating Jews or conquering Jerusalem. It is about mercy, about virtue, about sacrifice and about duty. Above all, it is the pursuit of moral perfection."
Zainab Al-Suwaij, a refugee from Saddam Hussein's Iraq and executive director of the moderate American Islamic Congress, publicly declared that America "has given Iraqis the most precious gift any nation has ever given another -- the gift of democracy and the freedom to determine its own future."
And Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, a physician in Arizona whose parents fled Syria in the 1960s, is the founder and chairman of the board of the moderate American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD). A believing and practicing Muslim, Jasser advocates American values, promotes a Quran-based life to be practiced by the individual Muslim and never imposed by the state. He is courageous in confronting the Islamist Muslim groups that the mainstream media in the Western world have promoted to appear as the spokesmen for Western Muslims.
As Jasser says of organizations such as CAIR and other so-called Muslim civil rights organizations, "There was more concern with hate crimes against Muslims, which I think were relatively low; there was more focus on that than actually looking at the violence and the hate speech that has been committed in the name of Islam."
Islam is too important to deny its need to reform. And it is too important to deny its ability to ever reform.
And if it does reform, Muslims who have embraced America and American values will lead the way.
Dennis’ attempt at a slam-dunk was REJECTED!
The ones doing the merging were mostly non-Moslems
But as the % of Moslems increased, the developments decreased. the countries that became 100% Moslem were the cess-pits of the Islamic world from early on -- like Yemen and Saudi Arabia.
What a pity as yemen 5000 years ago was probably more advanced than it is now....
both of you are exactly correct.
as for the “Demon” part, if you read the Sira, in addition to ahadith and Quran, it is clear, that the “angel of light” Mohammad first saw in the cave, is the Prince of Lies himself.
in ANY encounter with angels in the Bible, the human is told “be not afraid”. Yet the angel in the cave, TERRIFIED Mohammad, and choked him, and shook him!
Jesus himself, warned that Satan could still appear as an angel of light.
other things, show that Islam IS the religion of Satan.
for example, Psalms says Satan doesn’t like music.
in Islam, music is haram.
in the Bible, old and new testaments, marriage is a special sacrament.
Ephesians says the husband should care for his wife, as Jesus loves his church!!!
in Islam, a woman is property, a field for the man to tilth at will.
The Bible warns those who hurt childen. Mohammad is told he can rape captives, and have sex with a 9 year old child!
Dennis Praeger is over-educated, overrated, and believes his own press. He over-intellectualizes everything into psychobabble.
Prager is one of my fav writers/thinkers, but here he’s writing a pipe dream.
Even Christianity is made up of those who buy into and use the scriptures they like that support their views, and reject those others that may contradict their views.
So it is with Islamic doctrine today.
Reason and logic have no place in current Islamic theology, hence there is no basis on which Prager’s excellent points can be built that a Muslim will accept. A few maybe, but never the masses. Masses don’t think. They only react on emotion.
thanks, needed that !
Perhaps -- if it ceases to be Islam.
The it wouldn't be Islam anymore, would it?
Pretty much the way I look at it, too. Mohammed the demon-possessed pedophile and his demonic master created a religion to turn bandits into a conquering horde.
Obviously the people mentioned in the article are still alive.
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i asked my Imam about that. i was told, that it was not mandatory to kill apostates who lived in the “House of War”.
and, as with taquiyya and kitman, they understand “bad press”.
and the furthering of Islam, takes priority over individual justice.
that is why the Muslim Brotherhood officially denounces violence and terrorism.
This tortured list of manure the author thinks Islam is somehow capable of swallowing, denies the facts. Islam will only bow to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, upon his second coming. A time when it will be painfully obvious that HIS power, is greater than that of Allah. Assuming of course that any followers of the religion of peace remain to view the second coming.
JMHO!
“Can Islam be Reformed?”
No but it probably can be eradicated.
Interesting piece of history
In 1872 the Arabs invented the condom, using a goat’s lower intestine.
In 1873 the British somewhat refined the idea by first removing the intestine out of the goat.
Can a devout Muslim be an American patriot and a loyal citizen?
Consider this:
Theologically, no. Because his allegiance is to Allah, the moon god of Arabia.
Scripturally, no. Because his allegiance is to the five pillars of Islam and the Quran (Koran).
Geographically, no. Because his allegiance is to Mecca, to which he turns in prayer five times a day.
Socially, no. Because his allegiance to Islam forbids him to make friends with Christians or Jews.
Politically, no. Because he must submit to the mullah (spiritual leaders), who teach annihilation of Israel and destruction of America, the great Satan.
Domestically, no, because he is instructed to marry four women and beat and scourge his wife when she disobeys him (Quran 4:34).
Religiously, no. Because no other religion is accepted by his Allah except Islam (Quran, 2:256)
Intellectually, no, because he cannot accept the American Constitution since it is based on Biblical principles and he believes the Bible to be corrupt.
Philosophically, no, because Islam, Muhammad, and the Quran do not allow freedom of religion and expression. Democracy and Islam cannot co - exist. Every Muslim government is either dictatorial or autocratic.
Spiritually, no, because when we declare “one nation under God,” the Christian’s God is loving and kind, while Allah is NEVER referred to as our heavenly father, nor is he ever called love in the Quran’s 99 excellent names.
Therefore after much study and deliberation....perhaps we should be very suspicious of ALL MUSLIMS in this country. They obviously cannot be both good Muslims and good Americans. Call it what you wish...it’s still the truth. The more who understand this, the better it will be for our country.
That burst was because the Moslem Caliphate stretched from India to Spain and allowed a mixing of thoughts and ideas, taking Indian mathematics, Greek geometry, Irani astronomy etc. and merging them together
The ones doing the merging were mostly non-Moslems
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excellent summary. (your other posts are perfect also.)
Not just your opinion, it states so in God’s Word.
The more apt question is "Can Islam be peacefully reformed?". To that history offers no cause for optimism.
Very well put.
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