No, the reformation was really about secularizing political power. In pre-reformation Christianity the Church and State were essentially one (same as it true for Islam today). After the reformation political power was essentially secular across all branches of Christianity (including Catholicism) even though it took a further century for this transition to be complete. This is precisely the course Islam must follow if it is to be reformed. It is arguable that such a reformation is happening today, but like the Christian reformation the process is slow and not without violence.
That's not true.
In pre-reformation Christianity there were two centres of power -- Church and State and they fought each other. Read up on the Guelphs versus the Ghibellines
Also note that in Western europe the Church was separated from the secular authorities by the fall of Rome in the 400s. Then there were Goths, Lombards, Franks etc. Once the Pope was even carried off to Avignon and the centre was moved there.
So, there was a separation of Church and state -- not as much as today, which one can argue has gone too much the other way, witness "gay marriage" etc.
In the case of Islam too there is a separation of Mosque and state ever since the fall of the Caliphate. the Caliph embodied secular and spiritual power in one person that was never in the christian world
Since the fall of the Caliphate in 1918, only in Iran has there been a merging.
In Saudi Arabia the Sauds are deeply tied in with the Wahabs and probably close to that merge but not completely.
In the case of other Moslem states it is not merged to the extent that they are one and the same.
Take Oliver Cromwell's case or any of the Lutheran princes in Northern Germany or Scandanavia or the Catholics in Spain or Calvinists in Geneva and the Netherlands.
my apologies — I meant to say “not completely accurate” — I did not want to imply that you were false in any way as a person
This is precisely the course Islam must follow if it is to be reformed. It is arguable that such a reformation is happening today, but like the Christian reformation the process is slow and not without violence.
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respectfully, i agree with Cronos about the Protestant Reformation. but i admit, i’m not an expert on that.
but i do know about Islam. and it is not happening today.
in fact, you are seeing the exact OPPOSITE. Turkey, once praise as THE example of the reformed secular muslim state,
is return rapidly to full Islam. The Arab Spring, is another good example. The crowds in Egypt this week, are calling for a full Islamic sharia government.
and again, Islam CANNOT be reformed, and CANNOT be made secular. because the Quran itself cannot be changed, since it is the literal word of Allah. and IT says that sharia must be supreme. you cannot remove sharia law from Islam.
This is precisely the course Islam cannot follow. Christianity has the 'Render unto Caesar...' text on which to hang a split between religion and state. Islam has no such text, but rather strong injunctions that there can be no such split.