Free Republic

I had lunch yesterday with three gentlemen who are very well read, who follow the news attentively, and who would shudder to think they are victims of ideological censorship. Yet not one of them — and the trio includes a very famous former reporter (a first-class reporter at that) for one of the country’s top newspapers — had heard a word about Egyptian President Sisi’s remarkable New Year’s Day speech, in which he called upon Muslim leaders and scholars to carry out a “religious revolution.” All three watch TV news ... so they were surprised that they hadn’t heard about...

I have read many articles on the Muslim reform movement, both positive and negative; for example, this is negative, this is positive and this is negative. Here is a link to a response to the negative articles. However, I have found no article suggesting any viable alternative way for America to begin to ameliorate its Islamist problem, and I have been unable to think of any.The Anti-Muslim Reform MovementThe essential claims of critics of the Muslim Reform Movement are that its proponents are not "real Muslims" and that it has had only minimal success thus far. The word "real" is not used, but that's...

Salman Rushdie, Thomas Friedman, Nicholas Kristof and Mansour al-Nogaidan are among the well-intentioned people who have called for an Islamic Reformation. They should be careful what they wish for. The Protestant Reformation did precede the things these men admire about modernity in the West, including women's emancipation, political liberty, scientific breakthroughs, the wealth and opportunity created by the Industrial Revolution, and permission to think freely regarding God. But all this came later, and the Reformation was only part of what brought them about. The Reformation was a time of intense focus on God and what He requires of people. As...

"Muslims Should Reform Religion... Accept Democracy" The Middle East Media Research Institute MEMRI July 02, 2004 Iranian Intellectual: 'Religious Tyranny is Based on a Fascist Interpretation of Faith... Muslims Should Reform Religion... Accept Democracy' The director of the Association for the Defense of Journalism in Iran, Dr. Mohsen Kedivar, participated in a seminar titled "Towards Democracy" at the Law and Political Science Faculty of the University of Tehran. In a speech, he addressed the issue of tyranny and democracy in Iran, noting that Iranian society had experienced two types of tyranny: secular tyranny under the Shah's regime, and religious tyranny...

It has become the conventional wisdom in the two years since 9/11 that the trouble with Islam is that, unlike Christianity, it never had a Protestant Reformation. The idea seems to be this: Christianity was (so it is held) rigid and authoritarian before Luther and company came along and paved the way for liberal democracy, science, and all things modern and good; Islam's problem is that it remains stuck in its "Medieval phase," still awaiting Reformers of its own.  This analysis dovetails nicely with the conceptions most people have these days of the Reformation, of traditional Catholicism, and of...

KUALA LUMPUR At the 10th summit meeting of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, held in Malaysia last week, the host nation made a valiant effort to drag the organization out its Arab/Middle East ghetto and make it more relevant to Muslims generally, and hence to non-Muslims. The task may be impossible. The OIC is a gathering of 57 countries with Muslim majorities or large minorities. Thus it represents states rather than the broader ummah, or Islamic community. At the political level it is extremely difficult for them to find common ground on anything except the West's anti-Muslim prejudices and...

WSJ:Commentary Muslims Must Reform -- Or Be Left Behind By ANWAR IBRAHIM Affirmations of brotherhood and lamentations over the elusiveness of a long-sought fraternity are two perennial themes of modern Muslim rhetoric. It seems that no summit would be worthy of the name unless such sentiments were somehow woven into the agenda. The 10th summit of the Organization of Islamic Conference to be held outside Kuala Lumpur later this week will probably be no different. Few will be surprised if the opulence of the conference venue is matched by an appalling poverty of ideas on how to cure the...

No religion has a monopoly on violence. Christianity has the Spanish Inquisition and the bloody excesses of the Crusades. The Jews have the Book of Joshua and Baruch Goldstein. More recently, India's Hindus massacred thousands of Muslims in Gujarat province. Over the course of human history, hundreds of millions have died in senseless sectarian massacres, and a thousand more examples might easily be listed. But it will not do to take the politically correct course and lump all religions in the same basket, at least not insofar as our own era is concerned. Christian civilization underwent a Reformation in the...