Re: What Would Reform Islam Look Like?
I like dissecting your posts, so I’ll do that with this one.
Just to be clear on this point: I rejected Islam a long time ago. I’m an atheist. You’re most welcome to read into that whatever you wish.
At least we know now where your bias on the issue comes from. No one is asking you to believe in Islam, and that’s the beauty of Islam. Now if you want to make up your own religion and borrow a few concepts from Islam, I would prefer you did that instead of modifying core Islamic beliefs. If the modifications, again, you wish to make to Islamic canon, is that to fix misogyny, then your wish is basically senseless, since misogyny is not part of real Islam in the first place. And I certainly hope you’re not equating the misogyny that Wahabbis are famous for with what Islam actually dictates us to do.
I’m a woman, and I’m muslim, and I have no problem with Quranic teachings. I do have a problem with some hadith’s, and I don’t see that they comprise the real Islam anyway, since they could be falsified accounts of what really happened.
**Most quibbles about what I’ve said are rooted in misunderstanding the distinctions I presented. I think I made it quite clear that there is a world of difference between “Islamic Reformation”, which I described in my second post, and “Reform Islam”, which I described in my first. The former involves the removal of bad non-Islamic beliefs and practices, by focusing on changing people, whereas the latter involves the removal of bad Islamic beliefs and practices, by focusing on changing/rejecting canonical texts.
No, what you did, was you got confused and then created new terms to say what you mean. First you talk about reformation and then you talk about transformation. I don’t think you should use terminology. Just say what you mean, because it doesn’t help when you keep changing your definitions. Reformation is reformation. Period. Its got 1 definition.
By the way, this is a common tactic I’ve seen in philosophical debates, since that is what my background is partially in. People will twist their words and complicate their meanings to such an extent that it allows the common man no room to really argue since the common man is left → 
People here have generally suggested that “Reform Islam”, here used in the sense of being analagous to “Reform Judaism”, makes no sense, since by definition there is nothing in the canon of Islam that is bad and thus needs reforming. That’s one thing I was curious to confirm, and people here have been very forthcoming with this answer.
Again, please see my discussion on Quran vs. Hadith in my previous replies. It all depends on who thinks what exactly Islam is. Including you.
In other words, when it comes to such basic changes in a tradition, it takes a lot to change the mind of a community. I’m not denying either the existence of “Reform Islam”. I’ve a couple of friends who subscribe to something like it, and I’ve seen it in print in the work of Mohammed Arkoun, Irshad Manji etc. I just don’t yet see the necessary conditions for it really to establish itself as more than a fringe position. After all, why should people find any kind of liberal Islam more attractive than traditional Islam? Traditional Islam is more Islamic.
I don’t see your point at all in this senseless drivel of a paragraph. So you’re a Manji follower. Look, far be it from me to argue against feminists, but I’ve read Manji also and her work is ridiculous and senseless. But there are still people out there who will believe her, and that not because she makes good logical sense. Its because you are annoyed with Islam, and anyone who speaks against it becomes noteworthy. Anyone who engages in homosexuality and then lectures other people about Islam should not even talk. And to add all the politics that is going on with the people who are actually supporting her…Please. Good to know that you’ve left Islam though. I personally applaud it, since the less sheep-like followers there are in our religion, the better.
Now, those who want to turn this discussion into one about my own personal knowledge of Islam can have a look at this (very) lengthy, dry post in my blog entitled “Fun With Islamic Law”](http://www.paklinks.com/gs/journal.php?do=showentry&e=11355&enum=7), which focuses on only one aspect of fiqh, namely relations with non-Muslims. Believe it or not, I do have a little knowledge of the teachings of Islam, concerning both Al-Hikmah and Al-Kitaab, and the numerous subdisciplines within. But my knowledge of Islam is a seperate issue altogether, one which should not really be mixed up into this thread.
Your subsequent comments on wahabbism do not show that, as I will go ahead now and blast those comments as well.
Moving on, those who claim my comments about bin Laden and his fellow Wahabbis are a bit stretched, well, they’re wrong by all accounts. Bin Laden and his fellow Wahhabis aren’t insecure. And they’re not psycho. If only. Which leads back of main subject of this thread.
Oh no, they are not. They are psycho, because they are of a fascist mentality. They want to take over and control the world, and they do that by feeding on people’s brains and influencing people to dance under their fingers. They want to be placed down in history, because guess what? They have nothing else in the world to claim as their achievement anyway. They would have been better just doing what they were doing, but their silly antics in brainwashing muslims left and right leaves them looking like nut jobs. Now, Irshad Manji and her kind are the same way, except they’re just on the other extreme.
Yes, Muslims don’t even have bishops, let alone a Pope. Leadership doesn’t work the same way. This only reinforces my point. Which is that there is one Muslim reform movement well connected to the power centers of the Muslim world: Wahhabism. It controls the holy sites of Mecca and Medina. It’s got access to tons of money. Just as Martin Luther did, it knows full well how to use mass media. It appeals to Arabs, who though only 20% or so of Muslims still occupy Islam’s geographic and cultural ‘center.’ Just as Catholic reform at the center came to eventually characterise Catholic life worldwide, so from these centers Wahhabism is expanding its reach to Islam’s borders: southeast Asia, sub-saharan Africa, Europe, and North America. In this sense, Wahhabis are more Jesuit than Lutheran.
You have devised this conspiracy theory of wahabbis, and then you talk about reforming the actual Islamic beliefs, which you admit that Wahabbis are not anything like moderate muslims. Shouldn’t that tell you they’re not really following Islamic principles? They’ve violated the a core Islamic principle : You can’t force anything on anyone. Wahabbi culture is very force-dominated. Its either their way or the highway. And they’re not peaceful about it. There goes another Islamic principle. So, again, I ask you, is your beef against people who don’t know how to follow their own religion (or who refuse to and then parade around as if they are), or is it against actual Islamic tennents? Wahhabism is NOT Islam. If it were, most muslims in the world, are actually not muslims!
Now Wahhabism, the currently dominant “Islamic Reformation”, by definition doesn’t represent the Muslim “moderates” any more than Rome represented Lutherans, Calvinists, and Zwinglians. But it sees its various rivals – folk Muslims, high Muslims, liberal Muslims, and Muslim mystics, whatever – as either completely outdated or ignorant of their present situation, and seeks flat-out to defeat them. And as long as it occupies the center, it’s in a good position to outmaneouver its divided opponents with ease. In other words, it’ll occupy it for a very long time to come. It’s not about to cut back on some areas of stridency just because it’s asked to. And that’s basically what I think.
Again, you’re emphasizing on Wahhabism. Look at the topic of your initial post. You pose some good ideas of changes that need to take place. Some. And then you start ranting and raving at Wahhabism. Wahhabism, I’m sorry to say, again, is not Islam. Its a group of people who think that they’re trying to follow Islam, but since the group is so violent and so controlling, and so utterly misogynistic, it doesn’t even resemble peace-loving Muslims. There are loads of muslims out there who are not Wahhabis. Exactly what is wrong with their Islamic beliefs? Because they don’t sit there and have conspiracy plans to take over the planet.
This leads back to the very question I posed at the beginning: What is True Islam? More to the point, who is more likely to control its definition and interpretation in the forseeable future? My strong feeling is that the blasphemy squad, who would be after you, will not let up for a very, very long time to come. Certainly not in your lifetime.
Exactly. You have to look at what is really causing the confusion in interpretation of Islamic values and laws. You can have one Quranic ayah that is crystal clear in its meaning, and then you have 10 hadith’s that will confuse anyone into wondering exactly what does that one verse mean, when the Quran itself says that it is clear to anyone who wishes to understand. Muslims don’t need a pope to understand the Quran, but somehow Hadith literature has become our pope. What people don’t want to admit is there might have been many political pressures that got Al-bukhari, Al-muslim, and others to select the hadith’s they did select. And the lack of female scholars since day one hasn’t helped.
Aside from misogyny, which I personally can explain away as misconduct with hadith literature collections, what exactly do you have a problem with?
In fact, many of the suggestions you originally made would not change any basic belief tenents. They would change the way muslims are practicing Islam, and the way that many so-called maulvis have instructed muslims to practice Islam. Which I believe is the core problem. Not actual Islamic beliefs (which I define as Quranic verses).