In order to prevent a clash of civilizations, or worse, Islam must reform. This is the contention of many Western peoples. And, pointing to Christianity\u2019s Protestant Reformation as proof that Islam can also reform, many are optimistic.<\/p>\n
Overlooked by most, however, is that Islam has been reforming. What is today called \u201cradical Islam\u201d is the reformation of Islam. And it follows the same pattern of Christianity\u2019s Protestant Reformation.<\/p>\n
The problem is our understanding of the word \u201creform.\u201d Despite its positive connotations, \u201creform\u201d simply means to \u201cmake changes (in something, typically a social, political, or economic institution or practice) in order to improve it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Synonyms of \u201creform\u201d include \u201cmake better,\u201d \u201cameliorate,\u201d and \u201cimprove\u201d \u2014 splendid words all, yet words all subjective and loaded with Western references.<\/p>\n
Muslim notions of \u201cimproving\u201d society may include purging it of \u201cinfidels\u201d and their corrupt ways; or segregating men and women, keeping the latter under wraps or quarantined at home; or executing apostates, who are seen as traitorous agitators.<\/p>\n
Banning many forms of freedoms taken for granted in the West \u2014 from alcohol consumption to religious and gender equality \u2014 can be deemed an \u201cimprovement\u201d and a \u201cbetterment\u201d of society.<\/p>\n
In short, an Islamic reformation need not lead to what we think of as an \u201cimprovement\u201d and \u201cbetterment\u201d of society \u2014 simply because \u201cwe\u201d are not Muslims and do not share their reference points and first premises. \u201cReform\u201d only sounds good to most Western peoples because they, secular and religious alike, are to a great extent products of Christianity\u2019s Protestant Reformation; and so, a priori, they naturally attribute positive connotations to the word.<\/p>\n
________<\/p>\n
At its core, the Protestant Reformation was a revolt against tradition in the name of scripture \u2014 in this case, the Bible. With the coming of the printing press, increasing numbers of Christians became better acquainted with the Bible\u2019s contents, parts of which they felt contradicted what the Church was teaching. So they broke away, protesting that the only Christian authority was \u201cscripture alone,\u201d sola scriptura .<\/p>\n
Islam\u2019s reformation follows the same logic of the Protestant Reformation \u2014 specifically by prioritizing scripture over centuries of tradition and legal debate \u2014 but with antithetical results that reflect the contradictory teachings of the core texts of Christianity and Islam.<\/p>\n
As with Christianity, throughout most of its history, Islam\u2019s scriptures, specifically its \u201ctwin pillars,\u201d the Koran (literal words of Allah) and the Hadith (words and deeds of Allah\u2019s prophet, Muhammad), were inaccessible to the overwhelming majority of Muslims. Only a few scholars, or ulema \u2014 literally, \u201cthey who know\u201d \u2014 were literate in Arabic and\/or had possession of Islam\u2019s scriptures. The average Muslim knew only the basics of Islam, or its \u201cFive Pillars.\u201d<\/p>\n
In this context, a \u201cmedieval synthesis\u201d flourished throughout the Islamic world. Guided by an evolving general consensus (or ijma\u2019 ), Muslims sought to accommodate reality by, in medieval historian Daniel Pipes\u2019 words,
\n translat[ing] Islam from a body of abstract, infeasible demands [as stipulated in the Koran and Hadith] into a workable system. In practical terms, it toned down Sharia and made the code of law operational. Sharia could now be sufficiently applied without Muslims being subjected to its more stringent demands … [However,] While the medieval synthesis worked over the centuries, it never overcame a fundamental weakness: It is not comprehensively rooted in or derived from the foundational, constitutional texts of Islam. Based on compromises and half measures, it always remained vulnerable to challenge by purists (emphasis added).
\nThis vulnerability has now reached breaking point: millions of more Korans published in Arabic and other languages are in circulation today compared to just a century ago; millions of more Muslims are now literate enough to read and understand the Koran compared to their medieval forbears. The Hadith, which contains some of the most intolerant teachings and violent deeds attributed to Islam\u2019s prophet, is now collated and accessible, in part thanks to the efforts of Western scholars, the Orientalists. Most recently, there is the Internet \u2014 where all these scriptures are now available in dozens of languages and to anyone with a laptop or iPhone.<\/p>\n
In this backdrop, what has been called at different times, places, and contexts \u201cIslamic fundamentalism,\u201d \u201cradical Islam,\u201d \u201cIslamism,\u201d and \u201cSalafism\u201d flourished. Many of today\u2019s Muslim believers, much better acquainted than their ancestors with the often black and white words of their scriptures, are protesting against earlier traditions, are protesting against the \u201cmedieval synthesis,\u201d in favor of scriptural literalism \u2014 just like their Christian Protestant counterparts once did.<\/p>\n
Thus, if Martin Luther (died 1546) rejected the extra-scriptural accretions of the Church and \u201creformed\u201d Christianity by aligning it more closely with scripture, Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahhab (died 1787), one of Islam\u2019s first modern reformers, \u201ccalled for a return to the pure, authentic Islam of the Prophet, and the rejection of the accretions that had corrupted it and distorted it,\u201d in the words of Bernard Lewis ( The Middle East , p. 333).<\/p>\n
The unadulterated words of God \u2014 or Allah \u2014 are all that matter for the reformists.<\/p>\n
Note: Because they are better acquainted with Islam\u2019s scriptures, other Muslims, of course, are apostatizing \u2014 whether by converting to other religions, most notably Christianity, or whether by abandoning religion altogether, even if only in their hearts (for fear of the apostasy penalty). This is an important point to be revisited later. Muslims who do not become disaffected after better acquainting themselves with the literal teachings of Islam\u2019s scriptures and who instead become more faithful to and observant of them are the topic of this essay.<\/p>\n
________<\/p>\n
How Christianity and Islam can follow similar patterns of reform but with antithetical results rests in the fact that their scriptures are often antithetical to one another. This is the key point, and one admittedly unintelligible to postmodern, secular sensibilities, which tend to lump all religious scripture together in a melting pot of relativism without bothering to evaluate the significance of their respective words and teachings.<\/p>\n
Obviously a point-by-point comparison of the scriptures of Islam and Christianity is inappropriate for an article of this length (see my \u201cAre Judaism and Christianity as Violent as Islam\u201d [HolwickID #65027] for a more comprehensive treatment).<\/p>\n
Suffice it to note some contradictions (which will be rejected as a matter of course by the relativistic mindset):<\/p>\n
________<\/p>\n
\u2022 The New Testament preaches peace, brotherly love, tolerance, and forgiveness \u2014 for all humans, believers and non-believers alike. Instead of combating and converting \u201cinfidels,\u201d Christians are called to pray for those who persecute them and turn the other cheek (which is not the same thing as passivity, for Christians are also called to be bold and unapologetic). Conversely, the Koran and Hadith call for war, or jihad, against all non-believers, until they either convert, accept subjugation and discrimination, or die.<\/p>\n
\u2022 The New Testament has no punishment for the apostate from Christianity. Conversely, Islam\u2019s prophet himself decreed that \u201cWhoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2022 The New Testament teaches monogamy, one husband and one wife, thereby dignifying the woman. The Koran allows polygamy \u2014 up to four wives \u2014 and the possession of concubines, or sex-slaves. More literalist readings treat women as possessions.<\/p>\n
\u2022 The New Testament discourages lying (e.g., Col. 3:9). The Koran permits it; the prophet himself often deceived others, and permitted lying to one\u2019s wife, to reconcile quarreling parties, and to the \u201cinfidel\u201d during war.<\/p>\n
It is precisely because Christian scriptural literalism lends itself to religious freedom, tolerance, and the dignity of women, that Western civilization developed the way it did \u2014 despite the nonstop propaganda campaign emanating from academia, Hollywood, and other major media that says otherwise.<\/p>\n
And it is precisely because Islamic scriptural literalism is at odds with religious freedom, tolerance, and the dignity of women, that Islamic civilization is the way it is \u2014 despite the nonstop propaganda campaign emanating from academia, Hollywood, and other major media that says otherwise.<\/p>\n
________<\/p>\n
Those in the West waiting for an Islamic \u201creformation\u201d along the same lines of the Protestant Reformation, on the assumption that it will lead to similar results, must embrace two facts: 1) Islam\u2019s reformation is well on its way, and yes, along the same lines of the Protestant Reformation \u2014 with a focus on scripture and a disregard for tradition \u2014 and for similar historic reasons (literacy, scriptural dissemination, etc.); 2) But because the core teachings of the scriptures of Christianity and Islam markedly differ from one another, Islam\u2019s reformation has naturally produced a civilization markedly different from the West.<\/p>\n
Put differently, those in the West uncritically calling for an \u201cIslamic reformation\u201d need to acknowledge what it is they are really calling for: the secularization of Islam in the name of modernity; the trivialization and sidelining of Islamic law from Muslim society.<\/p>\n
That would not be a \u201creformation\u201d \u2014 certainly nothing analogous to the Protestant Reformation.<\/p>\n
Overlooked is that Western secularism was, and is, possible only because Christian scripture lends itself to the division between church and state, the spiritual and the temporal.<\/p>\n
Upholding the literal teachings of Christianity is possible within a secular \u2014 or any \u2014 state. Christ called on believers to \u201crender unto Caesar the things of Caesar (temporal) and unto God the things of God (spiritual)\u201d (Matt. 22:21). For the \u201ckingdom of God\u201d is \u201cnot of this world\u201d (John 18:36). Indeed, a good chunk of the New Testament deals with how \u201cman is not justified by the works of the law … for by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified\u201d (Gal. 2:16).<\/p>\n
On the other hand, mainstream Islam is devoted to upholding the law; and Islamic scripture calls for a fusion between Islamic law \u2014 Sharia \u2014 and the state. Allah decrees in the Koran that \u201cIt is not fitting for true believers \u2014 men or women \u2014 to take their choice in affairs if Allah and His Messenger have decreed otherwise. He that disobeys Allah and His Messenger strays far indeed!\u201d (33:36). Allah tells the prophet of Islam, \u201cWe put you on an ordained way [literally in Arabic, sharia ] of command; so follow it and do not follow the inclinations of those who are ignorant\u201d (45:18).<\/p>\n
Mainstream Islamic exegesis has always interpreted such verses to mean that Muslims must follow the commandments of Allah as laid out in the Koran and Hadith \u2014 in a word, Sharia.<\/p>\n
And Sharia is so concerned with the details of this world, with the everyday doings of Muslims, that every conceivable human action falls under five rulings, or ahkam: the forbidden ( haram ), the discouraged ( makruh ), the neutral ( mubah ), the recommended ( mustahib ), and the obligatory ( wajib ).<\/p>\n
Conversely, Islam offers little concerning the spiritual (sidelined Sufism the exception).<\/p>\n
Unlike Christianity, then, Islam without the law \u2014 without Sharia \u2014 becomes meaningless. After all, the Arabic word Islam literally means \u201csubmit.\u201d Submit to what? Allah\u2019s laws as codified in Sharia and derived from the Koran and Hadith.<\/p>\n
The \u201cIslamic reformation\u201d some in the West are hoping for is really nothing less than an Islam without Islam \u2014 secularization not reformation; Muslims prioritizing secular, civic, and humanitarian laws over Allah\u2019s law; a \u201creformation\u201d that would slowly see the religion of Muhammad go into the dustbin of history.<\/p>\n
Such a scenario is certainly more plausible than believing that Islam can be true to its scriptures in any meaningful way and still peacefully coexist with, much less complement, modernity the way Christianity does.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In order to prevent a clash of civilizations, or worse, Islam must reform. This is the contention of many Western peoples. And, pointing to Christianity\u2019s Protestant Reformation as proof that Islam can also reform, many are optimistic. Overlooked by most, however, is that Islam has been reforming. What is today called \u201cradical Islam\u201d is the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[337,759,843,3451,1945,3279,842,2453,2544,3926],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6242"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6242\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}