Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Reforming Islam from a Muslim's point of view

The Anchoress has some interesting links today to several other sites, one of which is about Ali, a moderate Muslim.


I believe that ‘reforming Islam’ means: 1) making Muslims who live in non-Muslim and/or secular countries (America, England, the West), the ability to live harmoniously there, 2) making Muslims who live in predominantly Muslim countries which do not have democracies (Egypt, Pakistan, Jordan, Syria), the ability to agitate for change using moral, just, and humane methods, 3) making Muslim who are agitating for authonomy (Kurds/Palestine/Chechnya), the ability to use Islam as a liberation theology, not as a death theology, 4) making Muslims who live in theocracies (Iran, Saudi Arabia), redefine the Shariah under which they live in such a way that their laws comport with the current human rights norms of the world. Finally, there is 5) an independent element of reforming Islam: that is, to engage the world-wide community of Islamic Jurists and have them figure out why the theoretical Shariah ( i.e. the framework of the Shariah) has ossified in the 11th century.

check it out.

3 comments:

MeaninglessHotAir said...

It would seem that "reforming Islam" means turning it into modern Secular Western society. It is human nature to mistake one's own local values for universal values and it just isn't necessarily the case. We in the West are subject to the same disease.

truepeers said...

No need is greater and must be encouraged than Islamic reform and/or apostasy. Yet after linking to a few "moderate Muslims" who are moderate because they are also leftists or liberals who, among other things, more or less take up the western reformist or rejectionist critique of the west, it is a topic that requires from me all grace i've ever received to stick my foot in the door; and then i often find myself not in a sufficent state. It is a real deep mystery to me why some who have been waiting long receive grace and renewed faith and others don't. So I will always hope, without quite seeing the way.

Unknown said...

MHA:

I thought the fact that a Muslim was saying this was the interesting thing. I would settle for an end to murder and mayhem myself.