'Why Islam Needs a Reformation' - Ayaan Hirsi Ali
jediknight2k1
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http://www.wsj.com/articles/a-reformation-for-islam-1426859626?mod=trending_now_2
If anyone has seen her debate with Maajid Newaz then more often she wins. She is one worlds most prominent critics on Islam. Due to this she now needs 24 hour protection.
It's an interesting article from a woman who left Islam.
I have identified five precepts central to Islam that have made it resistant to historical change and adaptation. Only when the harmfulness of these ideas are recognized and they are repudiated will a true Muslim Reformation have been achieved.
Here are the five areas that require amendment:
1. Muhammad’s semi-divine status, along with the literalist reading of the Quran.
Muhammad should not be seen as infallible, let alone as a source of divine writ. He should be seen as a historical figure who united the Arab tribes in a premodern context that cannot be replicated in the 21st century. And although Islam maintains that the Quran is the literal word of Allah, it is, in historical reality, a book that was shaped by human hands. Large parts of the Quran simply reflect the tribal values of the 7th-century Arabian context from which it emerged. The Quran’s eternal spiritual values must be separated from the cultural accidents of the place and time of its birth.
2. The supremacy of life after death.
The appeal of martyrdom will fade only when Muslims assign a greater value to the rewards of this life than to those promised in the hereafter.
3. Shariah, the vast body of religious legislation.
Muslims should learn to put the dynamic, evolving laws made by human beings above those aspects of Shariah that are violent, intolerant or anachronistic.
4. The right of individual Muslims to enforce Islamic law.
There is no room in the modern world for religious police, vigilantes and politically empowered clerics.
5. The imperative to wage jihad, or holy war.
Islam must become a true religion of peace, which means rejecting the imposition of religion by the sword.
But it is not only Muslims who would benefit from a reformation of Islam. We in the West have an enormous stake in how the struggle over Islam plays out. We cannot remain on the sidelines, as though the outcome has nothing to do with us. For if the Medina Muslims win and the hope for a Muslim Reformation dies, the rest of the world too will pay an enormous price—not only in blood spilled but also in freedom lost.]
If anyone has seen her debate with Maajid Newaz then more often she wins. She is one worlds most prominent critics on Islam. Due to this she now needs 24 hour protection.
It's an interesting article from a woman who left Islam.
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I doubt many muslims in the West would agree with anything she had to say least of all those living in such places as Yemen, Egypt, Pakistan (oh, the list is almost endless).
Also, you could argue that Islam is currently undergoing a reformation right now i.e. Islamic State whose aim is to 'reform' Islam back to something like its 7th century form much like the Puritans attempted in mid-17th century England and America.
It will be waiting a bloody long time.
If anything Islam is degenerating into an even more primitive world view as Wahhabism increases it's repulsive grip around the world. >:(
TBH, I get the impression that a lot of muslims are rather "conflicted" over this stuff.
On the one hand, I'm sure that the majority of them have no desire to see us living in a society similar to that in Afghanistan but, conversely, I suspect that a lot of them also don't like the idea of what they perceive as criticisms of all of Islam, rather than only of extremism.
Simple fact is that unless moderate muslims "pin their colours to the mast", they're likely to find themselves sleep-walking into marginalisation and pariah-hood throughout the western world.
Absolutely. They really need to fight for their religion in the same way the more liberal arm of the church has been fighting the bigots of the African churches.
Thing is, you can get into a really toxic vicious spiral. If Muslims feel that they are regarded with instinctive hatred, they are far less likely to make an effort to fit in with the people who hate them. It's a small example, but I was gobsmacked at today's story about an American principal having to GROVEL because he had asked people at his school to say the pledge of allegiance in their own language, including one pupil who said it in Arabic. I can think of no better way for an Arabic speaking pupil to feel part of American life than saying the Pledge of Allegiance in his own tongue, and feeling that this was respected and accepted. But instead, it was considered right and moral for other students to howl him down, and for the principal to have to make a public apology and promise never to allow such a thing again.
How disaffecting for that boy. He was made to feel that his own language was disgraceful and contemptible to Americans, and that saying the Pledge of Allegiance was almost a crime.
There really are two sides to acceptance: people need to respect the laws of the land in which they live, but the land in which they live needs to respect that they bring their own culture and traditions (and languages) and that no one living within the law should be vilified or ridiculed for being different.
Excellent article btw. I hope it is widely read.
I disagree partially - no one has the right not to be ridiculed, otherwise we are getting into very dangerous territory in terms of anti freedom of speech and freedom of expression.
Also people who move here wanting to do FGM, stone gays keep women in the home deserve to be vilified.
But yes people being bigoted against immigrants purely for racist reasons clearly is of no help at all and doesn't help immigrants take a path towards more liberal values.
I can see what you are saying about allowing people to be ridiculed, but it has surely got out of hand re. Muslims. It must be so painful looking at your Muslim children and waiting for them to see the millions of pages of hate and contempt towards them all over the internet. And it's not all fringe nutters, by a long chalk. As I said on a different thread yesterday, the kind of small, local story that never troubles the national media can become a huge story if it makes one or more Muslims look bad.
Living in a fundamentally hostile environment can arouse different responses: making great efforts to win people over, circling the wagons and staying more and more tightly in your own community, furious rebellion, which may turn violent. It is well documented that liberals are more positive and optimistic about life, and the more pessimistic people are, the more reactionary they become. There are few liberals, for example, during a genocide. As far as I can tell, liberal muslims (I know quite a few) tend to be better educated, more middle-class, more articulate, more affluent than the mean. If you want liberals, offer people a future.
The Islamic world is undergoing another reformation, too - the nascent democratic movement in Tunisia and Egypt, and Syria for that matter. The reactionary forces are as much about obliterating that as anything else and, of course, about power. The old regimes in the Middle East are crumbling and power and influence are up for grabs. Religion is a very convenient peg to hang their hat on - and a jolly effective means of control..
Yes, true and agonising. The attack in Tunisia reminded us of how desperately fragile the democratic shoots are. It seems SO important that they survive and don't get shot and blown-up out of existence.
Tunisia being more democratic doesn't change or reform Islam. To reform Islam needs a complete rethink of the religion and the ideology.
Its a start...well thought out piece, but I am a little perplexed why she didn't address the path of her going from Mecca to Medina to Manhattan...What was the transition between Mecca and Medina...this holds the clue to radicalisation IMO.
Does anyone know if she has addressed this part of the her Journey in life and beliefs elsewhere?
Mecca is a reference to the more violent verses in the Quran, Medina is the peaceful and more tolerant verses.
She was born in Somalia, which is not in the midst of civil war, so went from Mecca to Medina. Manhattan is she where works now.
Oh, did I misread it? I thought it was the other way round. Mecca the moderates, Medina the knife wielding orthodox period back in Mojo's day.
Which is why I posed the question what was her journey from moderate to extreme then on to Western Manhattan. ?
She may be able to offer some serious insight to the process of changing mind set.
Nope it was me who it got wrong.
Her journey was a religious family in Somalia to being attacked for writing her books and her friend Theo Van Gogh was also murdered.
She wants the more tolerate verses to precedence take of the violent ones.
I rather suspect she thinks that too.
Substitute elimination for reformation. Then we'd be on the right track. Harsh, but fair.
When she fled to the Netherlands, she started to become more moderate.
Then after a while she started working as a translator for iirc somalian immigrants, and you can tell she started to detest the quick-to-violence,its-the-west's fault attitudes that were prevalent amongst them, probably because she was doing well by simply focusing on working even though there were basic jobs.
Also she learnt to read, and she was astounded by what she could get her hands on.
She also kept trying to run away from an arranged marriage, plus female circumcision, being beaten near death by her mother etc.
Sounds like she had a fairly negative experience whenever it involved the religion.
And almost without exception they are doing so. It's the almost one that's the problem.
Yes, but what her reasons for going from moderate to extreme? In this one question I feel there are clues as to what is going with all these moderate Muslims becoming radicalised or going extreme.
Has she written or commented what her thought process was anywhere?...I would find that interesting reading indeed.
I can fully understand why she is now a Manhattan Muslim btw, and I applaud her.
It will be because it dilutes the power held by weak men.
I understand that.
Let me clarify my point...she began as moderate, then went extreme...why? from there she progressed onto the Manhattan state.
What made her go from Moderate to Extreme in the first place?...Isolation? The West? Laziness? Ignorance? Brainwashing? Anger?