Radical Islam IS The Islamic Reformation

[FaninAma]

http://www.raymondibrahim.com/islam/islams-protestant-reformation/

This is a very disturbing possibility. The author reasons that the results of the Muslim reformation differ from the results of the Christian reformation because Islam and Christianity are very different in the concepts of how their followers should promote and spread their respective doctrines of faith.


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.
Obviously a point by point comparison of the scriptures of Islam and Christianity is inappropriate for an article of this length (see my “Are Judaism and Christianity as Violent as Islam (http://www.meforum.org/2159/are-judaism-and-christianity-as-violent-as-islam)” for a more comprehensive treatment).
Suffice it to note some contradictions (which will be rejected as a matter of course by the relativistic mindset):


The New Testament preaches peace, brotherly love, tolerance, and forgiveness—for all humans, believers and non-believers alike. Instead of combatting and converting “infidels,” 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 (http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/quran/023-violence.htm) call for war, or jihad, against all non-believers, until they either convert, accept subjugation and discrimination, or die.
The New Testament has no punishment for the apostate from Christianity. Conversely, Islam’s prophet himself decreed (http://www.usc.edu/org/cmje/religious-texts/hadith/bukhari/084-sbt.php) that “Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him.”
The New Testament teaches monogamy, one husband and one wife, thereby dignifying the woman. The Koran (http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/Quran/017-polygamy.htm) allows polygamy—up to four wives—and the possession of concubines, or sex-slaves. More literalist readings treat women as possessions (http://www.raymondibrahim.com/from-the-arab-world/islamic-fatwa-husbands-should-abandon-wives-to-rapists-in-self-interest/).
The New Testament discourages lying (e.g., Col. 3:9). The Koran permits it (http://www.raymondibrahim.com/islam/taqiyya-about-taqiyya/); the prophet himself often deceived others, and permitted lying to one’s wife, to reconcile quarreling parties, and to the “infidel” during war.

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—despite the nonstop propaganda campaign emanating from academia, Hollywood, and other major media that says otherwise.
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—despite the nonstop propaganda campaign emanating from academia, Hollywood, and other major media that says otherwise.

[FaninAma]

It is interesting how the secular elite overlook the huge differences between religions.

[SoonerProphet]

Sorry man, dudes Coptic and a fellow at David Horowitz Freedom Center indicates to me his lack of objectivity.

[FaninAma]

Sorry man, dudes Coptic and a fellow at David Horowitz Freedom Center indicates to me his lack of objectivity.

So you don't like the source. Do you disagree with the premise? I think it is spot on if you accept that reformation involves returning to the basic text/scripture of the religion in question.

[SoonerProphet]

Interpretation of scripture can be highly personal, the reformation is as much about eliminating priestly interpretation and putting it into the hands of the individual. Debates about the meanings of the Hadith or Book of Judges are never ending.

[Sooner in Tampa]

So you don't like the source. Do you disagree with the premise? I think it is spot on if you accept that reformation involves returning to the basic text/scripture of the religion in question.
The Christian reformation was about much more than just 'basic text/scripture'. The reformation was about allow the simple man to read the bible. Let people read the bible and understand it along with their pastor or preacher. The reformation happened because Luther gave the masses access to the bible and because the Catholics were exposed as fraudulent in that era with indulgences and relics.

I see this as being the biggest difference...everyone can read now...

[FaninAma]

The Christian reformation was about much more than just 'basic text/scripture'. The reformation was about allow the simple man to read the bible. Let people read the bible and understand it along with their pastor or preacher. The reformation happened because Luther gave the masses access to the bible and because the Catholics were exposed as fraudulent in that era with indulgences and relics.

I see this as being the biggest difference...everyone can read now...

The author of the article makes this very point....as the Quran has become more widely available to the people of Muslim countires the religion has become more conservative(read radical or fundamental by the current definition.)


At its core, the Protestant Reformation was a revolt against tradition in the name of scripture—in this case, the Bible. With the coming of the printing press, increasing numbers of Christians became better acquainted with the Bible’s contents, parts of which they felt contradicted what the Church was teaching. So they broke away, protesting that the only Christian authority was “scripture alone,” sola scriptura.
Islam’s reformation follows the same logic of the Protestant Reformation—specifically by prioritizing scripture over centuries of tradition and legal debate—but with antithetical results that reflect the contradictory teachings of the core texts of Christianity and Islam.
As with Christianity, throughout most of its history, Islam’s scriptures, specifically its “twin pillars,” the Koran (literal words of Allah) and the Hadith (words and deeds of Allah’s prophet, Muhammad), were inaccessible to the overwhelming majority of Muslims. Only a few scholars, or ulema—literally, “they who know”—were literate in Arabic and/or had possession of Islam’s scriptures. The average Muslim knew only the basics of Islam, or its “Five Pillars.”
In this context, a “medieval synthesis” flourished throughout the Islamic world. Guided by an evolving general consensus (or ijma‘), Muslims sought to accommodate reality by, in medieval historian Daniel Pipes’ words (http://www.danielpipes.org/13033/can-islam-be-reformed),

translat 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, [I]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).
This 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’s prophet, is now collated and accessible, in part thanks to the efforts of Western scholars, the Orientalists. Most recently, there is the Internet—where all these scriptures are now available in dozens of languages and to anyone with a laptop or iphone.
In this backdrop, what has been called at different times, places, and contexts “Islamic fundamentalism,” “radical Islam,” “Islamism,” and “Salafism” flourished. Many of today’s 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 “medieval synthesis,” in favor of scriptural literalism—just like their Christian Protestant counterparts once did.