Is Islam reformable - and how?

[Terxpahseyton]

Because it is impossible that Islam could be a problem in some countries and not be a problem in vastly different countries.

IMPOSSIBRRL!

Hence, I suggest that from now on, each post will simply state "Indonesia", since this is really all we need to hear each other say to bring this discussion to a proper conclusion.

Indonesia

Indonesia

Indonesia

 

[Commodore]

The answer is right there in your post Funky, go after extremist imams. They are responsible for interpreting the various texts and instructing other Muslims on how to behave.

Exactly. In some of the worse off Islamic nations, the imam might be the only person in the village that knows how to read. This gives them a great deal of power since they can essentially interpret the Quran in any way they wish since their congregation can't verify for themselves what the Quran actually says. So that imam's interpretation becomes his congregation's interpretation. The people would also trust their imam almost unquestioningly, which is why extremist imams are so damn dangerous. That's also why we targeted extremist imams in Iraq and Afghanistan, while also trying to push literacy programs and education. The hope was once the people could read the Quran for themselves, they would be able to see their imams were full of it and stop following them so blindly.

So to answer the OP's question: How can Islam be reformed? Increased literacy and education, particularly in critical thinking, to allow for the lay people to form their own interpretations of the Quran instead of being force-fed their imam's own personal brand of Islam.

 

[Princeps]

Never mind

 

[Berzerker]

In my opinion, if the objective is to reform or pacify a group of people within a religion so they become ever more agreeable to the western world, then you must begin by exporting western culture

Bingo... the right wing loves to take credit for bringing communism down but it was the left that won the cold war, not the right. It was the left with its culture of blue jeans and rock and roll that transformed Russia.

In the same way it will be western culture that defeats Islam, and thats why the Muslim right wing hates the culture of the left just as conservatives in the USA hate Hollywood. The real threat to Islam are young Muslims embracing our culture.

The Taliban hates music...thats our best export. And thats why the Islamic right hated people like Saddam and the Iranians, both allow(ed) western culture to infiltrate the populations of Iran and Iraq.

 

[Dachs]

Let's break that down.

Hey man, denying the argument's antecedents is apparently a "logical fallacy" according to the OP. Or one of the Seven Deadly Sins, or something. We're supposed to take the problem as a given.

I assume that this means that the entire thread is an alternate-historical thought experiment.

 

[Borachio]

Exactly. In some of the worse off Islamic nations, the imam might be the only person in the village that knows how to read. This gives them a great deal of power since they can essentially interpret the Quran in any way they wish since their congregation can't verify for themselves what the Quran actually says. So that imam's interpretation becomes his congregation's interpretation. The people would also trust their imam almost unquestioningly, which is why extremist imams are so damn dangerous. That's also why we targeted extremist imams in Iraq and Afghanistan, while also trying to push literacy programs and education. The hope was once the people could read the Quran for themselves, they would be able to see their imams were full of it and stop following them so blindly.

I just don't understand your logic.

An iman reads the Koran and comes to certain conclusions.

A formerly illiterate person reads the Koran and inevitably/hopefully comes to different conclusions?

 

[Commodore]

I just don't understand your logic.

An iman reads the Koran and comes to certain conclusions.

A formerly illiterate person reads the Koran and inevitably/hopefully comes to different conclusions?

No, you misunderstand. Some of the corrupt imams would take advantage of the fact they were the only ones who could read the Quran by telling people the Quran says things that it doesn't.

So it's not a matter of interpretation as it is corrupt imams straight up lying about what the Quran says. Increased literacy solves this problem since anyone would be able to open a Quran and verify what their imam was saying is actually correct.

 

[Funky]

But eradicating Islam is simply not possible. A religion with 1.6 billion followers that has existed for 1400 years is not going to go away just because people living in Western democracies are not comfortable with it. I don't see why you think it can just be eliminated like Nazism or fascism. Reform is the only option.

That "Western democracies are not comfortable with it" is quite an understatement! This is a civilisational problem. It concerns everyone who is interested in progress, equality and freedom. It is true that due to the rapidly growing Muslim populations in the West, it is becoming increasingly urgent for us to find a way to deal with this issue. Islam has become a huge threat to our liberal, democratic values. But forget about the West for a moment. This is a global problem. Islamism and attempts to spread sharia are spreading in Africa, in India, in Russia, in China. There are even jihadist groups operating in South America, where the Muslim population is comparably small.

But first and foremost Islam is a problem within the Islamic world. A significant part of the world's population is being held back by this ideology and is suffering under its influence. Dozens of countries have been (and are being) ruined by it. My concern lies especially with the suppressed groups within the Islamic community, with women, non-Muslims, free-thinkers, gays etc. The people who who benefit the most from challenging Islam are Muslims.

As for what is the way forward, this is what I hope to get further into in this thread. Whether Islam is reformable or not, making progress will be extremely difficult in either case. I find it unimaginative to disregard one of the possible solutions out of hand. The fact of the matter is: if reforming Islam is not possible, then eliminating the ideology is the only other solution. There is no third option.
I see no reason why, in principle, the ideology cannot be eradicated just because it has been around for 1,400 years. Sure, it will take time. But as I mentioned in the OP, this may actually be the easier way forward.

Think about what a reform would entail. The Quran is the direct, perfect and unchangeable word of the the creator of the universe, which gives clear instructions on how people should live their lives. Muhammad, his messenger, is the best human to have ever lived and he is the perfect example that people should follow. Yet a reform would mean that large parts of the Quran and of Muhammad's life have now become obsolete and should be ignored. What Islam says about infidels, women, gays, Jews, apostates, blasphemers, Muslim superiority, rational thinking, sharia, jihad, martyrdom, stonings, honour killings etc etc has become invalid, despite being God's unchangeable word. Instead, Muslims should limit themselves to the few Quran verses which promote tolerance and discard the rest, and should now actually live diametrically opposed to the way Muhammad did.

This strikes me as way more difficult to convey than that the whole thing is made up. Especially since by studying the life of Muhammad it becomes patently obvious that the religion is man-made. Of course many orthodox Muslims and Islamists won't be able to see that, because they are too deep in the woods and have invested too much energy into promoting their religious values. But if we relentlessly expose Muslims to the truth about their religion, if we rigorously challenge it with intellectual vigour, if we ridicule its absurd notions and point out its flaws and contradictions, then young Muslims may very well be able to rid themselves from its shackles in an acceptable timespan.

Another way of looking at it is the following: should we promote our understanding of everything we know to be true about the world, including that Islam is bonkers? Should we treat Muslims as rational human beings who are able to cope with reality just like everyone else? Or do Muslims have to be lied to about the nature of the world? Should we pretend that Allah exists, yet that he somehow wants mankind to behave opposite to what he laid out in the Quran? I'd suggest that the latter approach is far more demeaning.

To conclude, I remain open to both possibilities. I just have difficulty conceiving how a reform of Islam could be achieved, given its specific nature.

The answer is right there in your post Funky, go after extremist imams. They are responsible for interpreting the various texts and instructing other Muslims on how to behave.

No, you misunderstand. Some of the corrupt imams would take advantage of the fact they were the only ones who could read the Quran by telling people the Quran says things that it doesn't.

So it's not a matter of interpretation as it is corrupt imams straight up lying about what the Quran says. Increased literacy solves this problem since anyone would be able to open a Quran and verify what their imam was saying is actually correct.

The problem is not the imams, the problem is the texts! Imams are not lying about what the Quran says or about what Muhammad did. They are accurately reflecting their religion. This is precisely the problem! It is why we can't just challenge imams, or combat illiteracy. The religion itself has to be actively combatted.

Using the BBC article (nice to see you agree with the BBC after calling them a bunch of regressive leftists when talking about Buddhist violence toward the Royhinga but ymmv)....

That is not what I said about the BBC. I refered to it as a left-leaning news outlet, which it clearly is. That the number I gave is found on their site only adds to its credibility.

Your statement that "thousands of Christians are killed by Muslims every year" is not supported by the article posted and is by the admission of the numbers creator - a complete guess lacking any and all scientific certainty.

And again you blatantly misrepresent me. I wrote "according to Professor Thomas Schirrmacher thousands of Christians are killed by Muslims every year". You conveniently decided to ignore the first part of the quote in order to strawman me. Of course it is just an estimate. But there is a difference between an educated estimate and a wild guess. Schirrmacher works for the International Society for Human Rights - we can expect his estimate to have some basis in reality. It could just as well be too low, for all we know.
And what are you even trying to say? That persecution of Christians by Muslims is not a huge problem? We know that Christians are by far the largest persecuted religious group and that this is almost exclusively due to Muslims. Or do you want to deny that? This site, for instance, states that ~4,000 Christians are killed every year; but also that 2,500 churches and Christian properties are destroyed, and that over 9,000 acts of violence (rapes, abductions, forced marriages, beatings) are committed against them. An estimated 9 million Christians are currently displaced.
That is not going into the actions of jihadist groups like the IS or Boko Haram who are involved in genocidal behaviour against the Christians in Syria, Iraq and Nigeria.

Wanton butchery can be found throughout the world. Rwanda and Burundi have seen ethnic conflict after ethnic conflict accompanied by the infamous Rwandan Genocide. The Japanese have the Sook Ching massacres and the Rape of Nanking.

So because there have been other instances of genocide in the past we should not worry about what the Muslims are doing to Christians? Is this what you are trying to say?

Again, if Germany could cleanse themselves of genocide...

Did you overread what I responded to you the last time? Germany did not "cleanse itself". The country had to be utterly destroyed in a war that cost 50 million lives and the ideology had to be relentlessly combatted and eradicated from the outside. Do you understand this?

why should the Muslims living in -say, Minneapolis- be assumed as violent fundies whose religion needs a dose of reformation to make it palatable as a result of actions carried out by violent butchers half a world away?

Nobody is talking about the Muslims in friggin' Minneapolis. I mean hey, 51% of American Muslims favour sharia. But by comparison they are currently not much of a problem. While I am trying to have a meaningful discussion about a problem, you are desperate to bring up the non-problem. This is like me living in the 1930s expressing my concern about the rise of National Socialism, and you respond, "hey, in Münster Nazis are not causing many problems. Stop discrediting Nazism!" This level of intellectual dishonesty is not only obscene and counter-productive, it is also way beneath you.

Because it is impossible that Islam could be a problem in some countries and not be a problem in vastly different countries.

IMPOSSIBRRL!

Hence, I suggest that from now on, each post will simply state "Indonesia", since this is really all we need to hear each other say to bring this discussion to a proper conclusion.

Indonesia

Indonesia

Indonesia

It's fascinating, isn't it, that this same pathetic deflection is brought up again and again. Now, in Indonesia 95 percent think homosexuality is immoral, 93 percent say that the wife must always obey her husband, and 72 percent want to live under sharia, to just mention a few poll results. Yes, Indonesians are slightly less deranged by their religious beliefs than Muslims in most other parts of the Islamic world. But Indonesia is very much part of the problem, which makes bringing it up in an attempt to deflect from the problems of Islam only more pathetic.
This is what I meant in the OP when I wrote that discussions about Islam are so difficult here. Some people are desperate to avoid talking about the related problems. Instead, they divert attention to the non-problems (or lesser-problems), as Ajidica and now this other guy have done. Where does this attitude come from? I am serious, I would like to know. Is it just cowardice? Are some people just not able to cope with certain facts? Is it political correctness run amok? Baffling.

In the same way it will be western culture that defeats Islam, and thats why the Muslim right wing hates the culture of the left just as conservatives in the USA hate Hollywood. The real threat to Islam are young Muslims embracing our culture.

Finally some sense after this irritating digression. While I wouldn't use the terms "left" or "right", I do think that exposing young Muslims to liberal, secular ideas, including criticism of their religion, will help undermine the Islamic orthodoxy. On the other hand, it seems like we have to put in way more effort, since, at least in the West, radicalisation is actually increasing, not only from generation to generation, but also in the last years. In other words, we should stop walking on eggshells around the issue. We should spend way more energy defending and promoting our values, and confidently express why they are superior to Islamic values. In all of Western Europe we encounter an extremely wide-spread culture of white guilt and self-denigration. But if we denigrate our own cultures and values, how are we to expect young Muslims to become attracted to these values?

 

[warpus]

The problem is not the imams, the problem is the texts! Imams are not lying about what the Quran says or about what Muhammad did.

Are Catholic priests lying about what the Bible says?

No, they just don't include "Stone cheating women to death" as part of the sermon, but instead focus on "Feed the poor and stuff"

 

[Recon Rover]

Bingo... the right wing loves to take credit for bringing communism down but it was the left that won the cold war, not the right. It was the left with its culture of blue jeans and rock and roll that transformed Russia.

In the same way it will be western culture that defeats Islam, and thats why the Muslim right wing hates the culture of the left just as conservatives in the USA hate Hollywood. The real threat to Islam are young Muslims embracing our culture.

The Taliban hates music...thats our best export. And thats why the Islamic right hated people like Saddam and the Iranians, both allow(ed) western culture to infiltrate the populations of Iran and Iraq.

Stop it, you're making me blush.

I'll go a step further and point out from personal experience that it is unlikely the first generation of children living in the West care much about their parents past conservative lifestyle in another country.

The children born in North America to immigrant parents largely adopt the western lifestyle. This is because, as you rightly pointed out, blue jeans and rock and roll exemplify the freedom of conscience that cannot be found in authoritarian countries.

 

[Funky]

Are Catholic priests lying about what the Bible says?

No, they just don't include "Stone cheating women to death" as part of the sermon, but instead focus on "Feed the poor and stuff"

I agree that focusing on the nice stuff in the religious texts is preferable (obviously). But comparing Christianity to Islam tends to be misleading, since the nature of the scripture is vastly different. Most importantly, the central document for Christians is the new testament, which is essentially a reform of the old testament religion. Priests tend to focus on the teachings of Jesus, which are mainly humility, love and compassion. Theologically it is extremely easy to separate the new testament from the old, and ignore most of the latter.

The Quran, on the other hand, doesn't have such a reformed version. It is true that it contains a few verses which promote peace and tolerance. But they are scarce, and they are largely abrogated by the later violent verses. Furthermore, following Muhammad's example does not lead to love and compassion, but to deceit, violence and murder and war!

Now, if Muslims could somehow advocate a reverse abrogation and override the later violent Medina verses with the earlier more benign Mecca verses, and as a result emphasize Muhammad's earlier life stages, this would be a big step forward. The problem is that abrogation is not only a core concept in the Islamic tradition of Quran exegesis, it is actually laid out in the Quran itself. Muhammad, when confronted by his followers with the contradictions in the Quran, included two verses to deal with this inconsistency.

The verses are:

None of Our revelations do We abrogate or cause to be forgotten, but We substitute something better or similar: Knowest thou not that Allah Hath power over all things? (2:106)

and

When We substitute one revelation for another, – and Allah knows best what He reveals (in stages),– they say, "Thou art but a forger": but most of them understand not. (16:101)

These two verses imply that the older verse is substituted with a new verse when the two are in conflict. However, in my understanding of the verses, it is not completely unambiguous that the later verses necessarily override the earlier ones. There does seem to be some interpretational wiggle room for theologians and scholars to suggest that the opposite could be true.
This would go against the traditions that Muslim imams and jurists have accepted and applied for over 1,000 years. But perhaps it is the crack in Islamic theology in which we can stick the pry of reform and leverage the traditional, orthodox interpretation.

 

[warpus]

In the end my point is that it's super easy for a preacher to pull out hateful verses from the Bible, much like it's easy for a preacher to pull out hateful verses from the Koran.

Moderate Muslims exist, moderate Imams exist, meaning that it's possible for an Imam to preach about Islam from the Koran without focusing on stuff like "Kill the infidels" and instead focus on far more moderate messages from their holy text.

 

[Oruc]

It doesn't need to be reformed, it needs to retain it's fundamentals

 

[Borachio]

No, you misunderstand. Some of the corrupt imams would take advantage of the fact they were the only ones who could read the Quran by telling people the Quran says things that it doesn't.

So it's not a matter of interpretation as it is corrupt imams straight up lying about what the Quran says. Increased literacy solves this problem since anyone would be able to open a Quran and verify what their imam was saying is actually correct.

Oh, I see. I think.

But then, although maybe pedantically, what's to stop a formerly illiterate person being just as corrupt as an imam?

I'm not quite sure what you think is making an imam corrupt, though. Is it some kind of power game? And why wouldn't the uncorrupt imams (if there are any) put them straight?

 

[Phrossack]

I don't think non-Muslims have any ability, or business, to go about reforming Islam.

And I find it really odd when non-Muslims here go about saying that extreme interpretations of the Quran are wrong--who are they to tell actual Muslims who devote their lives to studying the Quran that they're wrong? It's like a man telling a woman, "No, you're wrong, I'm a feminist and I understand feminism and women's rights better than you do."

It's very unfortunate for everyone that so many Muslims interpret the Quran as sanctioning violence, slavery, and terrorism, but we as non-Muslims have no place telling them that their interpretations are incorrect.

 

[Borachio]

I sort of see your point.

But if you start from the point of view that violence, slavery and terrorism are wrong, and then find that the Quran sanctions them, how are you not going to conclude that the extreme interpretations are wrong? Even if they are accurate.

(Actually, I'm trying to use the word "wrong" in two separate senses here, I think.)

 

[Commodore]

I'm not quite sure what you think is making an imam corrupt, though. Is it some kind of power game? And why wouldn't the uncorrupt imams (if there are any) put them straight?

The uncorrupt and moderate imams do try to put them straight. Unfortunately, the people are usually extremely loyal to their imam and won't listen to any outside voice that tries to say their imam is corrupt unless they have some sort of irrefutable proof. This loyalty is seen in the fact that a lot of local militias are led by none other than the local imam. The most famous example being Al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army in Iraq.

Keep in mind, I'm not necessarily saying Al-Sadr is corrupt, just that he is an example of how loyal some Muslims in the Arab world can be to their religious leaders.

 

[Phrossack]

I sort of see your point.

But if you start from the point of view that violence, slavery and terrorism are wrong, and then find that the Quran sanctions them, how are you not going to conclude that the extreme interpretations are wrong? Even if they are accurate.

(Actually, I'm trying to use the word "wrong" in two separate senses here, I think.)

You are using it in two different ways--most of us agree that terrorism, slavery, crucifixion, and other atrocities are wrong (in other words, immoral). But just because an interpretation leads to immoral results does not mean that that interpretation is incorrect.

 

[Zkribbler]

It's very unfortunate for everyone that so many Muslims interpret the Quran as sanctioning violence, slavery, and terrorism, ...

Ironically, so does the Old Testament.

 

[Phrossack]

Ironically, so does the Old Testament.

What's your point?

If we had a bunch of diehard Old Testament literalists today who believed that slavery, Levirate marriages, God-sanctioned genocide, and the killing of gays and adulterers were all required parts of their religion, I'd think they were evil and menaces to the rest of us, but I couldn't reasonably argue that their interpretation was incorrect.

Thankfully, there is no Mosaic State that's wreaking havoc across the world, nor are such literalist terrorist groups common.