Critics of Islam insist that, the Koran being the eternal word of God, Islam and therefore Muslims are static. What you see at present is how things have always been and always will be. Curiously, these critics agree with Islamists that there is only one, unchanging version of Islam that has existed from the time of the Prophet Muhammad to the present.
As a historian – someone who studies change over time – I am intensely aware of its continuous evolution and reject this facile extrapolation. Islam and Muslims have changed profoundly through the centuries and even through the decades. The Islam of 1905, a century ago, differed in major ways from the Islam of today.
Indeed, two phenomena apply to all religions: the inexorability of change over time and the inevitability of debate. As in Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism, precepts in Islam evolve over time and are much debated.
Yes, Islamism – an ideology aiming to establish a world-wide caliphate that applies Islamic law in its full medieval glory – is a threat to the world. Yes, the violence and inequity prevalent in Muslim-majority countries reflect a Muslim failure to adapt to modern ways. But there is no reason to extrapolate linearly from the recent past. Muslim experience is more varied.
Yes, Muslims stand at a low point today, going through a terrible crisis while the West is enjoying a prolonged party. But this situation is new. Just sixty-five years ago, in 1940, the situation was reversed. Neither population was always what it is today. Let's not inaccurately extrapolate from the present and conclude that Westerners are permanently on top and Muslims on the bottom.
For the critics, Muslims cannot escape an unchanging Islamism; in reality, it is a limited and historically occasional spasm that inevitably wears itself out. It will this time, too. (April 8, 2005)
