You can't improve or reform Islam!

Submitted by R K Iyer (United States), Sep 22, 2007 at 03:18

Millions of Muslims recognize and acknowledge the fact that Islamic behaviour needs improvement. Even mullahs and members of the Islamic religious establishment talk about the need to improve conduct and live by what you call "exceedingly high moral standards". There is nothing new in that kind of exhortation. What the world is yet to witness, what the Islamic world in particular is yet to initiate is a debate about the need to downsize the Quran in the public and private domains of believers.

Hinduism and Judaism, to name just two religions, have many outdated precepts but Hindus and Jews have always felt free to publicly criiticise their religion and go on to carving their own versions of faith. This freedom is what is absent in Islam. Muslims have a violent track record of defending their outdated faith (but so do some other religions, notably Christians) but the difference is that Muslims have not managed to put this violent past behind them. Unless Muslims are free to criticise their Quran and agree to put their prophet in the public domain and make him available for scrutiny and rejection, non-Muslims will continue to treat Islam with intellectual contempt. If Islam has incurred the suspicion and contempt of only the Western nations, one could understand their sense of victimhood.

In India, where Muslism ruled for a millenium, the situation is no different. Islam has not created any goodwill among the people of other faiths. Islam, to put it simply, is not programmed to inspire trust or admiration among non-Muslims. Alone among all the faiths of the world, Islam continues to insist on the total relevance of its outdated text called Quran. Along among all the communities of the world, Muslims believe in defending their prophet through legislative censorship,control on freedom of expression and threat of severe punishment for any sign of dissent and disagreement.

If you a Muslim and live in the West, you are really fortunate! If you are a Muslim and live in India, you are equally fortunate!

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