Reform, How?

Submitted by Steve Ellison (United States), Jan 8, 2010 at 19:08

Mr. Pipes is correct in his assertion that Islam needs to be reformed just as Christendom and Judaism have been. However, those two religions were reformed only when catastrophic events forced them to either change or be exterminated. Until the Jewish Revolt of 70-73AD (think Masada, etc.), Judaism was a blood religion, requiring ritual slaughter with the blood being poured over the altar. Judaism, in that form, was also violently xenophobic, and did not consider anyone who was not a Jew to be worthy of consideration.

Not until the Romans razed Jerusalem and the Temple and forcibly removed the bulk of Jewry throughout the rest of the Roman empire (the Diaspora) did Judaism reinvent itself as the contemplative, more philosophical faith we know today. Western European Christianity prior to the wars of the Protestant Reformation was notorious for its militancy - the Church called some 23 Crusades from 1086 to the late 1500's - and the religious wars of the Reformation were considered even by the combatants to be exceptionally violent and bloody. Remember, during the 30 Years War Germany had about 30-50% of its inhabitants killed by battle, disease, or starvation, and cannibalism was not unknown, albeit on a rather small scale. Only when it became clear to both Catholic and Protestant that these wars were tantamount to European suicide did the "Peace of Jesus Christ" attitude take hold.

I contend that the only way Islam - as it is now understood and practiced - can be reformed is to destroy the cultures/societies who utilize it as their foundation, much as pre-Revolt Judaism and Reformation Christianity were. That destruction must be through Coca-Colonization when possible, and battle if necessary. Force the common, everyday adherents of Islam to doubt the current interpretation of their faith as it is propounded by their mullahs and imams. If Moslems begin to doubt the credibility of the clerics who have kept them in their current situation or prevented them from bettering their lives by insistence upon the fatalistic, degrading doctrines now accepted as the basis of Islam, then they can free themselves to reinvent their faith as a force for improvement of their lot in life.

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