reformed or transformed?

Submitted by Frankz (United Kingdom), Mar 31, 2014 at 19:39

"a reformed Islam can emerge" if it turns its back on its prophet - a man up to his elbows in blood.

Islam could then more easily be an irrelevant religion in the same way that Christianity and Judaism are mostly irrelevant religions in the West.

Personally though I think Islam does make these kind of compromises in any lasting way.

It's certainly capable of making them though and probably will again in the future but the more virile strains are more than strong enough to overwhelm these fanciful experiments.

To say that moderate Islam does not exist is nonsense. Only the strictest critic would say that no versions of moderate Islam have existed or currently exist.

They exist because they ignore what is convenient to ignore. So will any future strains. To say that Islam can be reformed when what one really means is transformed is to see the secular perspective as the inevitable culmination of belief. Certainly that is to be tested in Islam.

"If such precise words can be reversed" - lets at least be honest - they have not been reversed they have been more or less ignored or airbrushed into meaningless reinterpretations. Perhaps there may have been rulings by more recent church leaders but they have the effect of negating instead of reinforcing faith these days.

So the real question is whether moderate Islam has a lasting future outside the existing power structures which have made it a comfortable option.

The prospects for this are not good in the slightest.

Yes of course there are moderates in Islam but we do them more harm than good in many cases by supporting them. Here we have to be realistic and understand that Western secularism is dying along with its religions. You can not effect change in the Muslim world from a position of weakness. This is the Christian perspective again transposed and projected onto the Muslim world(not always by Christians) because this is how the Christian experience began.

Not understand that this route is blocked is to my mind a mistake.

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