A simple 5-point program will solve all Islam's problems.

Submitted by Prashant (United States), Oct 1, 2017 at 16:20

Dear Dr Pipes, we can spend all our time in trying to 'understand' Islam and theorize about why there is so much violence, discontent and poverty in the Islamic world or we can stop beating about the bush and state the facts as they are. I think the following simple program is what is needed to make Islam consistent with the rest of the world. I must say that most societies of the world are already trying to fulfill these principles:

1. All laws against apostasy must be declared outdated because religion is a matter of a faith and human beings can choose to believe whatever they want to.

2. At the governmental level, pluralistic democracy that does not discriminate between religions (and between people based on their religion) must be established.

3. At the time of marriage between Musims and non-muslims, the excuse 'Islam wont let me marry you until you convert' must be abolished because it restricts people from making reasonable harmless choices.

4. At the time of prayers, you can pray any way you want and any where and any time but if it becomes disruptive for other people, your prayers should get lower priority than other people's lives.

5. Muslims can wish whatever they want for themselves in a non-muslim country but if leads to non-separation of church and state and extra rights for muslims, that must stop.

You must notice that I did not include any thing about women's right in the above four point bare-minimum program. If a woman wants to inherit less than her brother or wants to cover herself from head to toe or wants to enter a multi-partner love/sexual relationship, it is her choice. Such things happen in many societies between consenting adults.

All problems faced by modern Islam can be mapped to one of these five points. Also, any solution involving Islam will fall short if it does not include these five points.

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