In a clearly formulated manifesto last week, four well-known Muslim intellectuals appealed to all Muslim political and religious leaders to stand up and support a democratic Islam. In their letter, they also laid out some concrete steps, among them a conference in France early next year that would "define the contours of a progressive interpretation of Islam firmly grounded in the 21st century."
The four men behind this letter are Tariq Ramadan, professor of contemporary Islamic studies at the University of Oxford; Anwar Ibrahim, the head of Malaysia's national opposition and chairman of the World Forum for Muslim Democrats; Ghaleb Bencheikh, the president of the World Conference for Religions for Peace; and Felix Marquardt, founder of the Abd al-Raḥman al-Kawakibi Foundation. They're hard on their fellow Muslims and ask tough questions. In their letter, they call for a clear-eyed diagnosis of Islam's current plight and want to develop a fundamental critique of Islamic culture and religion. » | Loay Mudhoon / cmk | Tuesday, February 22, 2015
My comment:
Muslims consider the words in the Koran to be Allah’s actual words. So anyone who tries to change any of them would be considered a heretic. (How can a mortal being know better than Allah what is meant by Allah’s words?) Further, Islam is totally and utterly immiscible with democracy for many reasons, chief among them being that Islam understands no separation of mosque and state. In Islam politics and religion are considered to be one integrated whole. Democracy requires a separation. Without this separation, there can be no democracy. So how exactly can Islam change to fit the modern world? How can Islam become democratic? It seems to me that this is an exercise in futility. Aren’t these people who are trying to bring this change about doing so in bad faith, to detract from the central issues? They must surely know that this reformation/modernization is simply not possible. Pie in the sky! - © Mark
