North African anthropologist Malek Chebel has some ideas on how to reform Islam, and he's speaking out on them (via Memri):
In his Manifesto for an Enlightened Islam (Manifeste pour un islam des lumières), Chebel puts forth 27 proposals for extensively reforming Islam. He turns to the values of the 18th-century European Enlightenment for guidance, when rationalism and secularism guided the drive towards cultural, social and political progress.
Chebel’s first two propositions set the principles of reform: a new interpretation of the Koran, and the preeminence of reason over creed. However, he dismisses atheism, noting that “nothing very important is achieved outside the framework of religion.” [1]
Chebel calls for putting an end to violence in the name of Islam; for renouncing Jihad, which is, in his eyes, immoral; for abolishing all fatwas calling for death; and for abolishing Islamic corporal punishment.
Chebel stands against female genital mutilation and for banning slavery and trafficking in human beings in the Arab world; for strict punishment of the perpetrators of honor crimes and for promoting the status of women.
Most of Chebel’s propositions deal with politics: He advocates an independent judiciary, the preeminence of the individual over the Islamic nation, and the struggle against political assassinations in an effort to promote democracy in the Arab world. He also advocates fundamental cultural changes, such as turning freedom of thought into a Muslim value, renouncing the cult of personality, respecting the other, and fighting corruption.
His other propositions address technology, bioethics, ecology, and the media. The last one reaffirms the preeminence of human beings over religion. Chebel’s propositions aim at providing keys to a modern, reformed, enlightened Islam.
Go read the rest.
8 comments:
Pastorius, I apreciate your indefatigable attempts to find a moderate version of Islam and a non-violent outcome to our struggles against it in its current manifestation.
But what is this new and improved version of Islam? It's not Islam. Evelyn Baring, Lord Cromer writes, if I can find it: "Islam cannot be reformed, that is to say, reformed Islam is Islam no longer; it is something else; we cannot yet tell what it will eventually be."
Thank you, dhimmiwatch archives!
Regardless of what reformed Islam could be, it will not be Islam. Cromer, "orientalist" or not, was an exceptionally keen observer of what Islam is, and to dismiss him for the sake of sentimental optimism is not going to save Muslims from their quandry.
Muslims must abandon Islam en masse and damned quickly or the result will likely be the utter annihilation of a billion people, not from our efforts but from collective suicide.
Islam is at root a tribal code made into an aggressive and dysfunctional poligion at war with Modernity. Either Islam dies or Modernism dies. The two cannot co-exist. Stone Age tribalism cannot co-exist with the Space Age. This is not an academic position to dicker with; this is a matter of a mass of people who are driven insane by their dysfunction in the Modern world. Either we act in loco parentis on behalf of the Muslim world or we sit back and let them commit suicide.
Misplaced humanitarianism is not a good thing. It might seem good at present but the future is always blacker the longer we do nothing to crush Islam as a driving force behind the retrograde poligion that so many of our conditioned primitives cling to.
Either we act or a billion people will starve to death.
You don't think I'm doing enough to end the evil?
If this is true, then I am disliked by all for nothing.
A billion dead - well just as long as they die quietly...not very likely, when has a culture ever knowingly allowed itself to be wiped out for a principle?
In my estimation Muslims are no different from us in that they want to live well. Fact is this motivation leads several of them to pursue Islamism, they follow the instruction of and success of Islamist Imams. These Imams are learned men who are respected & financially successful supported by the oil rich Islamist states.
In the article Chebel rails against the taking over of thousands of mosques by Islamist Imams. This is not an inexpensive exercise and it is done to increase the influence of the Islamist states. Successful it cultivates followers.
Muslim people looking for success currently find it in Islamists, because the Islamist states are oil rich. All we have to do to kill Islamism is to take this wealth and success away from them (preferably for ourselves).
Change within Islam really is possible, it is a religion based on a large, complex and somewhat contradictory holy book - it is made for change. After the next change it will be very different (because a stone age culture cannot exist in the space age), but it probably still be called Islam (it is a strong brand).
I like the way Unaha-Closp thinks. That's the same direction I am thinking, but, of course, I am a "misplaced humanitarian," who is hated by both sides, so you might as well discount me.
unaha-closp:
Fact is this motivation leads several of them to pursue Islamism, they follow the instruction of and success of Islamist Imams.
Guess what - Islamism is Islam! It's just a term used by Islam apologists to characterize everything that's bad about Islam (which is basically all of it), with the implication that Islam itself is not so bad. I suggest you replace "Islamism" with "Islam" in your future writings.
Change within Islam really is possible, it is a religion based on a large, complex and somewhat contradictory holy book - it is made for change.
Change is indeed possible, but not all types of change. In fact, from an infidel's point of view, the changes we would like to see are not possible.
After the next change it will be very different [...], but it probably still be called Islam (it is a strong brand).
"Islam" is not a brand name, it's a term. If you change what is now known as Islam into something else that by definition is not Islam, and yet decide to call the product "Islam", then the "change" is not due to the potential for change within Islam at all, but due to our willingness to use the word "Islam" about something that is not Islam.
I guess you can look at it a bit like claiming that it will be possible for pigs to eventually fly, and prove it by including birds in the definition of pigs. There is nothing about pigs that suggests that they will one day learn to fly, but if you make "pig" mean something other then what it means today (e.g. what we now call pigs AND what we now as birds), then the statement will become somewhat true.
Of course, most people don't reason that way... except some people do when it comes to Islam.
To find out how Islam can be changed, you have to take into account how much of it can be changed without it ceasing to be Islam. If you do that, then obviously the conclusion will disappoint you.
Pastorius,
I'm a big fan, but not so humanitarian.
Anon,
Islam is the religion of 1.3 billion people and it is going to be almost impossible to tell them they are wrong, especially since most them know they aren't evil or agressive in any way, therefore Islam will exist in some form for a very long time. Perhaps we could take to calling the end result of reform the residual Muslim religion - but they'll probably still call it Islam and it really is their call.
Islamism is to my definition Fundementalist Islam - taking it back to its roots. The roots are not nice and it would be best if we could discourage any respect for the roots (by forcing competitive capitalism upon them/knocking over the Islamist oil states, i think any change is possible if they are motivated enough - see dag's "a billion people will starve to death" for the motivation).
unaha-closp:
Perhaps we could take to calling the end result of reform the residual Muslim religion - but they'll probably still call it Islam and it really is their call.
What we call it is really not very interesting, it is what it is that matters. I mean, if Muslims want to become apostates by watering out their religion so much that there's not a single trace of Islam left, and still call it Islam, by all means, let them do it. (It'll probably not happen until some time after hell freezes over, though.) Just don't confuse this with a reformation of Islam, as that isn't what it is, and the end product isn't Islam. It is an abandonment of Islam for something else that is simply erroneously labeled as Islam.
Also, don't forget the commitment inherent in saying that one's religion is Islam. After all, proper Muslims might point out that one has an obligation to live by the quran, or else...
I understand Anonymous' point. Islam is based upon the Koran, which has many verses supporting violence, so how can it mutate into a non-violent religion and still be based upon the Koran.
The thing is, Judaism has many verses supporting violence in the name of God, but it has mutated into a non-violent religion. It did so through, among other things, the process of Talmudic thought.
Islam has shown no tendency to go in this direction, so it is understandable that many think it is not possible.
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