Islamic Reformation?

In today's news, Salmon Rushdie is quoted as saying:

"...the insistence within Islam" that the Quran "is the infallible, uncreated word of God renders analytical scholarly discourse all but impossible" and the rigidity "plays right into the hands of the literalist Islamofascists."

I certainly agree with him there.

"If, however, [the Quran] were seen as a historical document, then it would be legitimate to reinterpret it to suit the new conditions of successive new ages. Laws made in the 7th century could finally give way to the needs of the 21st. The Islamic Reformation has to begin here, with an acceptance that all ideas, even sacred ones, must adapt to altered realities."

I am not usre I agree with him about "must be adapted to altered (secular) realities", however.

We have seen this "adaptation" in the West, and the result is lack of any firm belief in anything, a religious relativism that fades into mere niceness and saccharine sentimentality. "Ecumenism" has come to mean "Let's see how little we can get away with believing."

What Islam needs is a commitment to the world, and to the individual -- to focus the fire of the faith on justice and compassion for each person -- for all of mankind, not just "My brother, my cousin, my tribe, my country, my religion." There is certainly enough positive content in the Quran, to justify a community of justice, education, and interllectual ferment -- as there is negativity to bind them into the satanic tribalism of what Rushdie calls the "Islamofascists" and I would call "Bandits".

Islamic civilization reached its apex in the Caliphate of Haroun al-Rashid in about 800 A.D. Science and literary endeavor reached hights as grand or grander than Classical antiquity. Politically, Haroun and Charlemagne played a game of "Bait the Byzantine Bear" -- when one would be threatened by Constantinople, the other would start trouble on his border, to that the bear could not concentrate its force on either.

Reading the life of Haroun himself, however, reveals that he was as much of a small-minded impulsive barbarian as Charlemagne's sons and grandsons proved to be. He slaugheterd family and courtiers right and left, in fits of adolescent pique. He also set the pattern for islamic despots to this day.

Shortly after Haroun's death, Islamic culture petrified -- the Islamic Universtity at Cairo announced in 932 A.D. that all possible interpretations of the Quran had been issued. Admittedly, Islam was still well ahead of Europe both technically and politically, and stayed that way for half a millennium.

In the years from 932 to the Battle of Lepanto, in 1571, the West developed the idea of allegiance and duty to entities larger than a family or tribe, and took advantage of the industrial and military force which that greater allegiance made possible. Despite individual heroics and occasional genius, Islaic armies have never stood against Western armies in the long run.

Places like the Barbary States lasted as long as they did, because European powers were busy fighting each other, and did not have the time or energy. The comparatively puny United States managed to break their power in the early 19th Century with a few frigates and several companies of Marines.

Islam is badly in need of a Calif -- a Commander of the Faithful -- who will lead them, not into the darkness of 7th-Century bedouin banditry (which is what bin Laden is seeking, after all), but toward the light of the stars -- the 21st and later Centuries. Western science and technology are at the point -- and $66/bbl oil today (11 Aug 2005) is one of the economic forces driving it -- of developing alternative energy sources. The higher the price of oil, the sooner that fusion (or whatever) will come on line.

So here is the dilemma that the 21st Century Mahdi faces: either bring his people joyfully and fruitfully into the 21st Century, or see them descend back into squalor, sitting on oil no one wants.