Via this week's excellent roundup of 'best post' nominees at The Watcher's Council comes Ali Eteraz' Open Letter to Reformist Muslims:
"If, then, there are those in the West who challenge what passes for Islam today, on the basis of their humanity with the Muslim, then we Muslims must embrace them as our brothers. It is conceiveable, yes, that there are those in the West with as much sadomasochim (or courage, if you will), as the reformists of Islam; with as great a penchant for human rights as the reformists of Islam; with as great a willingness to face off against the edifice of a corrupt theology as the reformists of Islam. We must embrace them as our brothers, be they Latino, Black, or dare I say, white; be they Hindu, Jew, Christian, or dare I say, secular-humanist. We — this is the ‘we’ that refers to all those who fight injustice — did not exclude such helpers when the evil was Soviet Union. We — this is the ‘we that refers to all those who fight injustice — did not exclude the helpers when the evil was Jim Crow. Nor when the evil was the patriarchy which denied female equality. In fact, if reformist Islam is to stand a chance, it has to be open to those who want to help. There has never been a case in history where change has occurred without participation by some members of the dominant discourse joining in the efforts of those who agitate for change.
....All those then, theists, secularists, atheists, deists, refuseniks, peaceniks, Jews, Gentiles, Unitarians, Episcopalians, Baptists, Methodists, Philosophers, who wish to walk for humanity: speak up and do not stop speaking. Walk with the believers. There are believers who will walk with you."
Fascinating set of comments there as well - worth visiting, not just reading the excerpt here.
I also recommend this discussion about apostasy on a Jordanian blog, in English. (Hat tip to the "Big Pharaoh" for that one. I'd link him but he's on the evil blog*spot.)
To recap my question from the previous post here: What are we supposed to conclude from this?
It does little good to tell Muslims how they are supposed to interpret Islam, while ignoring the way they do interpret it. There is a tendency in all these discussions to belittle the hadiths, because the hadiths are the source of so much trouble. They refer to a "perfect and immutable Quran" as if anything that's not in there is not a part of Islam, but that's just not a fact.
Sunnis, Shi'ites, and Salafists all revere the hadiths, not as obsolete historical data but as here-and-now injunctions. Shari'a is steeped in the hadiths. Interpretion of Islam by the Quran alone was long ago denounced as kufr.
All of these reminds me of a scene from Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited. In the 30s, Charles Ryder meets an Episcopalian bishop who is on his way to Barcelona to reconcile the Communists and the Anarchists. The bishop explains that he has made a careful study of Communist and Anarchist literature and has found that there is no significant difference between the two doctrines, so he is going over to Spain to explain this to them.
Glen, that's eay. Ali Eteraz isn't an outsider trying to explain this, he's an insider fighting for his interpretation to prevail. He's urging his fellows to accept support from outside the faith, and urging people inclined to give that support to walk with him and speak up beside him.
Criticism of Islamofascists and pre-medieval literalists from outside the faith doesn't in any way preclude standing with Ali Eteraz et. al. Why not do both?
And while we're at it, just as we wish to media to report both the good news and the bad news from Iraq in a fair way, fairness demands that we cover the people like Ali Eteraz in addition to alerting our readers to the genuine jihadi threat.
Joe,
I'm way past the tipping point, to the statement "Walk with the believers. There are believers who will walk with you." I ask;
What, all three of them?
Prager has it right!
Mike
Mike, I didn't say Prager was wrong. But Prager can be right and (to turn his thesis around) if only 10% of Muslims resent the fundamentalists and believe religion should be a minor part of their lives, then you have 100 million potential allies.
If only 2% of them feel that way, that's more than all the Jews in the world, anywhere.
Joe,
You usually put me in my place, but I just can't see where you expect to end up in the long run with this thinking.
One billion or so residents of the planet want to see me dead or in servitude, 100 million of their cohorts don't necessarily want this, (even tho' I expect 80 million of them would accept it)and this will make me feel good why?
While I'm, pretty obivously, not Jewish, I don't understand why 2% of 10% not murderous jihadi's or sympathisers of same, exceeds the number of Jews in the world has anything to do with anything.
Mike