The Trouble with Islam


What we've been waiting for, a reasonable declaration from inside Islam to take back the faith from the violent, misogynist misanthropes who bring shame to Islam and trouble to the world. The Trouble with Islam

The Trouble with Islam is a book which hopefully will prove a positive step in the revival of ijtihad, the idea of independent/original thought. The facts on the ground are clear. Islam, which at one point produced societies far ahead of anything christianity or judaism was producing has fallen from its state of preeminence and is now behind and falling further. A great deal of the problem can be traced to the fact that intellectually, Islam has been coasting for centuries, subsisting largely on imitation or blind following (taqleed) of what has gone on before.

The problem is that new situations do arise, new conditions do come about. A structure for transmitting the faith and ordering society when only a small minority is literate is not appropriate for an age of near universal literacy. Adjustments have to be made as new discoveries create possibilities that were undreamed of in previous times but Islam has had a bad habit of trying to kill its reformers, declaring them apostate, unbelievers. The result is the world we see today, where Islam is behind and falling further behind every year. Reconciling Islam with modernity is a concern for all, muslim or not.

Posted: Fri - October 3, 2003 at 05:01 PM        

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