Secularizing Islam
Reader comment on item: [The RAND Corporation and] Fixing Islam

Submitted by Robert Armstrong (United States), Apr 8, 2004 at 11:47

1.Islamic fundamentalism, like all fundamentalisms, has two main ideas, Literalism and Inerrancy. It adds to these the idea of abrogation. The Quran is to be taken literally. It is assumed to be free from errors. And within the Quarn the later revelations are taken to supercede the earlier ones.

2.Abrogation is the real problem. The earlier revelations are the more moderate and less political ones. Superceding them with later more violent and politically orientated revelations turns Islam into a political ideology. Unfortunately this ideology resembles Nazism in that it requires the believers to conquer the world, enslave the non-believers, and murder the Jews. At this point war between this ideology and the West is inevitable.

3.Before we can secularize Islam we must deal with secularism's dislike of religion. The world view of secularism is that of reductive materialism. From the viewpoint of the reductive materialist religion is nonsense and the religions are fools. The religious will not be comfortable with religion until secularists are comfortable with spirituality. The secularists will not be comfortable with religion until they can accept the idea reductive materialism is just one way of viewing reality and the successes of science do not prove it is absolutely and unarguably the only way.

4.Fundamentalism is a reactionary phenomenon. Unfortunately it is a reaction to the world view of reductive materialism. If we try to secularize the Islamic world without first dealing with secularism's discomfort with religion and loyalty to the reductive materialist world view we will only create more fundamentalists.

5.Sufism is the spiritual component of Islam. Sufism is what makes Islam a religion. More to the point Sufism is what moderates Islam as a religion. Those who see Sufism and spiritual practice as a important part of Islam are our friends. We should treat them as such.

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