Examples of re-interpretation of Islamic Sharia in modern times-Response

Submitted by ctw (United States), Feb 23, 2010 at 06:38

Do not Khomeini's assertions about raison d'état imply that Islam cannot survive as Islam unless it is not Islam? The rigidity of the Koran's "holy writ" compelled imams to invoke the Hadiths, the Prophet's model behaviour and Abrogation in order to make a theo-judiciary from the Koran because it didn't provide a functional legal system, on its own. The danger in that, is that it elevates clerics to where they can proclaim and justify anything in the name of Islam to a necessarily obediant congregation. Hence, the internacene strife among hostile Islamic factions, all of which have taken recourse to the Koran's violent passages.

Laws are, exactly, what they express-they are a function of language. Is the Koran really so poorly worded that even the scholars of Islam can't agree whether suicide bombers are martyrs or criminals? Compare that to Martin Luther, a Christian scholar, whose study of the New Testament compelled him to challenge the contemporary reign of Catholicism, despite excommunication. The question is, where is the Martin Luther of Islam? Can the Koran ever be as compelling? And can the governments of the middle east even support a reformation, like the princes of Europe who gathered behind Protestantism?

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