...Not to worry, my friend Mustafaa with CAIR explained that true Islam would not push to indoctrinate anyone to change religions anyway. It is a teaching from Mohammad that there is "no compulsion in religion." So anyone doing that, compelling or even punishing people religiously, is NOT practicing true to Islam. He agrees that many Muslims may need reform, as opposed to trying to reform Islam which is supposed to be final and complete as given.
more typical mooselimb caca - claim that whatever negatives are being discussed are not the "true" islam and then toss out some misleading taqiyya from the koran to fool the naive...
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http://www.meforum.org/1754/peace-or-jihad-abrogation-in-islam
That there is no compulsion in Islam and that Islam is a religion of peace are common refrains among Muslim activists, academics, officials, and journalists. In an age of terrorism and violent jihad, nowhere, they argue, does the Qur'an allow Muslims to fight non-Muslims solely because they refuse to become Muslim.[5] Proponents of Islamic tolerance point to a number of Qur'anic verses which admonish violence and advocate peace, tolerance, and compromise.
But not all verses in the Qur'an have the same weight in assessment. Unlike the Old or New Testaments(?), the Qur'an is not organized by chronology but rather by size of chapters. Even within chapters, chronology can be confused. In sura 2, for example, God revealed verses 193, 216, and 217 to Muhammad shortly after he arrived in Medina. God only revealed verses 190, 191, and 192 six years later. This complicates interpretation, all the more when some verses appear to contradict.
The Qur'an is unique among sacred scriptures in accepting a doctrine of abrogation in which later pronouncements of the Prophet declare null and void his earlier pronouncements. Four verses in the Qu'ran acknowledge or justify abrogation:
2:106 - When we cancel a message, or throw it into oblivion, we replace it with one better or one similar. Do you not know that God has power over all things?
16:101 - When we replace a message with another, and God knows best what he reveals, they say: You have made it up. Yet, most of them do not know.
13:39 - God abrogates or confirms whatsoever he will, for he has with him the Book of the Books.
17:86 - If we pleased, we could take away what we have revealed to you. Then you will not find anyone to plead for it with us.
Rather than explain away inconsistencies in passages regulating the Muslim community, many jurists acknowledge the differences but accept that latter verses trump earlier verses. Most scholars divide the Qur'an into verses revealed by Muhammad in Mecca when his community of followers was weak and more inclined to compromise, and those revealed in Medina, where Muhammad's strength grew...
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and no, islam is rotten to the core and cannot be "reformed" because it is based on the life of a murdering warlord and his b.s. rantings about killing the unbelievers & oppressing the unfaithful are repeated over & over & over & over & over & over again in the koran and hadiths...
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http://alisina.org/blog/2010/12/22/the-illusion-of-reforming-islam
Can Islam be reformed? All other religions have reformed; why can't Islam be reformed?
The problem with Islam is that it is rotten from its core. The evil is in its holy books...
The Christian Reformation began as an attempt to reform, not the Christianity, but the Catholic Church. Many believers were troubled by the Church and its practices...
None of these are doctrines of Christianity. These were practices of the Church. The reformers protested against the Church. They did not defy the authority of the Bible...
Many westerners erroneously believe that Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahhab, (17031792) was the founder of Salafism, an extremist sect of Islam. This is not true. Abdul Wahhab did not found a new sect. He was a reformer of Islam in the same sense that Luther was of Christianity...
The core of Abdul Wahhab's thinking is that Islam is perfect and complete and its decline is the result of religious innovations (bid'ah), and that an Islamic revival will result by purging the religion from foreign influences and by emulating Muhammad and his companions...
Although Christian Reformation and Islamic Reformation are almost identical in their scope, their outcomes have been very different. The literal reading of the Bible became the underpinning of the social theories and organization of Protestant societies and the foundation of social organization of the English colonies in America...
What is the essence of the reformation in Islam? The essence of the Wahhabi belief is that man is a slave of Allah. People are ibad (slaves).
This is diametrically a different discourse from the discourse of Protestantism, and here lies the essential difference between Christianity and Islam...
The discourse of freedom, so essential to Christianity is contrary to what Islam stands for. When Muslims carry placards that read "democracy is hypocrisy", and "freedom go to hell", during their loud demonstrations, they are expressing the true message of Islam, which is anti-freedom, anti-democracy, pro slavery and pro subjugation...
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http://www.faithfreedom.org/oped/sina50116.htm
Dear Ali, I appreciate your work. But I think we have to modernize Islam because I have serious doubts that you and other wonderful people can eradicate Islam completely. Modernization is something that is more likely to happen...
You say Christians modernized; why can't Muslims? There is a simple answer to that. The New Testament does not contain so much violence and terror as does the Quran. I don't say the Bible is factual. It sounds more like myths and legends. Nonetheless, the Jesus of the Bible is a saintly figure. He is the embodiment of goodness. So if you don't mind believing in fairytales, Christianity can make you a good person...
Islam is different. The author of Islam was a vile man. He is not a mythological figure. He really existed, and his acts are recorded. Many ludicrous miracles are attributed to him, but once you put aside all those as nonsense and study his life, the portrait of a psychopath emerges. Muhammad was anything but saintly. There is not an act of goodness in his life. Even his kindness and generosity were manipulative and politically motivated...
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http://www.islam-watch.org/MA_Khan/Letter_Reform_Islam.htm
I often wonder whether Islam can ever be reformed the same way as Christianity came out of dark ages...
I firmly believe that the chance of this happening is Nil. Because, the main necessity for any society to achieve reformation is the ability of the society for introspection. Now this is possible if the concerned society believes in Golden Rule and has conscience. These two are completely absent in case of Islam.
Koran tells Muslims that they are best people raised for mankind and their religion is perfect...
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http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.10110/pub_detail.asp
The idea of reforming Islam is not new. Islam cannot be reformed.
Keep in mind that Islam claims that it is the perfect eternal faith for mankind. Splits have occurred and will continue to occur in Islam. Yet, reformation has not happened in nearly 1400 years and is not going to happen. Islam is carved in granite, just the way it is. No change. Allah's book is sealed...
At the heart of the problem is the Quran, Islam's sacred book, considered as a literally perfect and the immutable words of Allah...
Freedoms of all forms are anathema to Islam that is squarely based on total submission to the dictates and will of Allah. Muslims must obey Allah and His Messenger...
Violence is part and parcel of Islam...
Reforming Islam requires discarding Shari'a, but also purging the Quran itself from enormous suras that are not only patently false, but totally repugnant to a civilized humanity...
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http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2012/09/why-islam-does-not-belong-in-western.html
...but Islam is a uniquely aggressive and violent creed. No other major, established religion on this planet stipulates the death penalty for criticizing or mocking its founder and its teachings. Traditional Islamic law does. Thats why no other religious community on Earth behaves the way Muslims are...
...are pushing for national and international laws or speech codes banning any criticism of Islam, its founder and its teachings. Although Western mass media virtually never explain this to their audiences, this would essentially imply submission to Islamic law and Islamic rule...
Islamic culture is incompatible with all of the best aspects of European civilization. No form of Islam as it exists today belongs in any Western country...
Any discussion of an Islamic "Reformation" projects a Western European phenomenon, the Protestant Reformation, onto a totally different religion with more violent core teachings and religious texts than all other major religions on the planet combined.
If by "reformation" we mean to imply a peaceful, tolerant religion with no Jihad and secular laws, then no, it is very unlikely whether such a form of Islam will ever exist.
There are a few types of what we might term "diluted Islam" that are slightly less violently aggressive than the mainstream version of it, but these are all marginal in the greater scheme of things and are frequently persecuted precisely because they deviate from traditional Islamic practices...
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http://www.answering-islam.org/Authors/Arlandson/top_ten_sharia.htm
Muslim missionaries who understand the Quran and the hadith believe that sharia (Islamic law) expresses the highest and best goals for all societies. It is the will of Allah...
Muslim polemicists boast that Islam is the best and fullest religion in the world, because it specifies duties and requirements for every aspect of life. But what happens if this control is oppressive? What if it is rooted in a harsh and outdated holy book?...
10. Islam commands that drinkers and gamblers should be whipped
9. Islam allows husbands to hit their wives
8. Islam allows an injured plaintiff to exact legal revenge
7. Islam commands that a male and female thief must have a hand cut off
6. Islam commands that highway robbers should be crucified or mutilated
5. Islam commands that homosexuals must be executed
4. Islam orders unmarried fornicators to be whipped & adulterers to be stoned
3. Islam orders death for Muslim & non-Muslim critics of Muhammad, Quran & sharia
2. Islam orders apostates to be killed
1. Islam commands offensive and aggressive and unjust jihad
The nightmare must end. Sharia oppresses the citizens of Islamic countries. Islam must reform, but the legal hierarchy in Islamic nations will not do this because the judges and legal scholars understand the cost: many passages in the Quran and the hadith must be rejected...
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http://www.answering-islam.org/authors/abraham/reforming_islam.html
As a Muslim, I was willing to swallow a lot of what Mohammad did, such as his too many wives and concubines, etc. But when I read that verse of Jizya in surat Repentance 29 that commands Muslims to humiliate Christians in whatever way possible for not submitting to Islam, I said to myself, This cannot be a prophet from God; this is not seeking the wellbeing of humankind. A true God who made all people would never allow a human being to violate the dignity of another person in the name of God...
It stands to reason that when a Muslim adopts the three principles of the French Revolution, currently the motto of France, Liberté, égalité, fraternité, i.e. "Liberty, equality, fraternity (brotherhood)", he is plainly indicting the teaching of his own Prophet as well as the heritage of Islam over fourteen gloomy centuries...
Under Islam which we meet in the character of Mohammed as well as the oppressive text of the Quran, there is no such thing as liberty or equality, much less brotherhood when humans are classified into Muslims and infidels. Liberty means respect for the individual as an individual and that he/she is entitled to full human dignity in his or her autonomous sovereignty regardless of what they do in their personal lives...
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http://www.theatheistconservative.com/2010/08/22/can-islam-be-reformed
The term "Islamist" is an invention by non-Muslims who want to differentiate between what they insist is the "the vast majority of peace-loving law-abiding Muslims" from the "radicals", or "extremists", or "Islamofascists" for whom they think "Islamist" is a politer word...
...hopes to persuade non-Muslim public opinion that the law and values of Islam are compatible with the laws and values of what is generally called the West...
For both moderates and Islamists the Koran is the holy word of Allah. The holy word of Allah cannot be changed...
What interpretation can be put on commandments to beat wives (sura 4.32), amputate limbs (eg sura 5.38), treat women unequally (eg sura 4.11), kill apostates (eg 4.89) to take just a few instances of Allahs writ? They are laid down in the Koran, from which Sharia derives. It is hard to read them and think of an interpretation that cancels, contradicts, or even merely softens their meaning...
...But wouldnt that require deeply radical change, even complete reversal? And if such a radical change were to be made (by whom?), how, or to what extent, would it still be Sharia? Wouldnt such a profound alteration mean, in effect, the obliteration of Islam? ...
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http://www.answering-islam.org/Terrorism/islam_terror.html
Islam is different, and it is not different because its followers are poor or oppressed. Islam's founder, Mohammed, unlike Abraham, Jesus, or Buddha, was a warrior who obeyed his own scriptural command to convert others by violence...
Islam was spread into Southern and Eastern Europe by warfare. Devastating Muslim holy wars ravaged the populations of Eastern and Southern Europe, and retarded their progress, until the defeat of the Turks in Vienna in 1683...
The command to use violence to spread the faith is foundational in Muslim scripture, and no Islamic Reformation has yet decommissioned this command...
Jesus advised his followers to render unto Caesar what was Caesar's; he announced that his kingdom was not of this world; he was a proponent of the separation of church and state...
A self-reform movement adequate to generating an Islam that can co-exist comfortably with modernity has not yet emerged. It is not hard to see why: Islam's very scripture condemns doubt as punishable by an eternity in hell, and sentences apostates to death...
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http://www.handbookforinfidels.com/Can-Islam-be-Reformed-.html
There's been a lot of discussion, ever since 9/11, as to whether or not Islam can be reformed, so that it becomes compatible with democracy and human rights. The debate still rages...
But it seems to me that we've skipped a step here. The question we should be asking first is: Is Islam worth reforming? I think that, for anyone who values progressive ideals, this one should be a lot easier to answer...
Would any reasonable person suggest that the Nazi ideology should have been "reformed" and kept alive in some less-lethal form? Perhaps, if we could have gotten them to leave off the Jew-killing, the Gypsy-killing, and the cripple-killing, the Nazis would've been a swell bunch of guys. But, of course, by that point, they really wouldn't have been Nazis anymore, would they? Because all of that murderous violence was the direct expression of their core ideology...
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