12-08-2005 04:11									#1
	Salman Rushdie & Islam Browse Apolyton AD-FREE

quote: Salman Rushdie calls for 'Muslim Reformation' LONDON, England (CNN) -- British author Salman Rushdie on Thursday called for a reform movement that would move Islam into the "modern age" to combat jihadists and closed Muslim communities in the West that produce disaffected youths wielding "lethal rucksacks." In 1989, Rushdie was forced into hiding when the late Iranian Islamic fundamentalist leader Ayatollah Khomeni issued a religious death decree for alleged blasphemy against Islam in Rushdie's novel "The Satanic Verses." The Indian-born Rushdie made his statement in an essay published Thursday in The Times of London titled, "Muslims unite! A new Reformation will bring your faith into the modern era." "What is needed is a move beyond tradition -- nothing less than a reform movement to bring the core concepts of Islam into the modern age, a Muslim Reformation to combat not only the jihadi ideologues but also the dusty, stifling seminaries of the traditionalists, throwing open the windows of the closed communities to let in much-needed fresh air," Rushdie wrote. Much of the article addresses the positions of Sir Iqbal Sacranie, head of the Muslim Council of Britain. "It is high time, for starters, that Muslims were able to study the revelation of their religion as an event inside history, not supernaturally above it," Rushdie wrote. "It would be good to see governments and community leaders inside the Muslim world as well as outside it throwing their weight behind this idea, because creating and sustaining such a reform movement will require, above all, a new educational impetus whose results may take a generation to be felt, a new scholarship to replace the literalist dictates and narrow dogmatisms that plague present-day Muslim thinking," he wrote. According to Rushdie, Islam comprises millions who are "tolerant" and "civilized" but many others whose viewpoints are "antediluvian, who think of homosexuality as ungodly, who have little time for real freedom of expression, who routinely express anti-Semitic views, and who, in the case of the Muslim Diaspora, are -- it has to be said -- in many ways at odds with the cultures among which they live." Rushdie pointed to the English city of Leeds -- where police have said three July 7 London suicide bombers grew up -- as a place where "many traditional Muslims lead lives apart, inward-turned lives of near-segregation from the wider population." The July 7 bombs, on three Underground trains and a double-decker bus, killed 52 commuters as well as four bombers. It's thought that the attackers carried their weapons in rucksacks. "From such defensive, separated worlds some youngsters have indefensibly stepped across a moral line and taken up their lethal rucksacks," Rushdie wrote. "The deeper alienations that lead to terrorism may have their roots in these young men's objections to events in Iraq or elsewhere, but the closed communities of some traditional Western Muslims are places in which young men's alienations can easily deepen." Rushdie wrote that "the insistence within Islam" that the Quran "is the infallible, uncreated word of God renders analytical scholarly discourse all but impossible" and the rigidity "plays right into the hands of the literalist Islamofascists." "If, however, [the Quran] were seen as a historical document, then it would be legitimate to reinterpret it to suit the new conditions of successive new ages. Laws made in the 7th century could finally give way to the needs of the 21st. The Islamic Reformation has to begin here, with an acceptance that all ideas, even sacred ones, must adapt to altered realities." Find this article at: http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europ...hdie/index.html

However I wonder will others heed his call? It'd be interesting to see imans supporting this.

	12-08-2005 04:21									#2
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Aiming for his second fatwa eh?

	12-08-2005 06:43									#3
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I never found the 'jokes' people make about Salman Rushdie funny. He's a good man, and doesn't deserve to be ridiculed on top of all the rest.

	12-08-2005 06:48									#4
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He's not a muslim, and AFAIK never was, so he's calling from the outside, something that muslims have never appreciated.

	12-08-2005 07:03									#5
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Actually, Doc, I believe he was a Muslim, but turned away from the faith. One of the 'crimes' cited in Khomeni's fatwa was apostasy, ie, attempting to abandon the Islamic faith.

	12-08-2005 08:41									#6
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Rushdie is indeed a non-practicing Muslim.

	12-08-2005 17:09									#7
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There will never be a successful muslim reform movement until muslim countries in Africa and the Middle East move away from theocracy and towards a system of government where everyone's needs are met and everyone has greater freedom. This doesnt necessarily mean democracy. Some of the muslim monarchies can do more to see that their subjects are well-fed and happy. Especially the ones in Africa..

	12-08-2005 17:18									#8
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i just started reading his satanic verses. but i got bored. it starts with two men falling out of an airplane that just exploded above the manchi or whats thename in english for tha chanel between englandia and francia

	12-08-2005 17:32									#9
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I got through 20 pages before I got bored..

	12-08-2005 17:57									#10
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quote: There will never be a successful muslim reform movement until muslim countries in Africa and the Middle East move away from theocracy and towards a system of government where everyone's needs are met and everyone has greater freedom.

Isn't that akin to saying there will never be a successful Muslim reform movement until there is a successful Muslim reform movement?

	12-08-2005 18:17									#11
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quote: Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui quote: There will never be a successful muslim reform movement until muslim countries in Africa and the Middle East move away from theocracy and towards a system of government where everyone's needs are met and everyone has greater freedom. Isn't that akin to saying there will never be a successful Muslim reform movement until there is a successful Muslim reform movement?

Can't governments reform independent of religion? Where does the reform start with the religion or the government? What I'm saying it starts with the government.. Government reform is unlikely to start in a theocracy, hopefully the muslim monarchies will lead the way since they have some degree of control over the religious leadership in their nation...

	12-08-2005 18:21									#12
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quote: Can't governments reform independent of religion? Where does the reform start with the religion or the government? What I'm saying it starts with the government.. Government reform is unlikely to start in a theocracy, hopefully the muslim monarchies will lead the way since they have some degree of control over the religious leadership in their nation...

The problem with your argument is that you are saying the governments need to reform independant of religion, however, you are discussing a very interlinked religion/governments. In order for the government to reform, the religion first needs to reform in that it must shy away from the policy of making religion and government intertwined.

	12-08-2005 18:39									#13
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quote: Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui quote: Can't governments reform independent of religion? Where does the reform start with the religion or the government? What I'm saying it starts with the government.. Government reform is unlikely to start in a theocracy, hopefully the muslim monarchies will lead the way since they have some degree of control over the religious leadership in their nation... The problem with your argument is that you are saying the governments need to reform independant of religion, however, you are discussing a very interlinked religion/governments. In order for the government to reform, the religion first needs to reform in that it must shy away from the policy of making religion and government intertwined.

The oppressed citizens of muslim theocracies need to see an example of religion/government separation in muslim context to get courage to reform/revolt. Muslim monarchies must lead the way and provide this example. In muslim monarchies, muslim is state religion by decree of the monarch. Such a monarch has the ability to seperate church and state in his country, but does not do so because religious fundamentalism distracts his subjects from the fact that they are living in poverty. Poverty perpetuated by lopsided distribution of wealth. Poverty perpetuated by the monarchy. Now is the time in history for a selfless muslim monarch to step up and give away some of his power and wealth for the good of islam.

	12-08-2005 18:44									#14
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quote: The oppressed citizens of muslim theocracies need to see an example of religion/government separation in muslim context to get courage to reform/revolt. Muslim monarchies must lead the way and provide this example. In muslim monarchies, muslim is state religion by decree of the monarch. Such a monarch has the ability to seperate church and state in his country, but does not do so because religious fundamentalism distracts his subjects from the fact that they are living in poverty. Poverty perpetuated by lopsided distribution of wealth. Poverty perpetuated by the monarchy. Now is the time in history for a selfless muslim monarch to step up and give away some of his power and wealth for the good of islam.

You got rose colored glasses on. If Islam continues without reform (ie, without it's own enlightenment or reformation), a monarch seeking to seperate chruch and state in his country will not meet with a very nice end unless he's got a hell of a lot of troops willing to put down revolts.

That's how Turkey stays secular, the army runs things ultimately. They use force to prevent a religious uprising.

And if you hadn't noticed in most Muslim elections, the Islamic parties usually end up as one of the biggest parties, if not winning. That's why Turkey had to ban those parties... because they'd win in an open election.

Furthermore, a secular Turkey hasn't exactly led other Muslim socities to seperate their chruch/state joinings.