 Raymond Ibrahiim appearing on CBN. |
Raymond Ibrahim’s recent piece for CBN, “Why ‘Moderate Islam’ is an Oxymoron,” has prompted questions because it contradicts my views and yet (because he is a fellow at the Middle East Forum) it appears on MEForum.org and was sent to the MEF mailing list.
In reply, some comments on the content of his article and the propriety of its appearing with Middle East Forum sponsorship:
(1) On content: Ibrahim and I agree that a moderate Islam does not presently exist but disagree whether it might potentially exist. In the words of an article I published last year, “a reformed Islam can emerge” if Muslims
emulate their fellow monotheists and adapt their religion with regard to slavery and interest, the treatment of women, the right to leave Islam, legal procedure, and much else. When a reformed, modern Islam emerges it will no longer endorse unequal female rights, the dhimmi status, jihad, or suicide terrorism, nor will it require the death penalty for adultery, breaches of family honor, blasphemy, and apostasy.
Ibrahim judges such changes impossible. He points, for example, to the Koran 9:29, where God commands Muslims to “Fight those among the People of the Book [Jews and Christians] … until they pay the jizya [tribute] with willing submission and feel themselves subdued.” To this, he responds: “How can one interpret this verse to mean anything other than what it plainly says? Wherein lies the ambiguity, the room for interpretation? … surely the commands of Koran 9:29 are completely straightforward?”
Well, yes and no. Religious thinkers are in the business of constantly adapting their faith to current realities and Muslims can do so by deeming Koran 9:29 out of date, abrogate it, or render it metaphorical. Contra Ibrahim, clarity does not exclude shifts in interpretation.
 Gene Robinson, Anglican bishop of New Hampshire and the first priest in an openly gay relationship consecrated as bishop in a major Christian denomination. |
For example, Leviticus 20:13 states that “If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death.” Yet, these days, important branches ofJudaism and Christianity accept male homosexual activity. If such precise words can be reversed, why not those of Koran 9:29?
Nothing human is fixed; even a scripture believed to be written by God must be interpreted. Islam exists in history and changes over time.
(2) On propriety: Clearly, an organization like the Middle East Forum stands for specific views. But it also must include a range of opinion or become boring and sterile. The challenge is to find a happy medium.
Actually, this is not so difficult: Require agreement on basic goals but debate methods.
In this case, Ibrahim and I agree on the need to stand up for liberal values and combat Islamism; we disagree on how to do so, including the possibility of encouraging Islam’s reform. (He believes in moderate Muslims but not in moderate Islam.) Such debate is healthy for we specialists and appeals to readers. Expect to see more of it from the Forum. (March 30, 2014)
@ yeshol:
It looks like you have your work cut out for you. Straight males also commit homosexual acts. ie in prison? By getting themselves a ‘bitch’? Woman shouldn’t have to be involved in any way, shape or form with the depravity of man!
If a person is truly against what is being taught and ‘done’ in their religion then they will find a way to expose it, condemn it, no matter what the cost!!
There is no doubt that some Muslims live moderately. But they are inconsequential. They do nothing to challenge the “radicals” because they know that the “radicals” are following the true religion and the moderates like the infidels are afraid of them. In fact the moderates are apostates and the “radicals” are not radicals but adherents of the true faith.
Pipes is famous for saying , The Radicals are the problem and the moderates are the solution. But the moderates are not stepping up to the plate.
How can we expect the moderates to do so when we in the west are afraid to do so.
I once proposed that the West should create Muslim organizations to oppose the Islamists ones and fund them to the tune of $100 million a year. And support them by getting rid of political correct and denigrating Islam by exposing it.
Until something like that happens, there is no hope.
It is true that the Arabs are more “radical” but that is only because they have more money and have a legacy to nurture. Before they lucked into their oil wealth, they were despondent and desolate.
From my personal experience with Muslims in Europe, and from following developments of internet sites and forums, while I do not have statistics, I can state that I have met hundreds of “Moderate Muslims”. In France, in Britain, in Italy, in former Yugoslavia, in Turkey, in Jordan, in Israel, in the US. NEARLY ALL THE MODERATE MUSLIMS I MET ARE NOT ARABS, BUT SOME ARE. Most of them came to Europe from non-Muslim states [including Turkey] in Asia or Africa. They came to live in the West mainly for economic reasons, but they have learned many Western ideas, and their children – by now many in their 30s – see the intolerance of Arab culture as problematic, and they quote verses in the Qur’an which say that there is no coercion in religion, that Allah made different religions for different people etc. The girls and women especially – of course – want change.
I’ll respond to two issues raised in the article and comments thus far: the jizya and male homosexuality. The injunction to take jizya is for an Islamic State, not for individual Muslims. The way out for moderate Muslims is to have democratic states, not Islamic states. Call it evasion, if you like, but it fits in with the way they live today and with the way they would like to live in the future – with no coercion on them by the Islamists in an Islamic state!
Before dealing with homosexuality in a Muslim society, a bit about the politics of homosexuality in the West. AbbaGuutuu wrote: “In USA, homosexuality is being imposed upon the society (in a dozen states) mostly by a decision of liberal judges against the will of the people.” This is only partially true. A large part of American and Western society have succumbed to the decades-long aggressive campaign of the homosexual leads. See The Overhauling of Straight America [http://www.defendthefamily.com/_docs/resources/8142838.pdf], published in November, 1987. This article was a proposed blueprint by homosexual activists for transforming the social values of “straight” America. At the core of the program was a media campaign to change the way the average citizens viewed homosexuality by desensitizing them concerning homosexuals and homosexual rights. This plan was devised very well, and carried out practically as written. It was NOT motivated by a desire for an improved society. See “The Gay Revolutionary” [http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/pwh/swift1.html]. Indeed, the homosexual activists HAVE succeeded. Even some Orthodox Jewish rabbis say that the definition of prohibition is ” “If a man lies with a male as with a woman..” and those willing to accept male homosexuality accept a claim that male homosexuality is a result of a particular development of the hormones of these males, so they are biologically not males, and the prohibition doesn’t apply. This is perhaps applicable to 2% of the population, but homosexual propagandists claim that homosexuality is just an alternative “life style”, and that 20% of males engage in homosexual relations. Orthodox Judaism and Islam cannot accept male homosexuality. The difference between orthodox Islam and orthodox Jewry, is that Islam even today calls for the death penalty for male homosexuals, and executions are carried out in many Islamic countries, but orthodox Jewry has abandoned the death penalty altogether since the latter years of the Second Temple.
All of the three monotheistic religions had their triumphalist stage. Two of the three, Judaism and Christianity (Catholicism), abandoned
that stance. The third, Islam, has yet to see the “light”. There is nothing on the horizon that points in that direction for the future
so we must be resolved to deal with the “religion of peace” on their terms. Forewarned is forearmed.
Daniel, you write: “Religious thinkers are in the business of constantly adapting their faith to current realities and Muslims can do so by deeming Koran 9:29 out of date, abrogate it, or render it metaphorical. Contra Ibrahim, clarity does not exclude shifts in interpretation.”
There is good reason to disagree with you. Muslims cannot abrogate anything in the Koran. Only Allah can do that. Because every word of the Koran is considered by all religious Moslems to be the literal word of god — perfect, complete, immutable and valid for all of eternity — no Moslem can declare it “out of date”. That is tantamount to apostasy. As for rendering it “metaphorical”, how is that possible when the Koran is considered Allah’s literal word wherever it is possible to read it literally? That is the way the greatest Islamic religious scholars have done it for 1400 years. How can you say that today’s Islamic religious authorities can overturn this age-old doctrine when all of them support it?
There is not a shred of evidence that Islam’s doctrines from the Koran and the Sunnah can be reformed. That is only your ungrounded faith and hope. I wouldn’t bet a penny on it.
There are moderate Moslems, that is, people who identify themselves as Moslems but who do not follow the doctrines of Islam. But, there is no such thing as “moderate Islam”, nor is there any evidence that ever there will be.
Moderate Muslims are about as realistic as Moderate Catholics. The so called moderate ones are those who no longer practise their religion. They are Catholics or Muslims in name only until they have the guts to renounce their religion (at the risk of being killed, shunned, persecuted etc.)
The likelihood of having moderate Muslims (those who either ignore or rebel against Islam)is greater than “moderate Islam”.
The majority of churches around the globe are against homosexuality based on what the Bible teaches. In USA, homosexuality is being imposed upon the society (in a dozen states) mostly by a decision of liberal judges against the will of the people. Besides this, believing or not believing in Yahshua/Yesus/JC is based on a freewill of an individual Unlike Islam, which used/uses sword (coercion) to spread. Christianity was transformed from what it was during the dark ages based on its contents that were misused/overlooked by the RC. Is there anything similar to this in Islam that gives an iota of hope for moderation? I don’t think so (absent an all out revolt by the public which may be unlikely).
Raymond Ibrahiim is correct about Islam. But the thought that comes to mind is an English translation of what I think is an appropriate Russian folk saying:
“He looked up and discovered the sky.”
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
There we go again… That is really funny. We could use some comedy so lets hear more about that discussion. Moderate Islam… 🙂 for sure.