Posted by
flagwaver on Monday, July 26, 2010 9:42:47 AM
As the controversy surrounding the proposed opening of a mosque in New York City very near Ground Zero raged in the last few weeks, I have heard the excuse that the idea was a good one because it was proposed by a group of moderate Muslims. That didn’t bother me as much as the reintroduction into the discourse the idea that this group could somehow work to reform Islam, as if it could ever actually be reformed. I am not saying that as an attack on the Muslim faith, but as a simple statement of fact. So, to rip a line from our illustrious Commander-in-Chief, let me be clear, Islam cannot be reformed.
The mistake that many people make when they start down that path is to equate Islam with Christianity. While both religions grow from the seed planted by Judaism and are monotheistic in nature that is just about where the similarities end. While Christianity could undergo a reformation, Islam is simply not set up in that manner. Christianity could be reformed because no matter how different the modes of worship and the structure of church services, there is a well stated and universally accepted orthodoxy in the Christian faith. Every Christian, whether Baptist, Methodist, Episcopalian, Anglican, or Orthodox holds the same basic articles of faith. To wit; Jesus the Christ is the only begotten Son of God, born of a virgin, crucified for our sins, resurrected from the grave after three days, ascended to Heaven to sit at the right hand of the Father, and He will return to this Earth for his Bride (the church).
Further, Christians believe that the Bible is the revealed Word of God, and recognize that there may be some mistranslations involved. There are simply some words in the Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek that do not translate well into English, so some things may be lost in translation. But the Bible is universally accepted by Christians the world over as the guidebook of life left to us by God, and revealed to his prophets. Because of that orthodoxy, Christians share more similarities than differences, and when a denomination or individual strays outside of those boundaries, we know that the boundaries have been crossed.
Islam, however, is a horse of a different color, as they said in The Wizard of Oz. The only orthodoxies in Islam are that Allah is God, Muhammad was His Prophet, and the prophetic line ended with the Prophet. After that, all bets are off in Islam; Sunni, Shi’a, Sufi, and Kharijite all believe that they have the singular truth of how Islam is to be practiced and what it means to be a Muslim, which explains why there is always so much sectarian feuding within the faith.
Further complicating matters, and serving as the reason that Islam can never be reformed, is the place the Koran holds in the faith. Unlike the Christian Bible or the Jewish Torah, which are accepted as the revealed Word of God to his people, the Koran is taught to be the literal words of Allah. According to Muslim theology, the Koran (written in Arabic) is co-eternal with Allah; it has always been just as Allah has always been…from the foundations of the universe the Koran has existed. With that as the view of what the Koran is, it stands to reason that there is no possibility of reforming Islam, because to do so would be to change the literal word of the Creator of All Worlds. And if the Koran, co-eternal with Allah, is flawed, then the entire religion must fall. In that type of religious and spiritual setting, who has the authority to change the religion from what it was when revealed to Muhammad?
That is why the talk of reforming Islam is at best a pipe dream, and at worst dangerously delusional. Islam cannot be reformed; it can only be accepted as truth or rejected as a religious delusion. No self respecting Muslim, moderate or radical, will ever seek to reform Islam because to do so would be to render the religion meaningless. And who among the Muslim throng has the drive or guts to tell his fellow travelers that several centuries worth of religious faith has been not only wrong, but ultimately a grand deception? I’m not going to hold my breath waiting for that to ever happen in this lifetime.