I was thinking about the newest Islamic reformation.
It could be that the world has seen it already, just that it means that people are simply being reformed into regular people who don't preach around, and that's why you can't see many of them.
Tariq Ramadan is a man who is famous for speaking out loud what many Muslims in the world think today. So is Reza Aslan. Worldwide known Muslims who live normal lives, but who speak about Muslims being normal people.
It so happens that most of the Muslims who do speak about Islam, the dogmatic version, and who are heard speaking, represent the dogmatic version, about the version in which there is Gandalf-like figure somewhere hidden behind a huge nebula in a galaxy far away from human telescopes. Sometimes, these Muslims present their God as a person not perceivable by our senses. Logical question would be - what exact use is from that untouchable God-like indescribable person? Now, there comes the dogma.
The Muslims today can't seem to be able to escape from having eyes firmly shut towards new things. I am not sure how much the Lawrence of Arabia influenced the Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia, by helping them separate from the Caliphate (which I am not supporting anyway), but it seems to me that the general Anglo-American help to Saudis to take control over the Muslim Holy Land of Hijaz, and taking the control from the Caliphate, from the Turks, was seen as a success. They, of course, had to justify their struggle against the Turks, and they did it by saying and proclaiming them as infidels, ignorants about religion. The fight that the Lawrence of Arabia fought in the name of Arabs, against other Muslims was presented to the nations of the peninsula as fight to restore "true" Islam. Did they really need a British soldier to lead them to that fight?
They obviously did.
But, that had negative consequences for the Muslim a century later. The Muslims of the world can't seem to set free from the knots of blind religion made up by a man, set on some ideas of Islam, which itself evolved and has been evolving for centuries since the day Muhammad died.
By the way, his last breath meant the first separation of the Muslim community (over who will take over). It wasn't, interestingly, an argument about which person will take over the rule of the young state, but that individual person was a representative of a party, tribal-based one. The arguments were: "You can't take over because you are from this tribe". One suggestion was that one year a ma from one tribe will preside the council, next year a man from the other tribe would chair. I am pointing out here that the idea of partisanship was born before today's known "shia-sunni" partisanship (shia, meaning "party").
So, centuries of accusing other parties shaped Islam to be what it is today, a broad religion, with hundreds of schools of thought. What bothers me mostly is the fact that the religious teachers are not trying to evolve their thought. They are trying to press down any uprising of thought.
A prophetic narration that suggests that "every 100 years, a reformator will emerge", means that a reformator would emerge, not a person who would set all progress back to the beginning. So the Muslims are trying to interpret the words, but vainly, as whatever is told as an allegory is being interpreted literally, and whatever is pretty much direct speech, is being interpreted as an allegory.
So a reformer is never understood to be somebody who will reform, change what it is, bring forth. It is always understood to be somebody who will restore things the way they were. That's why whe Lawrence of Arabia came to the Arab army's camp, he saw them shooting arrows at Turkish airplanes and machineguns. Whoever tried to actually reform the nation and its state religion (in this case; , Islam) Arabs took them down.
The major problem arose when they found that they can sell lot's of oil. They started sponsoring religious schools, they started giving scholarships to students all over the world.
Now we have young priests who are "restoring" the religion in places where it has been blossoming for centuries. And another problem with the restoration itself is that they don't even know which square is the square one.
So the reformation in Islam was not needed when it was a religion without any central institution, and when every nation developed the way all the worlds nations developed. I know, Islam doesn't have a central institution, but in reality, students from Medina are usually (unfortunately) regarded as somebody who learn from some sources. I know in Bosnia and Herzegovina, that is the case. Medina students are becoming B&H's professors, and they teach kids values evolved there.
It could be that the world has seen it already, just that it means that people are simply being reformed into regular people who don't preach around, and that's why you can't see many of them.
Tariq Ramadan is a man who is famous for speaking out loud what many Muslims in the world think today. So is Reza Aslan. Worldwide known Muslims who live normal lives, but who speak about Muslims being normal people.
It so happens that most of the Muslims who do speak about Islam, the dogmatic version, and who are heard speaking, represent the dogmatic version, about the version in which there is Gandalf-like figure somewhere hidden behind a huge nebula in a galaxy far away from human telescopes. Sometimes, these Muslims present their God as a person not perceivable by our senses. Logical question would be - what exact use is from that untouchable God-like indescribable person? Now, there comes the dogma.
The Muslims today can't seem to be able to escape from having eyes firmly shut towards new things. I am not sure how much the Lawrence of Arabia influenced the Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia, by helping them separate from the Caliphate (which I am not supporting anyway), but it seems to me that the general Anglo-American help to Saudis to take control over the Muslim Holy Land of Hijaz, and taking the control from the Caliphate, from the Turks, was seen as a success. They, of course, had to justify their struggle against the Turks, and they did it by saying and proclaiming them as infidels, ignorants about religion. The fight that the Lawrence of Arabia fought in the name of Arabs, against other Muslims was presented to the nations of the peninsula as fight to restore "true" Islam. Did they really need a British soldier to lead them to that fight?
They obviously did.
But, that had negative consequences for the Muslim a century later. The Muslims of the world can't seem to set free from the knots of blind religion made up by a man, set on some ideas of Islam, which itself evolved and has been evolving for centuries since the day Muhammad died.
By the way, his last breath meant the first separation of the Muslim community (over who will take over). It wasn't, interestingly, an argument about which person will take over the rule of the young state, but that individual person was a representative of a party, tribal-based one. The arguments were: "You can't take over because you are from this tribe". One suggestion was that one year a ma from one tribe will preside the council, next year a man from the other tribe would chair. I am pointing out here that the idea of partisanship was born before today's known "shia-sunni" partisanship (shia, meaning "party").
So, centuries of accusing other parties shaped Islam to be what it is today, a broad religion, with hundreds of schools of thought. What bothers me mostly is the fact that the religious teachers are not trying to evolve their thought. They are trying to press down any uprising of thought.
A prophetic narration that suggests that "every 100 years, a reformator will emerge", means that a reformator would emerge, not a person who would set all progress back to the beginning. So the Muslims are trying to interpret the words, but vainly, as whatever is told as an allegory is being interpreted literally, and whatever is pretty much direct speech, is being interpreted as an allegory.
So a reformer is never understood to be somebody who will reform, change what it is, bring forth. It is always understood to be somebody who will restore things the way they were. That's why whe Lawrence of Arabia came to the Arab army's camp, he saw them shooting arrows at Turkish airplanes and machineguns. Whoever tried to actually reform the nation and its state religion (in this case; , Islam) Arabs took them down.
The major problem arose when they found that they can sell lot's of oil. They started sponsoring religious schools, they started giving scholarships to students all over the world.
Now we have young priests who are "restoring" the religion in places where it has been blossoming for centuries. And another problem with the restoration itself is that they don't even know which square is the square one.
So the reformation in Islam was not needed when it was a religion without any central institution, and when every nation developed the way all the worlds nations developed. I know, Islam doesn't have a central institution, but in reality, students from Medina are usually (unfortunately) regarded as somebody who learn from some sources. I know in Bosnia and Herzegovina, that is the case. Medina students are becoming B&H's professors, and they teach kids values evolved there.
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