Reform Islam? Tell Him He’s Dreaming By Peter Smith

Quadrant : I was going to leave the tiresome Western apologetics for Islam alone for a time. To use Antonio’s words from The Merchant of Venice, “it wearies me.” But then I saw the estimable Mark Levin on Fox News (last Sunday evening US time) interviewing Dr Zuhdi Jasser.

I hadn’t heard from Dr Jasser in a good while. I wrote about his views here in the December 2017 issue of Quadrant magazine (“Reformist Pipedreams, Islamic Reality, and Muslim Accountability”). Alas, he obviously didn’t read my article, remains divorced from reality and, sadly, as ignorant as ever.

I will come to his views further on. First to Levin. He was talking about the events in New Orleans and generally about the threat of Islamic terrorism and said: “We are not talking about all Muslims. Why would we?” This obligatory caveat is inserted into the lines of all conservative commentators when they are on air discussing or debating Islamic terrorism or Islamic hate preaching. I assume they have no choice in the matter. Gotta say it to stay on air. I don’t buy it.

Rabble rousers need a mob. To extend that concept. Hamas could not thrive unless a sizeable proportion of Gazans supported them. Let me turn it around. If you’re club’s constitution allows its members to refer to Jews as pigs and apes, is it still okay to sip your gin sling in the club bar?

Muslims all belong to a religion whose constitution (i.e., scripture) is hateful towards Jews in particular and towards all non-believers in general. Keep in mind, religious affiliation is a choice, at least in non-Islamic countries. It is not like race or ethnicity which can’t be changed. Therefore the choice of following Islam is open to criticism. And, however peaceful and moderate you are, signing up to a creed which entertains discrimination and violence gives spiritual succour to those who act out that discrimination and violence. As to that antisemitic club I mentioned above, you need to resign your membership lest you be justifiably tarred by association. Now to Dr Jasser.

Jasser is an American Muslim of Syrian parents, a practicing physician, a former officer in the US Navy and, so far as I can tell, an all-round (if wide-eyed) good guy. He is the Founder and President of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy and Co-Founder of the Muslim Reform Movement (MRM). He wants to change Islam (hook, line, and sinker) from what it is to what he would like it to be. To rid Islam of the bad bits — what he calls Islamism or political Islam. Without a shadow of doubt, he is an unrivalled fantasiser.

In 2015, Jasser along with another twelve disenchanted Muslims or former Muslims, from across North America and Europe, signed and pinned a copy of a two-page MRM “Declaration” to the doors of the Islamic Centre in Washington DC; à la Martin Luther and the Castle Church in Wittenberg.

However, unlike Luther’s ninety-five theses, the MRM’s Declaration died abandoned in a ditch. Unsurprisingly! From an Islamic standpoint it is heresy on stilts. It has no comparability with Luther’s modest aim of ridding the Catholic Church of indulgences as payment for sins. This is where Jasser’s ignorance shows itself. As, did Aayan Hirsi Ali’s in her book Heretic (2015). They both seem to believe that the Protestant Reformation revolutionised Christianity. It did no such thing.

Luther simply wanted the Church to act more in keeping with scripture and with Saint Paul’s injunction that we could not gain redemption through our own works but through the grace of God alone. The Reformation subsequently produced geo-political effects but did not change, nor did it seek to change, any of the essential elements of the Christian faith. And it has not done so. The Bible remains the same, word for word.

In stark contrast with Luther’s limited objective, each of the propositions in the MRM Declaration (some 25 or so all told) strike at the heart of Islam. I have randomly picked out four of them to illustrate how they conflict with extracts from the Koran (Pickthall translation).

“We support equal rights and dignity for all people, including minorities.”

So, choose not friends from among them [disbelievers]…if they turn back to enmity [apostates] then take them and kill them wherever ye find them, and choose no friend or helper from among them (4:89) Slay the idolaters wherever ye find them (9.5) Mohammed is the messenger of Allah. And those with him are hard against the disbelievers and merciful among themselves (48:29)

“We reject violent jihad.”

I will throw fear into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Then smite their necks and smite of them each finger (8:12)

“Every individual has the right to publicly express criticism of Islam.”

Those who disbelieve… are a folk without intelligence (8:65) Fight against those who have been given the scripture as believe not…until they pay the tribute [jizya] readily, being brought low (9:29)

“We support equal rights for women, including equal rights to inheritance.”

Men are in charge of women…good women are obedient…As for those who you fear rebellion…banish them to beds apart and scourge them (4:34) And call to witness, from among men, two witnesses. And if two men be not at hand then a man and two women (2:282) Allah chargeth you concerning the provision for your children: to the male the equivalent of the portion of two females (4:11)

It would be possible to go on and on. The discordance between the Declaration and Islamic scripture is vast. Jasser likely still has his head because he is not taken seriously by any imam, mufti, or ayatollah. Once Islam is ridded of so-called Islamism nothing much remains. It is instructive to compare Jasser’s prescription with Hirsi Ali’s; which she summarises as follows:

Read it all here......