Excerpts from “Can Islam Reform Itself?”

Below are some excerpts from a lengthy but highly readable debate between Andrew McCarthy and Mansoor Ijaz originally published online at http://www.opinionduel.com/debate/?q=NDk

Andrew is a former chief assistant U.S. attorney who led the 1995 terrorism prosecution against Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and eleven others. Manssor Ijaz is a Wall Street Investment Banker whose father was an early pioneer in developing the intellectual infrastructure of Pakistan’s nuclear program.

I had a difficult time formatting this so some points may have been omitted. For the truly interested, I recommend reading the debate in full at http://www.opinionduel.com/debate/?q=NDk

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Andrew C. McCarthy:
��I read with great interest your op-ed in the LATimes last week, in particular your assertion that �there is no such human persona as a �moderate Muslim.�� I agree: there really is only one Islam and, as you put it, �[you] either believe in the teachings of [God�s] prophet or you don’t.� Indeed, we are discussing whether Islam can �reform� precisely because to be what you see it as, it would have to change. I am doubtful that it can, for several reasons. First, Mohammed�s teachings most authoritatively come to us from the Koran. Unlike Western scriptures, which are said to be �inspired,� the Koran is believed to be the actual words of Allah�

Consequently, it�s a much different proposition to change or reinterpret the scriptures–it is not a case of finding that a human intermediary got it wrong but rather the God Himself either is in error, or failed to anticipate changing times, or was unable to make Himself understood properly. �But some of these teachings would have to be modified if Islam is ever to avoid constant clashes with the West. The Koran states, for example, that Muslims must fight unbelievers and slay apostates; it demands that unbelievers submit to the authority of the Islamic state, either by converting or paying a poll tax; it regards women as �tilths� (Sura 2:223), gives men authority over them, permits men to marry up to four of them (in addition to keeping others as �captives� (4:3)); it gives women half the inheritance rights of men and counts their testimony in court as worth half a man�s; and so on. As you say, either you accept these teachings or you don�t. �

Finally, from the perspective of Muslims, why should Islam reform? As a doctrinal matter, Muslims view their religion as a final, superseding pronouncement–meaning that if someone needs reforming, it�s the rest of us, not Islam. And as a practical matter, you have highly influential Westerners like President Bush, Secretary of State Rice, and Prime Minister Blair (among many, many others) saying Islam is wonderful as is–a �religion of peace and love� (according to Rice) which has occasionally been �hijacked� (says the president) by some bad apples. What incentive, then, has it to reform?

Mansoor Ijaz:
�First, as an American, a Muslim and a deep believer in the Constitution and Bill of Rights as organizing principles governing our secular freedoms, I see no inherent conflict in taking the Koran–as you do the Bible–as a system of spiritual guidance under the laws of the United States of America. As a practicing Muslim, I know what my religion does and does not allow and I can state unequivocally�That (Islam) is a problem of people, not of the message itself–i.e., Islam does not need reformation, its followers do. �

Second, if you take my first premise as correct, then you must forgive me when I say this is a heavy burden�.If this burden of reformation were shared more openly by us as Americans (Muslims and non-Muslims alike)�we might find that the Muslim world’s hearts are in the right place and that their leaders who have taken them down a path of ruin disguising it as the road to paradise are forced aside as the primary agents of change. �it is us with the greater understanding and knowledge, and the material resources to do something about it, that will have to help reformist Muslims spark the reformation of Islam from within.

Third, in framing the blueprint that sparks reformation from within, there will be a need for us as a society to accept that we must sit down face-to-face with the enemy, whomever we perceive them to be, and understand firsthand what the problem is. We cannot do this any longer through channels of the Muslim world that for their own reasons distort our understanding, and certainly not through those who a priori declare a hatred and mistrust of Muslims. I did this in Sudan, and it worked. It worked again in Kashmir. The limited successes of these examples were only possible because those whom I engaged in dialogue looked at me as a true-blue American. My faith in Islam never once played an important role. My love of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, and human rights, did. \n\nWe cannot allow ourselves to become the pinup and penultimate hypocrites in dealing with Islam\’s fundamentalists. I don\’t advocate Condi Rice sitting face to face with Osama bin Laden, but I do advocate George Bush meeting with those Muslims who say he is the problem, and getting it all out on the table. I do favor sending a special envoy to Tehran to see if there is not a better, more direct, more clear headed way to resolve our concerns with them rather than letting the Russians do it for us. We are strong enough and grounded in principles well enough that cannot be compromised that we should not fear those who oppose our views.

Andrew C. McCarthy:
�let me try to grapple with some of your opening points.

I find, beneath your eloquence, much of what makes me pessimistic. You argue that what is in need of reformation is not Islam the doctrine but Islam the body of believers. In my opening remarks, though, I laid out a number of specific aspects of the doctrine that are troubling. I take it you don�t think I am incorrectly describing scripture. So what are we to make of these commands?
It is a commonplace among reformers (often called �moderate� Muslims–a term both of us find confusing) to say, as you say, that you know what Islam allows and doesn�t allow, and that there is a message in Islam�s �principles� which is consonant with a system that is anti-terrorist and dedicated to equality, tolerance, and a separation of church (or mosque) and state. Yet, these statements seem never to deal with several of Allah�s specific teachings in the Koran, which run in the opposite direction.
Even if I accepted (and I don�t) your premise that it is Muslims rather than Islam itself that requires reforming, why would the average Muslim find more persuasive than the clear injunctions of the highest authority, the Koran, this set of airy �principles� offered by reformers without much grounding in text (or, alternatively, with some textual references but generally omitting mention of the troublesome verses in the scriptures).

It always looks to me like militants are quoting the scriptures and reformers are running away from them. That does not strike me as a situation in which it is the followers, rather than aspects of the doctrine itself, that constitute the central problem for reform. And if I am right about that, I ask again: What right do mere mortals have to revise the words of Allah Himself? As I understand Islam, the Prophet is said to have revealed Allah as He is–there is perhaps nothing more unacceptable than the assertion by lowly mankind of a power to change what Allah has decreed.

Mansoor Ijaz:
�If we agree on this, then your point logically extends that it must be God who didn’t get it right, �but you miss one significant point. Almost every single passage in the Koran�which non-Muslims believe is derogatory and anti-human, refers to God’s commandments on His followers for events at that time that had to do with the struggle to have Islam triumph as the accepted norm of religious belief. �today, the bin Laden’s and Zawahiri’s and Zarqawi’s of the world have succeeded in dredging up the anger harbored inside otherwise docile Muslim followers by harking back to a time that has no relationship whatsoever to modern day realities.

�That is why this debate is so important. If you can agree with me that the bad guys who both you and I seek to isolate and make irrelevant are using the wrong parameters to compromise a generation of Muslims, we win half the battle�I have never once, as a rational American Muslim, believed that God commands me in this day and age to go and kill Jews or harm Christians.

�Reform must begin by agreeing that the part of the Koran and Hadith that are of value for the purposes of bringing Muslims forward in time do not have to do with commandments to kill the enemies of Islam that were aligned against a prophet who won his wars by birds dropping stones on the heads of his enemies at that time.

Andrew C. McCarthy:
�First off, what you are saying tells neither Muslims nor non-Muslims how we are to know which of �what God has ordained in the Koran� was �only for that time� that involved �the struggle to have Islam triumph as the accepted norm of religious belief,� and which, to the contrary, is �for all times.� �By your account, there was at least some point in time when, in order to accomplish this end, Allah decreed that brutally killing unbelievers and apostates, forcing non-Muslims to submit to the authority of the Muslim state by converting or paying the poll tax, and the like, were not only perfectly acceptable tactics but, in fact, the prescribed tactics. Why should a Muslim believe that Allah meant such directives only for the 7th Century but not for now? From my perspective, you offer no workable distinction between what scriptures are eternal and what ones are of fleeting application,
Even if I accept your premise, moreover, you offer no insight into why Allah would ever have unleashed such brutality �to have Islam triumph.� I would have to understand the sense behind that�

It is presumptuous for mere men to demand understanding of God�s purposes, but I don�t understand why God decreed such things ever.

Mansoor Ijaz:
You quote scripture accurately, but without context.
Second point. Since you are not Muslim, you cannot know what we are taught and what we are not.
Because the problem with critiquing what has gone wrong with Islam is rooted in disinformation, lack of understanding and a basic failure to cut away the fat to see where the real meat and bones are.
Andrew C. McCarthy:
It seems you are doing your level best to evade the hard questions. I’m not moving until you answer them because, even now, you won’t give a plainspoken answer to what needs reforming.The fact that the Bible, like any narrative, is a product of its history is utterly irrelevant to the point we are discussing. Regardless of the time frame in which it is set, the Bible contains injunctions which are quite plainly intended to endure for all time. We are talking, with respect to Islam, about similar injunctions. �Rather than deal with what they say, your reply, essentially, is the fallacy that because I am not a Muslim and thus not in the system, I am perforce ignorant of how Islam is taught and practiced. This is a common debate stopper�

How Islam is taught and practiced is a separate matter from what Islam is.
�Your point that I am relying on a prescription (quotes and citations from Koran) that merely serves my argument is ridiculous. I have cited particular principles that we agree are set forth in the Koran and are directives of Allah. They are extremely troublesome. You are the one who is saying Islam can reform. If it is to have a chance to do so, you have to have an explanation for them that is more credible than that of the militants–who very flatly say they are the commands of Allah, they continue to be operative, and they must be obeyed. Other than the fact that the substance of the commands is frightening, the militants’ position is clear and accessible. Your position, to the contrary, is incoherent.

�I am not a Muslim because I don’t accept the doctrine on its own terms, not because I believe it has been perverted by bin Laden. I can be in agreement with him that the words of the Koran mean what they say and still be irrevocably his enemy.
Mansoor Ijaz:
…The “poll tax” is a charitable alms that every practicing Muslim,
… Submitting to the authority of the Islamic state refers to the fact that at that time, there were no defined border states, there was a concept of the larger Muslim Ummah or community, that no matter where you lived in the world, you could profess allegiance to one God and Mohammed as His Messenger, and thereby along with the alms giving become a member of the Muslim community.

(This is not entirely correct � In India, Hindus had to pay poll tax only if they refused to convert to Islam; If they agreed to convert, there was nothing to pay�B Shantanu)
(about multiple wives)�This (option) was offered as a mercy in our ways of teaching for women who could not provide properly for themselves when their Muslim husbands were killed in war. Since the ratio of men to women dropped dramatically at that time, it became necessary for Muslim men to take in more than one family�
For me, today, this practice has no validity and has been distorted beyond reason to become what I said it was not at the time the prophet lived, a free license to have sex orgies.

Andrew C. McCarthy:
I never said “Islam is evil.”
My position is that Islam is dangerous. It has many very desirable qualities, but it has many troubling aspects. It seems to me that this debate is about three things: (a) are the troubling aspects problematic because the doctrine itself is problematic or because it has been misinterpreted in these particulars; (b) if the problem is in the doctrine itself, is it permissible to revise the troubling aspects; and (c) assuming we are dealing something that can be either revised (i.e., because it is undesirable as it currently stands) or reinterpreted (because it is fine as it currently stands but has been misconstrued by Muslims), is there a revision or reinterpretation sufficiently compelling that it can win the hearts and minds of the Islamic world? I do worry that Islam is structurally difficult to reform. �if you don’t have an interpretation of what the troublesome teachings mean that is more compelling than what the militants are offering, you will have a hard time convincing Muslims that the militants are perverting doctrine–which is what you must do to marginalize and defeat them. I believe the success of the reform project�hinges on whether you can convince a dominant majority of Muslims that changed conditions can supersede the Koran’s seeming commands, since some of those commands easily lend themselves to brutality. The jizya, or poll-tax, was not mere alms giving; it was a levy imposed on those who did not accept Islam but were willing to live under its protection, and one of the last Suras of the Koran makes plain that those paying it should “feel themselves subdued.” (9:29). To the extent it is important to be able to argue that some of the troubling verses are ameliorated by the inspiring ones that counsel tolerance and forbearance, what are we to make of the fact that a lot of the troubling stuff comes at the end? It seems to me that this gives militants an advantage in contending that it was the more belligerent verses that superseded the tolerant ones, not theother way around.

Mansoor Ijaz:
�I would suggest to Mansoor that he share with his non-Muslim readers the mechanisms used to distinguish between the Koran�s eternal commands and its situational directives. �we could be having exactly the same argument about Christianity or Judaism. The Old Testament, in particular, is filled with stuff that does not measure up to modern values � slavery, genocide, you name it. Nonetheless, Jews and Christians do not in fact advocate the stoning of disobedient children.

Andrew C. McCarthy
I am not a Muslim, but that is not because I am either ignorant or confused. I simply don�t buy it. That is not a condemnation. I am not a Jew either–I have great respect for Judaism, but it is not for me. �I have no problem with the notion that the Koran can be superseded, updated, revised, reinterpreted, or otherwise altered. But my view about that is irrelevant. The question is whether Muslims believe it can be changed–and whether they will believe it in overwhelming enough numbers that the militants who take the scriptures very literally can be marginalized. �The reason I have kept after the basics here is that you need credibility at a very basic level to succeed. On that score, it matters a lot whether divine authorship makes changing a single comma a sacrilege. �The militants, their imams, and their endless streams of funding can open the Koran, point to �fight and slay the Pagans wherever ye find them �,� and say �it means exactly what it says.� If reform is to succeed, you have to be able to convince Muslims that this very straightforward argument is wrong. �
What matters in terms of developing a groundswell to reform Islam is whether you have the arguments at your disposal to make Muslims broadly think you are right and the militants are wrong. So far, I don�t think you do.
�Finally, we couldn�t sensibly be having this conversation about Christianity or Judaism. Those traditions have had whatever reform they are likely to have, there are no substantial subsets within them committing terrorism on a global scale, when bad actors do arise they are universally and intramurally condemned, and thus there is no impulse toward reform among adherents.
(The same can be said of Hinduism � B Shantanu)

Mansoor Ijaz:
�So, as we take this debate to a new level, let’s build a platform from which we can ask rational people of every faith to join in and help revive Islam’s prospects so it is seen doing what it preaches. My ideas, and these are by no means a complete set, are as follows: 1. Non-fundamentalist Muslims must help delineate the lines of time-bound vs. eternal guidance in the Koran to clear up the type of confusion you highlighted with compelling clarity during the earlier phases of this debate.
2. Once the delineation phase is complete, we get to an interpretation of the Prophet’s teachings and the eternal guidance of the Koran for the modern age.
3. Raise the profiles of and give responsibility to American Muslims who seek reform within their religion.

Andrew C. McCarthy:
�I appreciate that you believe Islamic doctrine is fine but has been misinterpreted by bad Muslims. That is what I would like to believe, but you haven’t convinced me that it is so. You suggest that I have conceded this (“[Islam] has, as you say, been misconstrued by a narrow cabal of thefaith for evil political and egotistical purposes”), but I was laying outthe possibilities, not settling on one of them. If there were nothing else togo on but our discussion here, my inclination would be to believe that theproblem is at least as much the doctrine itself as it is the misinterpretationof doctrine.
�But that (the question of reforming Islam) begs the question whether Islam can be reformed, and the fact that such a platform has to be constructed because it is not ready to hand is not encouraging for the prospects.

Mansoor Ijaz:
�(Talking about the Israel-Palestine issue) �The biggest mistake was and remains to this day, ours–that Muslims in Saudi Arabia and other oil-wealthy nations spend in a month at hotels and nightclubs throughout Europe more money than thePalestinians need in a year for food, clothing and the education of a thousand children.” My point is that self-introspection of Muslims especially in regard to the overwhelming hypocrisy in Islam today, sparked by some of the platform items in my previous post, is vital�

I believe Islam is a religion that advocates in its principles what we in America live our lives by. Our failure is that we have not yet made that abundantly clear to the silent, oppressed masses in the Muslim world. That is what we must join hands to do.

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