Fascinating series on developments within Islam By Rosslyn Smith

Blogger Ali Eteraz just completed a seven part series in the Guardian on developments within Islam. I would sum up his theme by saying that the religious thinkers who influenced the Jihadists and the Islamists were those who supported dissent against the political authority of their own times. 

Once forces of dissent get unleashed in a culture they become difficult to control.   For every Bin Laden wannabe who reads the Quran for himself and finds support for violence against Muslim and infidel alike there are now even more like Laleh Bakhtiar, a woman whose translation of the Quran removed the permission for wife-beating based on her understanding of alternative meanings of classical  Arabic verbs.  In the author's words 

"the same people who wanted to prevent the "westoxification" of Islam, who wanted to "purify" Islam, have ended up ushering the same thing that makes the west special: hyper-individualism."

Fascinating series on developments within Islam ...

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