Islam and the Nature of Reformation

Islamic terrorism has been with us, in one form or another, since at least the 1970's with the rise of the PLO. At that time, and for most of the decades that followed, the fact that these terrorists were Muslim was secondary to their political objectives: the destruction of the State of Israel and the establishment of a Palestinian state. Religion played a role, but they weren't blowing up buildings or hijacking planes over doctrine. They believed that the former Palestinian Mandate was unjustly divided by the UN, resulting in the transfer of land from the Arab natives to the the Jewish settlers. Whether we agree with this assessment or not, it's not hard to see that while religion colored the struggle, this was not a fight over doctrine but land. 

In addition, the PLO was one among many terrorist organizations, some with a religious identification, like the IRA, but also others of a purely ideological bent that were active at the time. There were Basque separatists in Spain and the FALN that fought for Puerto Rican independence from the United States. The Weather Underground and Symbiosis Liberation Army in the U.S grew out of the more radical elements of the 1960's counter culture. Even as late as the '90's there was the conservative militia movement here that spawned the homegrown terrorists responsible for the Oklahoma City Bombing. Thus Islamic terrorists were one among many political groups using fear to advance an agenda. In fact they usually weren't even identified by their religious affiliation but as Arabs, an ethnic qualifier. So again, while the stereo type of the Arab terrorist existed, you also had the Irish and Marxist bomb throwers to go along with him. 

With the first World Trade Center Bombing in 1993 there was an escalation in Islamic groups using terror as a weapon. These groups still wanted to see the destruction of Israel, but newer bodies like al Qaeda had broader, more purely "religious" goals in mind; the establishment of fundamentalist Islamic governments in the Middle East and the destruction of Western Society. It wasn't until the attacks of September 11, 2001 that the West really took the threat seriously. There was a sense in the last few years, with the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and the war in Afghanistan winding down, that the threat was averted, or at least pacified to an extent.  Now we have the rise of the Islamic State (aka ISIS, ISIL or IS, depending on who you read), a group that has it's origins in al Qaeda, but makes that bunch look like meeting of Quakers. With each escalation in Islamist terrorism many in the West increasingly identify Islam with terror, in spite of calls from Western leaders to reject such simplistic stereotypes. 

Whether one equates Islam with terror, or sees groups like IS as perversions of Islam, a refrain that I've heard repeated over the last 13 years is that Islam needs to experience a sort of Reformation, much like Christianity did in the 16th century. The argument goes that the fundamentalist reading of the Koran, which is used to justify terrorism, is still the most prevalent, so Islamic scholars and religious leaders need to go back, re-read their sacred text in light of Enlightenment understanding, bringing their faith "up to date." The problem with this line of thinking is that it sees the job of reform to be one of updating and making modern, when that is the farthest thing from the truth. Luther, Calvin and Zwingli didn't see themselves as updating Christianity. Catholicism was seen as the Medieval perversion of the pure practice of the primitive church. They weren't trying to update, they were trying to get back to what they understood to be the roots of true Christianity. The Reformers didn't perceive the problem facing the Western Church to be that it had stuck too close to a narrow, "fundamentalist" reading of the religion, but had strayed too far from from Christianity's origins. What was needed was a going back to the Bible with a greater fidelity to the Word, unadulterated by philosophical speculation, which, in their view, was precisely where the Catholic Church went wrong to begin with. 

Catholicism isn't a "Religion of the Book," in so far as it doesn't see the Bible as the sole authority. Revelation has two components: Scripture and Sacred Tradition. Both are intertwined but distinct. While defining Tradition can be elusive, we can say that it represents the ongoing interpretation of Scripture through time, guided by the Holy Spirit and expressed through the writings of the Church Fathers, in the Church's liturgical prayer, and in the creeds and doctrines handed down from the time of the Apostles to today. Another way of looking at Tradition is to say that it represents what was passed on by word of mouth from the Apostles, where as Scripture is what was written down. This 2,000 year old store house is guarded, for lack of a better term, by the Magisterial teaching authority of the pope in union with the bishops, the successors of the Apostles. While they protect this deposit of faith, guided by the Spirit, they, and the Church in general understands that just because something was done in the first or second century doesn't mean that it has to stay that way. Catholic doctrine doesn't change, but our understanding deepens, and how it is lived out develops over time. The faith, as St. Augustine might say, is ever ancient, ever new, leading us back to the truth while at the same time teaching us how to live as disciples in this present moment of history. 

Even though Protestants reject the idea of a Sacred Tradition that shares an equal position with Scripture, some, more recent adherers to the Reformed tradition acknowledge that they do approach the faith in ways colored by the particular communities they have been brought up in, not simply by a pure reading of Scripture. While Presbyterians, Anglicans and Lutherans may share basic core beliefs, each too has a different take on things based on their denomination's spiritual heritage. 

Within the Catholic faith, because of this idea of Tradition, which includes things like ecumenical councils, synods of bishops, national episcopal conferences and other such ecclesiastical gatherings, the Church has a built in mechanism for reform.  And I believe many Reformed communities have similar mechanisms, whether they like to think of it in those terms or not. These mechanisms for reform work best, and are true to the real meaning of reform when they are not simply used to "update" but seek to be true to the teachings Christ; understanding his words and actions and discerning how to better imitate Him in the here and now.

I end here for now, only asking if such a mechanism of reform exists in Islam? It's not a rhetorical question, because I really don't know. It strikes me that al Qaeda and IS sees themselves as the real reformers of a religion that has strayed from the revealed word of God. They are a "People of the Book" in a true sense. It's the military dictatorship of Egypt, the monarchy of Saudi Arabia and the secular state of Turkey that are in need of reform so that they will be faithful again to the Koran. As far as I know Islam possesses no equivalent of Sacred Tradition, explicitly or implicitly, that can help be a reference point for reform as the West understands it. I don't doubt that there are Muslims horrified by the beheading, who don't to want to see a caliphate established, and do see terrorism as going against the basic tenets of their faith. But how do they go about the job of reform, especially since they do not have a clear religious hierarchy universally recognized as authoritative, or a tradition of reform in the Western sense to begin with?

There is a debate about how accurate it is to say that 10th or 11th century Islamic scholars "saved" the writings of Aristotle, but there does seem to be agreement that Muslim commentaries on the Greek philosopher were influential on European thinkers, including St. Thomas Aquinas. Maybe this philosophical tradition can be a starting point of some possible reform of Islam. But the Western idea of reform is only going to happen if there is a tradition (there's that word again) of reading the Koran in anything other than a literal way. 

At a later date I hope to explore the idea that the fundamentalist reading of the Bible is actually the more modern way of interpreting the Good Book, and that true reform involves exploring how how it was originally read in the Church, taking various senses of meaning into account. Then asking again if such a process is familiar to Islam.