Turkey revises Islam

Several points:

1. "I find it hard to believe that in this day and age, one can revise sacred texts of Islam or any religion by secular decree."
But the Turkish govt doesn't seem to be aiming to revise sacred texts, but to choose which Hadith are included in the "canon". That is actually an issue about which Muslim scholars have always disagreed. Off the top of my head, the Turkish approach doesn't look massively original.

2. The Koran is at least as nasty as the Hadith, and obviously no-one is going to change that.

3. I know you used "reformation" in lower case, but it hints at "Reformation", which is what many people have commented that Islam needs. My opinion is just the opposite. The Reformation was a back-to-scripture movement, which is bad news when you're talking about the Koran. The Wahhabis and Deobandis are Reformers in this sense, whereas relatively benign forms of Islam, such as Sufism and Ottoman-Era folk-religion, are analogous to medieaval Catholicism.

I hope and pray that this doesn't signal the beginning of an all-out religious war across that whole region. I think it will depend in part on whether it's seen more as Muslim Reformation or a Muslim version of the "Jesus Seminar", as well as whether they try to export their new interpretation to the rest of the dar al-islam...

Ah, the good old days when the popes were happy to hand out anathemas left and right...Why did we ever give up on that?

I say this somewhat in jest, but it's also a relevant question. It's a fallacy for Catholics to assume the Church was wrong all those years and thank God for Vatican II fixing the problem. People regularly use the "spirit of Vatican II" as an excuse for ditching the traditions and teaching of Church.

The Church had solid reasons for rejecting the expansive modern notions of human rights in the 19th century, especially when they undermined the Church's understanding of a just state and the moral duties of citizens. Catholic social teaching eventually made peace with modern liberal democracy but not by simply acknowledging "we're wrong." Rather, it was by pointing out the principles that governments must follow to uphold our God-given dignity and preserve social order.

It's too long a subject to debate here, but I urge folks to take a look at Dr. Robert Kraynak's book on this subject, which examines the issue very well:
http://www3.undpress.nd.edu/exec/dispatch.php?s=title,P00752

Using Pius IX as an analogy is inapt. The difference between Islam and Catholicism is that direction of the church can change with the change of one man. That is not the case with Islam, not even the more "episcopal" Shia Islam. Even if it were a perfect analogy, you're talking about 100 years.

Also, the idea of sifting through the Ahadith to come up with "authentic" mohammedan sayings is not new. They're already ranked according to "authenticity", and you still have disputes about them. This still sounds like tinkering at the edges, and tinkering from a government that's never been popular in the Muslim World, at that.

“People who call for a "Muslim reformation" seem to have completely forgotten what happened during the Protestant Reformation. The dime-store version . . . is massive religious wars in which huge numbers of people died. This happened on the European continent and also in the British Isles. It's true that in the long-run the Reformation led to the development of doctrines about religious tolerance and liberalism, but it took a good long time. Martin Luther's 95 Theses were written in 1517 whereas John Locke's Letter Concerning Toleration was written in 1689. In between came an awful lot of wars, witch-burning, fanaticism, etc.”

- Matthew Iglesias, 3DEC07

From the Article:

"They have also taken an even bolder step - rejecting a long-established rule of Muslim scholars that later (and often more conservative) texts override earlier ones.

"You have to see them as a whole," says Fadi Hakura.

"You can't say, for example, that the verses of violence override the verses of peace. This is used a lot in the Middle East, this kind of ideology.

"I cannot impress enough how fundamental [this change] is."
_________________________________

What is referenced here is not a "long-established rule of muslim scholars." It's the doctrine of Abrogation, and it derives directly from the Quran (2:106):

" . . . Nothing of our revelation (even a single verse) do we abrogate or cause be forgotten, but we bring (in place) one better or the like thereof. Knowest thou not that Allah is Able to do all things? . . ."

It will be a hard sell.

"How effective can it be when the state tries to effect a top-down reformation of religion?"

Good question, and one that has me reaching for historical analogues. Sadly, my grasp of history is a little spotty, but I wonder if things like the creation of the King James Version applies here. If I'm remembering rightly, that project was initiated by the King of England and certainly had a profound impact on Western Christianity, if not it's reformation. Also, I do wonder about examples of Papal efforts in Roman Catholicism: not from the state, but still from the top down. Finally, weren't some of the early ecumenical councils, especially those that established the canon, initiated by the emperor?

P.S. to clarify: Obviously I know MANY governments try to impose religion on its citizens, but does the fact that here it's a "good" religion make it right?

Islam does have an intellectual tradition, and a tradition for religious tolerance (and by this I mean not persecuting people for their religious thought), which although it pales in comparison to that of modern liberal democracy, was far better than what existed in much of the Christian world. Militant Islam seeks to sweep all this under a rug with their call to an original "purer" faith. They either conveniently ignore this history, or try to pretend that all the medical and astronomical advances in the Islamic world came under a Taliban-like regime. Which is laughable, of course. The fact that religious officials are finally standing up against this movement should be celebrated.

The Haditha are contreversial. But they actually stand a chance og being looked at critically, and this scholarship taken seriously, by some at least. The examination of the Quran will be a loooooong time in coming as it is considered not only inerrant, but utterly unalterable.
People don't even like it translated, and so will memorize vast reams of it in a language they don't even understand.

A lot of what I'm saying mirrors what has happened at various points in our faith history. The fact can't be denied. Islam is not monolithic. Even if these revisions of the Haditha "take" acceptance probably won't be widespread. But I still think it a good and laudatory thing that critical thinking is being revived in a world faith that is front and center of all the world action, and most of our defense budget, right now. Critical thinking and challenge to accepted teachings would be just the launching board these countries need to cast off their "victimhood" mentality. Change must come from within, if it is to come at all, don't you think?

"Many American Protestant groups have their immediate roots in Britain ... the Presbyterians from Scotland, the Baptists from English Anabaptists"

The Anabaptists were German.
The Presbyterians were Calvinist, and didn't have much connection with England (except during Cromwell's regime) or the C of E.

rombald -- you are correct about the Presbyterians, my bad.

As to the Baptists --"According to Baptist historian H. Leon McBeth, Baptists, as a distinct denomination, originated in England in a time of intense religious reform. McBeth writes, “Our best historical evidence says that Baptists came into existence in England in the early seventeenth century. They apparently emerged out of the Puritan-Separatist movement in the Church of England.”[12]" Wikipedia, so taken with a grain of salt.

Of course, some of us traditional Catholics believe that it was when the Church tried to accommodate itself to the modern world that the rot began to set in. Look at the fruits of the Church's attempt to reconcile itself to modernity: large numbers of disaffected faithful falling away, empty seminaries, an ugly liturgy that gets ever more banal with every new attempt to be "trendy", a Church that is increasingly peripheral to the lives of those who claim to be its members.

Devout Muslims surely haven't failed to notice what has happened to Catholicism -- and other Christian denominations -- as a result of their efforts to accommodate modernity, and they will probably want to ensure that the same thing doesn't happen to their faith.

Sarcasm aside, if Islam moderates like Christianity did, it'll be a gradual process over centuries, and one government's tweaking won't have much to do with it. I'd guess it's as likely to cause a backlash as anything.

Analogy may well fail in this instance. What we are seeing (and is ironically filling anti-Modern Western people with paranoia- and in some ways solidarity) is already backlash against Modernity.

If recent Western history is a guide, the average population's transition to particular great changes seems to require about three generations of arguments and about two more for die out of the arguers that can't let go of it. (Which is all really just a mirror of the human life cycle.)

In the West the present argument becomes politically serious between 1940 and 1950, during and in the aftermath of WW2. Coincident with a compelling sense of the closing of the Agrarian Age. In much of the rest of world- Eastern Europe, Eastern Asia, the Middle East, Latin America- a similar change of discourse seems to have generally occurred roughly coincident with the ending(s) of Cold War over the past 15 years or so.

" . . . Nothing of our revelation (even a single verse) do we abrogate or cause be forgotten, but we bring (in place) one better or the like thereof. Knowest thou not that Allah is Able to do all things? . . ."....It will be a hard sell.

Why so? You assume a literal, i.e. materialist/physicalist biased, interpretation of 'war', 'battle', and so on. That may be the traditional Christian bias or hermeneutic (arguably more pagan in origin than admitted), and the usual anti-Islamic propaganda ploy in the West (just look at how the neocons use it). But that's not a necessary or historically privileged bias in Semitic religion. If it were, this effort to revise interpretation would be considered utterly inviable and futile.

Perceived or real threat and experience of physical subjugation by Others, i.e. wars, colonial or military or material imposition obviously amounts to a motivation to read sacred texts superficially for license to behave willfully and creaturally (rather than humbly and with spiritual trust) in crude worldly affairs. As we have seen well illustrated in our country and churches.

Does anyone here know enough about Turkey to make helpful comments? (because I don't). Here are some questions for starters:

# When the Turkish govt is described as "militantly secular", what does that mean? I can think of at least the following alternatives:
(i) Some sort of separation of mosque and state (a vaguely US model)
(ii) Toleration but open disapproval of religion (the French model)
(iii) Insistence that important politicians are not religious, and harassment of religion (a mild version of the Soviet Bloc model).

# I know that Turkey is paranoid about threats to national identity. It thus persecutes even Muslim national groups, such as Kurds. To what extent is persecution of Christians religious, and to what extent is it a nationalist hostility to Greek, Armenian and Assyrian ethnic minorities?

# What proportion of Turks are in some sense practising Muslims?

# How are overt atheists treated in mainstream Turkish life? What about converts to, say, Buddhism or Hare Krishna?

Rombald, the Turkish state is strictly secular, but Turkey is governed these days by the AK Party, an modernizing Islamist party that is freaking out Kemalists because they (the AKP) are chipping steadily away against laicite'. On the other hand, the overwhelming majority of Turks are practicing Muslims who would like to see their religion more accomodated in public life.

If anybody can modernize Islamic government, the AKP can. If they can't do it, it can't be done.

Militantly secular in that until recently women could not even wear a headscarf to school, and religious parties were quashed with the might of the Turkish army. The army quite literally regulates politics, and if they veer too far off the secular course, it intervenes. Turks understand instinctively that religion and politics can be a dangerous mix. Much as do we Americans. Naturally, the temptation to mix is always present. We see that in both our countries.

Christians are protected from persecution officially. But there are militant groups who have targeted and killed them. Less overt pressure has sent many more fleeing the country. Most Turks are Muslims. I could not tell you how devout they are, I don't know enough about the country. There are plenty of atheists, though that topic is really just not talked about in that part of the world. Converts to Eastern religions? That doesn't seem very likely. Such groups probably would be quashed as being a threat to "Turkish identity," as they are foreign influences.