Welcome to Islamic Reformation 101

السلام عليكم

A truly remarkable thing is happening in Ankara: 1,200 years of Islamic tradition are being tossed out the window in an attempt to reform the world's most practiced religion. This superb article by Turkish writer Mustafa Akyol gives us a brief history of the early formation of Sunni Islam, explaining why Islam, as its taught in the present era, is so dogmatic and essentially unchanged since the 9th century AD (notice I said, “the Islam taught”’, not “the Islam practiced”... there's a big difference). He then goes on to explain how a group of Turkish theologians are looking back at what's been accepted as fact all these centuries, and deciding it might not actually be all that factual.

http://www.thewhitepath.com/archives/2008/03/welcome_to_islamic_reformation_101.php

This re-evaluation of Islam has tremendous consequences and is centuries overdue. That its happening in Turkey is no surprise:

"[...]Turkey is an important case study, because as arguably the most modernized of all Muslim nations, its believers face questions that their co-religionists in, say, Afghanistan, don't. Today an urban Turkish Muslim lives in an environment in which equality between sexes is taken for granted and people openly question, or even defy, the religious teaching that suggest otherwise. The same urban Turkish Muslim probably supports the country's EU bid, because that is much better for his business and the future of his kids."

Will this development have an immediate impact on the Middle East? No. Will it be embraced by the masses as a sort of Islamic Protestant Reformation? No. Will these theologians fall short of really creating a modern reformed Islam? Probably. The miracle here is not that this will cause Muslims to search for a new Islam, but rather that those Muslims already searching for a new Islam will have something to find.