Can Islam be "reformed?"
For those who are hopeful that "violent" Islam is an abberation and that some form of Islamic Reformation can truly make it a "religion of peace", here is the bad news.
This from Robert Spencer's web site:
"As should be plain to anyone who has examined the Islamic sources, to take the violence out of Islam would require it to jettison two things:
The Quran as the word of Allah, and
Muhammad as Allah's prophet.
In other words, to pacify Islam would require its transformation into something that it is not.
The Western Christian Reformation, that is often used as an example, was an attempt (successful or not) to recover the essence of Christianity, namely, the example and teachings of Christ and the Apostles. Trying to get back to the example of Muhammad would have very different consequences. Indeed, one may say that Islam is today going through its "Reformation" with the increasing jihadist activity around the globe.
Today, Muslims of the Salafi ("early generations") school are doing exactly that in focusing on the life of Muhammad and his early successors. These reformers are known to their detractors by the derogative term Wahhabi. Drawing their inspiration from Muhammad and the Quran, they are invariably disposed to violence. The unhappy fact is that Islam today is what it has been [for] fourteen centuries: violent, intolerant, and expansionary. It is folly to think that we, in the course of a few years or decades, are going to be able to change the basic world outlook of a foreign civilization. Islam's violent nature must be accepted as given; only then will we be able to come up with appropriate policy responses that can improve our chances of survival."
"We should be more tolerant toward Islam," is the plea. Tolerance of intolerance is ignorant behavior. Read the book "TOLERism" by Howard Rotberg.
Here is an important distinction: Muslims (individual humans) can be reformed, i.e., they can change their beliefs and religion, just like any other human. However, Islam, by definition, cannot be reformed without becoming something other than Islam.
The problem faced by Muslims desiring to change their religion is the unpleasant prospect of being terminated by other Muslims whose ideology calls for the death of apostates. Isn't it ironic that Jehovah's Witnesses are condemned for "shunning" those who deviate from the faith. In Islam they are killed, yet most apologists give a blind eye to this and other forms of the most extreme Islamic intolerance.
If Islam can't be be reformed toward becoming tolerant and peace-loving, what are the prospects for Islam and the rest of the world in the coming years? Check out this page.
Here is an example of a call to be more tolerant and not portray the radicals in such a negative light so they won't be so upset with the west.
See "The Frog and the Scorpion."