Yes we can – and will – defeat groups like ISIS. But they will not be defeated by guns. You can’t kill ideas with guns. They only re-emerge with a different name. Bad ideas will only be defeated in the long run by offering better ideas. By offering better solutions. This is how you defeat bad ideas – by opposing them with better ones. Letting them die a natural death from within, rather by force from the outside – which often only makes them stronger because they can focus on external threats rather than having to face internal realities.
To do this we need to widen the debate beyond traditional boundaries to allow fresh thinking and new perspectives. Our traditional scholars are stuck within narrow, worn-out dogma that belong to another age. They are trying to defeat the extremists using the same paradigm, by playing by the same game. Rather than fundamentally differing they only offer a slightly different emphasis or a more nuanced interpretation. We need to offer a completely different narrative. A universalistic and inclusive narrative. A pluralistic narrative that opens up what it means to be a Muslim to a much broader and humanistic understanding.
Muslims like myself need look again at how we view the source texts of Islam and challenge old and rigid perceptions such as the infallibility of the Qur’an because it ties our hands prevents Islam evolving and meeting the changing conditions. The Qur’an must be subject to human reason and not the other way around. Of course we know that human reason is also flawed and man will always find excuses to fight & oppress each other. But once you remove: “God said it,” then you allow good ideas to battle it out with bad ideas on a level playing field, rather than protecting bad ideas on the excuse that: “God said it.”
We must kick down the door to this time capsule that we retreated to over a 1000 years ago. We need to be far braver than we are in tolerating and accepting criticism. Again I am not only speaking about criticism from non-Muslims – but much more crucially criticism from Muslims themselves. We must accept that Muslims can reject traditional views without calling them unbelievers, apostates and excommunicating them.
Let’s stop blaming others and burying our heads in the sand. Let’s open our eyes and ears and start listening to what others have to say from all sections of society including the minorities that we treat so badly. Let’s start an honest dialogue with those with different views, with Ex-Muslims, Christians, Jews, Agnostics and Atheists too. Let’s really engage with with the world and open up Islam to honest debate and scrutiny.
This is the only way we can truly defeat the narrow, exclusivist and literalist views of the extremists. They depend on fear – the fear we have of challenging what they claim is sacred and untouchable. The last thing they want is for us to kick down the door and allow the light of reason to shine onto them, for it will expose them for what they are. We should not fear challenging anything – even the so-called sacred. Who decided that this or that is sacred and untouchable? It’s long overdue for us to reassess this false dichotomy between the sacred and profane, for in the imperfect and flawed human world, such a division does not exist.
http://atheistni.org.uk/2015/11/15/the-quran-is-not-infallible/
Topic: The Qur'an is not Infallible