c0de
Vassal
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What do you get when you take out all faith from Islam and replace it with a cold rational materialism? You get a new brand of "Muslim" who calls himself a "Quran Aloner".... Granted not all of them are the same, and many are not as extreme as others, but one thing is certain: these are the people who will totally change the Islamic landscape within a century. This much is clear to me.
This might sound like dialectics (its not) but a counterpart to the rightist Taliban has arisen in the extreme secular left. These are the people who will take over the Muslim world (FOX News was wrong, it won't be Osama bin Laden). These "Quran Aloners" are a very small and fragmented minority today, mostly in the middle to upper classes. But they contain all the characteristics that a future mainstream movement needs to have and become the dominant Muslim denomination of the future. And all the work that the radical conservative Muslims are doing is directly contributing to their rise.
Their principles are diverse, but they have a few common beliefs. Almost all of them reject the "5 prayers" scheme. Some only accept 3, some reject the prayer totally, saying it was never meant to be an actual ritual. They also reject the significance of Mecca, and refuse to face it. Some of them believe that everything that takes place in Mecca is pagan idolatry.
These beliefs may sound very far fetched and crazy to the mainstream Muslims today, but it is very clear to me that that these beliefs will become the mainstream views within the Muslim ummah. It happened with Rome, with Christianity, it happened again with the Reformation. And the same will happen in the Muslim world... It is the same pattern with every new religion. If it attracts the middle-to-upper classes at first, you can bet it will keep expanding until it is the dominant force. There are no statistics, but I bet they are adding at least 40% new members per decade, just as the LDS Church. Such a growth, while it seems small at first, is exponential.
I don't really have much in common with mainstream Muslim sects either.. most of the time I am disagreeing with their beliefs... but this group of "Quran Aloners".... this is something completely different. Some of these people can hardly be considered Muslims at all, as some of them don't even believe in the finality of revelation, and feel that the Quran is "incomplete"... In my book, these people are much more dangerous then the Taliban, because their beliefs are much more attractive for the majority. Theirs will be a silent revolution, without weapons, without beheadings... And all the conservative Wahabi Taliban types are only making it easier for them, because it is -Islam- which is being put on the chopping block because of their actions.
... This is inevitable. There is no way to stop this... Many Muslims will convert to their side in the coming decades. Anyone in fact who values a self-negating "rationality" above faith will join their ranks. Maybe another war, or two, is all that is needed for a major shift in ideology to take place.. and when the time comes, these people will be waiting to step up and offer their "solution": a complete reformation of Islam, stripped of all faith... Setting the stage for a slow evaporation and drift towards a total materialistic atheism in the Muslim world....
I say this is inevitable, because this time, unlike the time of the Mutazillites, there are no core battallions left in the Muslim world to hold back this tide of skepticism... Too much faith has eroded over the centuries... There are not going to be any more al-Thalabis or al-Ghazalis, this time... they will win.
This might sound like dialectics (its not) but a counterpart to the rightist Taliban has arisen in the extreme secular left. These are the people who will take over the Muslim world (FOX News was wrong, it won't be Osama bin Laden). These "Quran Aloners" are a very small and fragmented minority today, mostly in the middle to upper classes. But they contain all the characteristics that a future mainstream movement needs to have and become the dominant Muslim denomination of the future. And all the work that the radical conservative Muslims are doing is directly contributing to their rise.
Their principles are diverse, but they have a few common beliefs. Almost all of them reject the "5 prayers" scheme. Some only accept 3, some reject the prayer totally, saying it was never meant to be an actual ritual. They also reject the significance of Mecca, and refuse to face it. Some of them believe that everything that takes place in Mecca is pagan idolatry.
These beliefs may sound very far fetched and crazy to the mainstream Muslims today, but it is very clear to me that that these beliefs will become the mainstream views within the Muslim ummah. It happened with Rome, with Christianity, it happened again with the Reformation. And the same will happen in the Muslim world... It is the same pattern with every new religion. If it attracts the middle-to-upper classes at first, you can bet it will keep expanding until it is the dominant force. There are no statistics, but I bet they are adding at least 40% new members per decade, just as the LDS Church. Such a growth, while it seems small at first, is exponential.
I don't really have much in common with mainstream Muslim sects either.. most of the time I am disagreeing with their beliefs... but this group of "Quran Aloners".... this is something completely different. Some of these people can hardly be considered Muslims at all, as some of them don't even believe in the finality of revelation, and feel that the Quran is "incomplete"... In my book, these people are much more dangerous then the Taliban, because their beliefs are much more attractive for the majority. Theirs will be a silent revolution, without weapons, without beheadings... And all the conservative Wahabi Taliban types are only making it easier for them, because it is -Islam- which is being put on the chopping block because of their actions.
... This is inevitable. There is no way to stop this... Many Muslims will convert to their side in the coming decades. Anyone in fact who values a self-negating "rationality" above faith will join their ranks. Maybe another war, or two, is all that is needed for a major shift in ideology to take place.. and when the time comes, these people will be waiting to step up and offer their "solution": a complete reformation of Islam, stripped of all faith... Setting the stage for a slow evaporation and drift towards a total materialistic atheism in the Muslim world....
I say this is inevitable, because this time, unlike the time of the Mutazillites, there are no core battallions left in the Muslim world to hold back this tide of skepticism... Too much faith has eroded over the centuries... There are not going to be any more al-Thalabis or al-Ghazalis, this time... they will win.