Original Islam, or whatever survives of it in the approved version of the Quran and the Hadith, was indeed impressive. Alas, once Quranic hermeneutics settled on the “abrogation method”, rather than adopting the much more productive “harmonization method”, so that verses such as “there is no compulsion in religion” were simply considered as not applying anymore because of newer verses, the potential for things going badly became a permanent fixture, always on the ready to cause problems.
I like it how modern, liberal Islamic scholars are trying to undo that mistake by going the harmonization way. Too bad they’re a tiny minority, and that they’re opposing millennia of traditions built on top of the very opposite take.
Original Islam, or whatever survives of it in the approved version of the Quran and the Hadith, was indeed impressive. Alas, once Quranic hermeneutics settled on the “abrogation method”, rather than adopting the much more productive “harmonization method”, so that verses such as “there is no compulsion in religion” were simply considered as not applying anymore because of newer verses, the potential for things going badly became a permanent fixture, always on the ready to cause problems.
I like it how modern, liberal Islamic scholars are trying to undo that mistake by going the harmonization way. Too bad they’re a tiny minority, and that they’re opposing millennia of traditions built on top of the very opposite take.