Is Islam undergoing a “Reformation,” and if so, should it? There’s been a lot of digital ink swirling around this idea ever since Salman Rushdie’s article. I can think of at least two books on the subject (here and here), and the Islamic blogosphere (a.k.a., the “Islamosphere” or “Allahosphere”) have been intermittently abuzz with debate.
Arguably an “Islamic Reformation” is indeed occuring, to the point where we’re already in knee-deep, as Dale Eickelman points out (among other analogies he raises, the Internet may be to Islam what the Guttenberg printing press was to Christianity). Recent events, such as the reforms instituted by the Turkish ulema, would appear to bear this view out.
A lot of commentators generally take the idea of an Islamic Reformation as a good thing. But is it really? Indeed, is the concept of “Reformation” even a useful framework? Here are my thoughts on the subject as an historian and spiritual person…
