In August 2005 the author Salman Rushdie cemented his position as the Muslim John Wycliffe when he endorsed the Muslim Reformation movement.   This collection of islamic progressives have the goal to filter Islam through the sieve of core classic liberalism -- gender equality, separation of church and state, and tolerance to name a few of the high points.

This kind of movement should not be surprising as there are many intelligent and travelled muslims in the world who understand the stagnant condition of their religion.  The counter-reformists are the jihadists, the death cults of islam, who tolerate no discussion or violation of religious law.  However, much like our own troubles with drug cartels in Colombia, the jihadists issues with the Western culture begins at home with the choices they see their fellow muslims make.  We see the smoking ruins of the WTC when we think of these death cultists, what we do not see or are more than dimly aware of how these hardliners terrorize their own brothers and sisters.  You decide to not wear a veil or to shave your beard, you can die for that – and they do die for similar infractions of religious law every day.  The jihadi’s are the Robin Hoods of the Arab world, they fight the Great Satan Crusaders and Zionists for every muslim man, woman, and child – if they want to be defended from those crusaders and zionists or not.

It’s all about choices and free will.  For jihadis and theocrats the status quo is the removal of choice, the submission of free will to the theocracy.  That is literally the definition of the culture, submission of individual free will to the will of the theocratic order, laws, and decrees.

The arab muslim world is in state that is very reminiscient of the pre-reformation european christian culture. 

• You have two major sects with an assortment of minor sects, and one of the two major sects greatly outnumbers the other.  (Sunni = Western, Shia = Orthodox, Sufi = Oriental Orthodox, Kharijites = Nestorians, etc.

• These sects are separate due to an early religious power struggle (Great Schism,  Succession of Muhammad)

• There are factors outside the culture that are putting pressure on the traditional monopoly of theocratic power.

In Martin Luther’s day it was the culmination of several factors which were in essence proto-Globalism issues.  The Black Death having ravaged Europe causing social upheaval, the movable type allowing the wide dissemination of information, and new humanistic philosophies to be spread with that technology.

While the modern Islam is still awaiting their Martin Luther, you have some similarities occuring.  Today there is the internet which allows information to drill down to the individual at the keyboard, be that actual data or something from Playboy.  We have cable television beamed across the planet which shows the highs and lows of our western media culture.  This is ten or hundred times the “making the world smaller” factor that movable type provided in Luther’s day.  Back then it would have been revolutionary to have your own personal copy of the Bible when only a score of copies at best would exist in large population centers.  Today it is not just one religious book, but virtually all books at your fingertips, and that does not include The Naked News and all that program would imply to a muslim household.  Who needs the Black Death to cause social upheaval when you have Paris Hilton?

It is not Israel, nor the troops in Saudi Arabia, the occupation of Iraq, or any other excuse that is placed on the table which really gets to the heart of the jihadist fury…instead it is the concept of free will that so permeates our Western Culture that we do not even see it.  The only way for them to remove this alien influence is to contain the spread within their own culture while they attempt to eliminate the source.  That is the real reason they are the Robin Hoods of their cultures, because they are the defenders of that culture – just as the KKK was begun as the rearguard defense of Southern Culture and has morphed over the years into something even more abhorrent and sinister.

Their prospects of ultimate success in this endeavor are extremely limited, absent the use of WMD’s of some form that would allow a reshaping of the world ala a James Bond plot.  Before 9/11 the West was generally content to allow the muslims take care of the problem themselves with the realization that with a globalizing world a progressive change in Islam would be inevitable.

Now because of the 9/11 attack, we are in Afghanistan and Iraq taking the equivilant step of  posting the 95 Theses.  Attempting to create a market of free debate where progressive islamists can have a fair opportunity to get some of the aspects of the Muslim Reformation operating in practice.  The very nature of Iraq provides both the best opportunity for these practices to rise to the forefront of the debate and some of the major roadblocks to preventing progress.  A calculated risk who’s benefits if we are only half successful will be positive in the wider conflict.

The honest bottom line is that the people and leaders of Iraq need to realize that their long term peace and security does not reside on the primacy of Sunni or Shia, but in a progressive Reformed Muslim view which would bring tolerance of both, the acceptance of their position as a modern representative nation state.  In this aspect each leader and voter of Iraq and Afghanistan face very real danger in making their choice, similar to that made by the Burghers and Princes of Germany.  However we must also respect their nascent processes, expect setbacks when your actions spark the Muslim equivilant of the Thirty Years War…and understand that you may have to be committed off and on for that long to get the job done.

Edit:

Dinesh D'Souza covers this same ground here.

Walid Phares makes truthful points here