"Militants" & "Reformists" - Flip Sides of the Same Coin

My thought for the day:

"I’d like to mention something that I think many of those who advocate a “reformation” of Islam, whether Muslim or non-Muslim, fail to understand. This is the simple fact that the “liberal” and “reformed” Islam which they advocate actually follows the same basic methodology of Osama Bin Laden and other militants. This is because they both adhere to a “Do-It-Yourself” and “Pick-and-Choose” approach to the religious texts of Islam which casts aside about 1,400 years of understanding and interpretation by remarkable and rightly-guided Muslim scholars. Once this approach is accepted, textual interpretation tends to head wherever one already wants to go—whether the Reformist Left of Ziauddin Sardar or the Militant Right of Osama Bin Ladin. Yes, these two modernist approaches to the religion of Islam are really flip sides of the same coin."

Originally posted in my Ziauddin Sardar, C. S. Lewis and “Mere Islam” blog entry.