Islam needs its own reformation

Iraq's parliament wants to marry off nine-year-old girls, based on Sharia law

Photo by أخٌ‌في‌الله on Unsplash

“It’s the test of a good religion whether you can joke about it,” said English author and Christian apologist, GK Chesterton. 

It’s a test that Islam fails time and again. The most shocking news last week was not Donald Trump’s re-election as president but the amendment introduced into the Iraqi parliament to allow nine-year-old girls to get married. 

The rationale, as explained by the imam who sponsored the bill, is that Muhammad is said to have married a nine-year-old, Aisha, 1400 years ago. 

The conservative Shia Muslim coalition in the parliament justifies the amendment under Sharia law, the body of religious law based on the scriptures of Islam, particularly the Koran. If passed, it would not only reduce the age of marriage but impact women’s rights when it comes to divorce, child custody and inheritance.

Under Sharia, the concept of mutual obligation to a religious collective outweighs individual human rights, justifying formal inequality between the sexes and with non-Islamic people. But even if you support Sharia being the law of the land - and the vast majority of Iraqis do - it is impossible to see how the collective benefits from marrying off girls still in the early stage of development, mentally and physically. 

Iraqis will decide their own future - the West’s track record of intervening in their affairs has been disastrous. 

To add more caveats to what follows: I am conscious that this is a religion with nearly two billion adherents globally. 

I also appreciate that, like Christianity, Islam has its mix of fundamentalists and modernists. 

And I know that Islamophobia is iniquitous, unfairly portraying a quarter of the planet’s population as barbaric, irrational and primitive. 

But at the same time, this Substack was set up to promote the principles of classical Western liberalism, which advocate that progress comes from debate and incremental reform; and which emphasizes individual rights, and the separation of church and state. 

That means it is important to openly discuss Islam and other religions without fear of offending. 

I was baptized a Christian, even if I side with Winston Churchill’s description of his own faith as being more like a buttress than a pillar of the church - namely “supporting it from outside”. 

Christianity has, and has had, many failings. Throughout history, Biblical passages have been used to justify force against heretics. From the Inquisitions to the Crusades, religion has been used as an excuse for terrible acts. In 15th century Europe, it was widely held that there was a global conspiracy of witches led by Satan, with agents in every village that wanted to destroy humanity. Tens of thousands of innocents were burned. 

Biblical text was also used to suppress women. The First Epistle to Timothy talks about the need for women to be quiet and in full submission to men because Adam was formed before Eve, and it was she who committed the original sin. 

Yet, most Christians now consider the Bible to be a good guide to understand their faith, rather than as being the voice of God. 

The authority of the Christian church has been challenged repeatedly down the centuries, from the Protestant Reformation that broke the priestly monopoly, to the Enlightenment that emphasized the scientific method and empirical evidence. Thinkers like David Hume advocated religious tolerance, the separation of church and state, and argued against the plausibility of miracles. 

Photo by Rizki Yulian on Unsplash

Islam has had no such reformation. The Koran is interpreted as the literal word of God. 

There are disagreements between different schools of Islam but all sects agree that the Koran is unimprovable, even though it is likely that the account of Muhammad’s words were assembled many years after they are said to have been spoken.

Modern research suggests that half of wrongful convictions are because of mistaken eye-witness statements. Yet the claims of Islam are accepted without challenge or investigation. 

Those claims, at least according to fundamentalists, include glorifying martyrdom, sanctioning military action against unbelievers and imposing harsh penalties for blasphemy and apostasy. 

A willingness to reconsider the sanctity of ancient Islamic texts is long overdue. Who knows, that might even reduce the enthusiasm to attack heretics. One study by a German scholar of Arabic languages suggested that a translation of the Koran into Syriac-Aramaic makes clear that the rewards for martyrs in paradise are sweet white raisins, not virgins. 

With any luck, we are about to witness a teachable moment. The domestic opposition to the Shia coalition is rallying, as many Iraqis appear to be having a hard time rationalizing the legalized rape of nine-year-old girls.

But the bigger picture is that the discrepancies between Islam and the West have never been more glaring. The fundamentalist version of Sharia on display here is incompatible with the fundamental principles of modern Western democracy and we should not apologize for saying so.