I've been discussing reform in Islam with a high school friend I haven't talked to in a really long time, and he's really changed, I'm very glad. He basically now believes that Islam can and should be reformed to be much more liberal. And he's shown that even though the reform movement in Islam is still weak, it nevertheless has a base. Here's a video capturing the spirit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UR7uNZTX-sAI've decided to move back home after graduating and joining and strengthening this reform movement. I think that coming out as an ex-Muslim would be a bad move. It'd frame me, as well as the movement at large, as an enemy of Islam, and therefore would make people much less likely to be persuaded by it. So instead of outright fighting against Islam, we should create a new Islam. And it can be done. I think it's been posted before, but there's already a reformist translation/interpretation of the Quran:
http://www.irshadmanji.com/reformist-quranThe fact is that Islamic civilization thrived on ijtihad, and it was only banned for political reasons. Muslims today live in the Middle Ages because that's when independent thought was banned and the Islamic government claimed that all questions have been answered and now we have a set number of schools of law and nothing else is accepted. We need to revive this spirit of ijtihad and show the extremists that they're absolutely wrong. Independent thought is very much a part of Islam and we're the ones keeping true to it.
The mission, therefore, is twofold. We should:
a) Establish mosques that are openly reformist (someone else mentioned this here and I really like the idea). And we shouldn't wait for the government to sanction this move -- that, of course, won't happen. Reformists should start by having Friday prayers on private property. Muslims shouldn't be afraid of this. As I said to my friend, it's as if your prayer doesn't count if it's not government-sanctioned. He endorsed the overall idea and said it's a bold and genius move. We should also have public forums for ijtihad. This existed during the Islamic empire, and it needs to be revived.
b) Write up a manifesto for reform and disseminate it all around, mostly in traditional mosques. The movement shouldn't be elitist, nor should it be closed up. We should be as open and aggressive as possible. Essentially, we should do what Martin Luther did, but on a mass scale.
Overall, we should frame our movement as being Islamic. That's the best way to actually achieve reform. We shouldn't separate liberalism from Islam. We need to prove that they're compatible.
This would actually benefit apostates as well, as a liberal Islam would be much more accepting of science and apostasy.
Topic: A mission statement