I am not an expert on Islam.
Heck, I barely know my way around a Christian Bible, but I do know a philosophy in desperate need of reformation when I see one. In the fifteenth century, Martin Luther rassled with the formidable corruption entrenched in the Catholic church. From his simple writings, Europe and the next 500 years was thrust into religious and imperial turmoil in order to purge that ecumenical cancer from Western culture. Awakened with Luther's 95 theses was the obvious power of the printing press and a hint of the modern age.
Sadly, just when the Christian reformation was rampaging in Europe, Islam was extinguishing the light of tolerance and debate. During the middle ages, Islamic scholars, who once embraced a willingness to engage in religious comparison and intellectual criticism, shackled the faith in dogma and repression. Those scholars and rulers effectively closed the practice of ijtihad; interpretation and reasoning based on the sacred texts. Following the death of Prophet Muhammad in 632 A.D. and for at least the first eight or nine centuries of Islam, there were a wide variety of opinions and schools of thought on almost every issue and question. Ijtihad was developed by Muslim scholars in order to understand and apply the message of the Qur'an to varying societal needs and conditions.
Tragically, in this twenty first century, the faithful and outsiders alike risk their life and property if they dare criticize or comment on the violent and intolerant state of this worldwide religion. Suleiman, a contemporary of Luther's, would think all this anything but magnificent.
