It is extremely difficult to reform Islam. There are 2 main reasons for this:
(1) REFORMATION can occur only when CRITICISM is allowed to be made.
- Since Muslims have banned any open criticism of Islam and quickly label any critique as blasphemy, often responding with violence, no reformation takes place.
(2) The entire Islamic System will break if we try to Reform it:
- The second issue lies within the Islamic system itself—it's a rigid system with no flexibility. Any attempt at reform would cause it to break.
- Yes, Islam claims that Allah is 100% perfect. Thus, if it is proven that Allah committed even a SINGLE mistake, which is needed to be reformed by humans, then the entire remaining 99.99% of Islam will automatically collapse.
Due to these two problems, it becomes practically impossible that Islam can be reformed.
Islam, as a doctrine, lacks the capacity for self-reform. However, its followers, Muslims, can still introduce reforms by selectively following its teachings.
To put it simply:
- Islam (i.e., the Quran and Sunnah) cannot be altered/reformed.
- But Muslims can still implement some reforms/changes by not strictly adhering to all aspects of the Quran and Sunnah.
For instance, there are Quranists who reject Hadith entirely. They are able to introduce some changes by first dismissing Hadith and then interpreting Quranic verses in a way that aligns with their views.
As a result, modern-day Quranists have surprisingly been able to extract concepts like democracy, secularism, equal human rights, and women's rights from the Quran alone.
Hassan Radwan