Islam Fatally Flawed, Says Voice From Corona via Al Jazeera

[PsychoDad]

Islam Fatally Flawed, Says Voice From Corona via Al Jazeera
Wafa Sultan, who tells a tale of terror from Syria, draws lots of Western media attention but not as much from Muslims.
By Teresa Watanabe, Times Staff Writer
March 13, 2006
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-sultan13mar13,0,2410999.story

She's no longer a Muslim, has never connected with progressive Islamic groups and does not know the writings of Islam's most respected voices of reform.
...
In a blunt interview on Al Jazeera television last month, Sultan harshly criticized Islam as violent and unfavorably compared Muslims with Jews. In remarks Sunday at her Corona home, Sultan, who said she left the faith after witnessing an act of religious extremism, went even further, saying Islam was beyond repair with teachings that exhorted Muslims to kill non-Muslims, subjugate women and disregard human rights.
...
Other Muslims questioned why groups outside the faith were so avidly promoting a non-Muslim to criticize Islam, a practice that has occurred before and is a sore spot in the Islamic community, particularly since many respected Muslims also advocate change.

"Reform is alive and well within Islam, but it will only happen by those from within Islam and not those who hate Islam," said Hussam Ayloush, who heads the Southern California chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

I know Dr. Sultan's views have been discussed previously, but I thought this story interesting as it touches upon Muslim viewpoints of her message.

[Warpy]

1. She sounds like every ex member of every flavor of religion

there is. There's always a certain amount of rage people feel when they realize they've bought a load of bullshit for years.

Islam is no better or no worse than most other religions. Yes, it desperately needs reform because conservatives have been screwing it up for centuries, saying stupid things like everything important was written by 1200 and there is no need to write anything else, only to study what conservatives wrote 800 years ago.

There are a lot of reform movements out there including a very active feminist reform movement. Islam in the beginning was the kindest religion to women on the planet. Only centuries of conservatives as religious leaders allowed the old tribal nonsense that Muhammad rejected to be codified into shari'a law. Other reform movements seek to shed the other, violent tribal idiocies.

When any social institution becomes rigid and resistant to change (the heart of conservative thinking), it is no longer alive. The next step is irrelevancy unless reformers take over.

Both Islam and Christianity will be fun to watch over the next couple of centuries. They may both survive, or they may both fade into obscurity, their gods joining all the other all powerful gods that have existed in human history, to be replaced with new ones.