Reforming Islam: I Don't Think It's Possible, But I'm Sure Glad Zuhdi Jasser Is Trying
I don't think Islamic reform is possible (or at least isn't possible on any sort of wide scale) because of failsafes built into the religion -- namely death to apostates and the nature of the Quran.

The Quran is said to be infallible and unquestionable, handed down from Allah to the Angel Gabriel to Mohammed. Mohammed is to be emulated -- Mohammed who called for mass murder of non-Muslims as soon as he gained power, and looting their belongings, raping their women, and death to non-believers and those who leave the faith. Even today, Muslims slaughter non-Muslims for not being Muslim and other Muslims for not being "Muslim enough."

That said, I'm very grateful to this Muslim man and his colleagues for their efforts -- which, sadly, are widely rebuked by those in mosques they've contacted, just for starters.

Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser is the doctor and former US Army officer who heads the Muslim Reform Movement (MRM), which celebrated its first anniversary on December 4, 2016. Jasser, whose parents fled Syria for the US in the 1960s, talked to Steve Postal at The Federalist. A few of the Q & A from that interview:

Q: In the MRM's inaugural press conference, you said American mosques that reject the MRM's declaration of principles are part of the problem, while those that accept the principles are part of the solution. How many mosques did the MRM approach? Did most of these mosques accept or reject these principles?

A: We spent significant resources on this outreach over a period of ten months. We reached out through snail mail, e-mail, and telephone to over 3,000 mosques and over 500 known public American Muslims. We received only 40-plus rather dismissive responses from our outreach, and sadly less than ten of them were positive. In fact, one mosque in South Carolina left us a vicious voice mail threatening our staff if we contacted them again.

We will continue to persevere with our outreach. On the one hand, we see the open hypocrisy of American Islamist groups effectively working together to sign documents, such as the recent "Open Letter to Donald Trump." But to get their attention as reformists against Islamism, we face an uphill battle. If it's grievances against Americans, people quickly sign on to almost anything. But getting people to sign on to an internal honest declaration of reform is like pulling teeth.

I can guess why we had shortcomings in outreach. If we had more funding, we could study this more scientifically. "Muslim" and "Islamic" institutions are often Islamist and thus unlikely to sign on to our declaration. Some estimate that 70-80 percent of Muslim organizations and mosques in the U.S. are die-hard Islamist. However, this needs to be put into an appropriate context. American Muslims, especially Sunni, are not tied to any clergy or organized "mosque" for faith practice or membership so the majority (60-70 percent) of American Muslims do not regularly participate in mosques or established Muslim institutions.

No one knows truly how that majority of Muslims feels about Islamist ideologies. National security is in desperate need of helping us study that. Our MRM is dedicated to creating new Western Muslim institutions outside the mosques and outside the "establishment" Islamist leadership to appeal to Muslims estranged from Islamist political tribalism. We have not been able to effectively reach out to the majority of Muslims because of resources and the absence of effective platforms.

The Muslim Reform Movement Versus Islamism
Q: What are the key differences between Muslim reformers and Muslim Islamists?

A: Reformers reject any Islamic state and its legal apparatus empowered through sharia. Reformers believe that individual Muslims have a right to publicly criticize Muslim thought leaders and their legal interpretations. Islamists believe that democracy is majoritocracy and thus in countries where Muslims are a majority, the national identity should be "Islamic" or "Muslim" and sharia should govern the legal system. Islamists believe that the rights of all citizens come from Islam and the state's legal system and public discourse should be based upon Islamic precepts and exegesis. They view the mosque and its pulpit as the center of that political movement.

Reformers, however, believe that the rights of all citizens come from God and thus all citizens, Muslim and non-Muslim, are created equal and the legal system and public discourse should be based in reason. Reformers believe rights belong to human beings, not to ideas, while Islamists believe that the legal system should protect certain ideas (like Islam) from public defamation. Islamists believe in some form of a theo-political system domestically, and ultimately globally in some form of caliphate. Reformers believe in secular governance, and reject any and all forms of the Islamic state and the global caliphate.

We at AIFD are currently working on a formal response to the "Letter to Baghdadi" signed by Western Islamists. While it admonishes the head of ISIS, Sheikh Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi for illegitimacy in declaring jihad, establishing an Islamic state and a caliphate among other interpretations of Islamic law by al-Baghdadi, it is also a full-throated defense of an Islamic state, a caliphate, armed jihad, and other Islamist fundamentals that stand in stark contrast to Western secular liberal ideals and universal human rights.

Q: Do you believe the MRM is seeking to reform Islam itself, or Muslim interpretation of Islam? Does such reform require a change in the way Muslims interpret doctrine, or does it require Muslims to adopt humanist values apart from Islam?

A: Your question is the very reason we called this movement the Muslim Reform Movement rather than Islamic reform. If you define Islam as Wahhabi Islam or Salafi Islam, then yes we are reforming that. However if you define Islam as the Islam of the God of Abraham then we believe we are simply modernizing the interpretation to one commensurate with twenty-first century universal principles of human rights.

We understand that many may feel that Islam at its core or at its founding was problematic. But what should matter to the free world is not the origins of Islam but how Muslims are interpreting Islam in the twenty-first century.

We reformists are Muslims who are reforming the interpretation of Islam away from an Islam tied to the political construct of an Islamic state and sharia. Like the Founding Fathers of America, who sought to render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and unto God what is God's by preventing the establishment of religion by government, we too seek to interpret Islam in a way that separates mosque and state. Just as Muslims can embrace medical, natural, and computer science, we can embrace political science beyond the constructs of the seventh century.

Q: In the last 30 years, Saudi Arabia has spent more than an estimated $100 billion to fund the spread of Wahhabism worldwide (in contrast to the $7 billion the USSR spent spreading communism from 1921 through 1991). How does the MRM hope to compete with these vast Saudi expenditures?

A: That's the elephant in the room. The West needs a major information program to advance ideas of liberty. The hope is that the free world will take the side of liberty, and theocracies and quasi-theocracies will fall.

Q: You and other members of the MRM have criticized the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in the past. CAIR's vision, mission, and core principles at first glance appear to be liberal and tolerant. What are the MRM's concerns with CAIR?

A: The MRM believes, of course, that civil rights--chiefly, freedom of speech and religious expression--are cornerstones of our democracy, and we absolutely support efforts to protect these. CAIR can, to the untrained eye, seem to be in support of these principles as well.

However, this Hamas offshoot is hardly a true champion of civil rights. They silence dissidents, and initiate and actively support campaigns targeting LGBT Muslims, ex-Muslims, and more generally all anti-Islamists. Any cursory review of their practices reveals that they are not the progressive element they claim to be. On the contrary, they represent the very worst elements within our community.

They are, in essence, one of the centerpieces of the DC lobby of the Organization of the Islamic Cooperation (OIC). The OIC is today's "neo-caliphate" and it seeks to keep the West on constant ideological defense apologizing for its so-called "Islamophobia." That defensiveness then prevents us in the West from dealing with the deep ideological cancer of the Islamic state (sharia state) identity movements.

...Q: What are your thoughts on branding any criticism of Islam as "Islamophobia?" Does such branding have any impact on your reform efforts?

A: I have spoken about this for well over a decade, and invite your readers to look at my and my organization's discussions of this. While some anti-Muslim bigotry is real, "Islamophobia" is a word often thrown around by Islamists to silence any critical discussion of Islam, Muslims, and--most significantly--the common pathways of radicalization from Islamism.

The obsession some have with "Islamophobia" means that these conversations are censored if not entirely shut down, and reformers like me are maligned, harassed, and threatened not just from within our community, but from those outside of it as well.

Non-Muslims in particular need to learn that it is not bigotry to discuss radicalization. It is bigotry to hate people based on their religion, appearance, gender, sexual orientation, or race. It is not bigotry to want to combat a force--Islamism--that in fact promotes bigotry and violence against all marginalized peoples.

What are the chances of Islam joining the modern, pluralistic and democratic world? A video debate between Jasser, Robert Spencer, and the evil Anjem Choudary: