Turkey is preparing to publish a document that represents a revolutionary reinterpretation of Islam - and a controversial and radical modernisation of the religion. The country's powerful Department of Religious Affairs has commissioned a team of theologians at Ankara University to carry out a fundamental revision of the Hadith, the second most sacred text in Islam after the Koran.
At frigging last! I have been calling for something like this to happen on a large scale for ages, and have regularly been excoriated for it, and accused of some kind of supremacism for daring to suggest that Muslims attempt to engage with and reject the elements of Islam that promote violence and oppression. And the first signs here are good. I'm not entirely sure what will be in this radical reinterpretation, but on face value I have to support it.
They have also taken an even bolder step - rejecting a long-established rule of Muslim scholars that later (and often more conservative) texts override earlier ones - i.e. the theory of naskh, or abrogation, about which I wrote here, and which I have often been accused of simply making up or totally misrepresenting. I wonder: are the Turks now Islamophobes, also?
I am really pleased to hear this news, and I look forward to seeing what the final results are.
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