Promiscuous women cause earthquakes...

hivizman

Freiheit wrote: »

Is there much of a revisionist movement in Islam?.A lot of theologans, not restricted to Islam reinterpret scripture in order to make it fit better in contemporary society....

Something I find fascinating about Islam today is the wide range of revisionist movements, and how difficult it can be to put high-profile Muslims into simplistic boxes. For example, Tariq Ramadan has written and spoken extensively on how a "European Islam" could be emerging, which could be quite different in some ways from a "Middle Eastern Islam", but (based in particular on his recent book What I Believe), he finds it difficult to reject some of the implications of common interpretations of Sharia.

Having mentioned Ramadan's What I Believe, a quotation would be helpful:

I have often repeated to Muslim Westerners that they should think of themselves as "gifts" as well as "questions" to their fellow citizens. They are gifts because they carry with them other prospects, other cultures, and other memories that are a wealth with which they nurturs their own society. They must be aware of and consider confidently what they are and what they can bring to Western societies: other viewpoints, the experience of true cultural pluralism, the meaning of shared, and not monopolized, universals. This presence from within is now a constitutive element and suggests that advances in economic development and technological skill should never be mistaken to imply ideological or philosophical superiority. This presence and gift offers its wealth and teaches humility. But Muslims must also remain "questions": with their faith, their practices, their behavior, and their day-to-day civic commitment, they must positively challenge their fellow citizens. This is exactly the meaning of the formula I used many years ago when I told Muslims: your presence must become normal without becoming commonplace.

Tariq Ramadan What I Believe (New York: OUP, 2010, pp. 115-116)

This resonates a lot with me as an Irishman who currently lives in England.

More briefly, the other type of revisionists are the so-called Salafi, who seek to reconstitute Islam on the basis of the practices of Muhammad, his Companions, and their successors in the first three generations of Islam. This movement aims to peel off what it considers as "innovations" that it regards as subsequent accretions to Islam with no Qu'ranic or Prophetic authority.. A lot of the English-language material on Islam on YouTube comes from this movement.

Freiheit wrote: »

But is part of religion lost when it's processed by revisionist movements? I think much of Christianity has been lost through this means.

This is certainly a danger, and Islam is currently facing in a number of countries (not necessarily just in the West) the tensions that arise between secular state systems that see religion as something purely for the private sphere and "totalising" religions that do not accept a sacred-secular divide, but regard religious belief as affecting all aspects of human life. Certainly many Muslim contributors to YouTube are concerned that the younger Muslims in countries such as the USA are becoming enamoured with the "consumer society" and are losing touch with their religion.

Freiheit wrote: »

In my fallible opinion it's a misogynistic religion and whose concept of a woman is insulting.

As with Christianity, Islam faces the challenge of determining how much of the Qu'ran and Sunnah needs renewed understandings in the circumstances of the 21st century (which will inevitably mean that understandings formed centuries ago are shown to be time-specific and culture-specific, even though the underlying revelations are still regarded as eternal). I agree that, to a non-muslim, the attitudes of many Muslim men towards women seem crude and oppressive, but people are asking questions both within Islam and from the outside that may continue to stimulate slow change.

Freiheit

Is Tariq Ramadan a contributor to the Times of London? If so found him fairly progressive, what exactly does he mean by "challenge their fellow citizens" though?.

Look I know not all Muslims are misogynisitic or that all Muslim women feel oppressed, but I feel that women in Islam are vulnerable to interpretation.

hivizman

Freiheit wrote: »

Is Tariq Ramadan a contributor to the Times of London? If so found him fairly progressive, what exactly does he mean by "challenge their fellow citizens" though?.

Continuing the quote from Ramadan's What I Believe:

At the core of the West, Muslims' individual and collective presence should be seen as a question or rather a series of questions: What does this presence mean to me? How can their behavior be explained? Where do I stand? Who am I and what do I want to be in front of this "other", at the core of shared, confident pluralism? This questioning presence is a mirror. The mirror of the other reflects a thousand questions about oneself. Those questions may indeed be unsettling at times, but they are ever so necessary.

Source: Tariq Ramadan What I Believe (New York: OUP, 2010, pp. 116-117)

Ramadan grew up in French-speaking Switzerland, and his writing style is that of a French intellectual, so it's not always clear what he's actually trying to say. But I think that his argument here is that Muslims, simply by being different, have the potential to make the rest of us ask questions about our own beliefs and assumptions. This comes out for example in discussions such as this thread, where the fact that a cleric in Iran can put forward what most of us consider to be weird views about the relationship between what he characterises as female promiscuity and the occurrence of natural disasters starts to make us think about why we find these views so strange.

Freiheit wrote: »

Look I know not all Muslims are misogynisitic or that all Muslim women feel oppressed, but I feel that women in Islam are vulnerable to interpretation.

Even a realisation that there is a range of attitudes and behaviours among Muslims makes it harder for us to generalise and stereotype. Until recently, the interpretation of religion (not just Islam but Judaism and Christianity) has been a male monopoly, and Islam has been slower to take on board womens' understandings.

Freiheit

don't stereotypes exist of all groups...minorities and majorities?...usually partial truths...which can cause prejudice until there is greater interaction....

hivizman

Freiheit wrote: »

don't stereotypes exist of all groups...minorities and majorities?...usually partial truths...which can cause prejudice until there is greater interaction....

Yes, there's even a branch of social psychology known as stereotype theory. This holds that stereotypes are cognitive devices that help us to make sense of the world by developing schematic views of groups and assuming that members of such groups match the characteristics we associate with our stereotypes. The danger is that we tend to overgeneralise and attribute characteristics that may indeed apply to some members of a group to all members of that group.

Freiheit

yes I encountered that during last years Social Psychology module with Oscail...Wrote an essay on Minorities and stereotypes, I focused on Gay and Transgendered people specificaly,but the theory could apply to Muslims too. Stereotypes act as a guide, we need guides but as you say they are not 100% accurate.