.... The clamor for reform is growing. Yet, in the eyes of the Medina Muslims, we are all heretics, because we have had the temerity to challenge the applicability of seventh-century teachings to the 21st-century world.
For the world at large, the only viable strategy for containing the threat posed by the Medina Muslims is to side with the dissidents and reformers and to help them to do two things: First, identify and repudiate those parts of Mohammed’s legacy that summon Muslims to intolerance and war, and second, persuade the great majority of believers — the Mecca Muslims — to accept fundamental changes to Islamic doctrine.
We in the West cannot remain on the sidelines, as though the outcome has nothing to do with us. For if the Medina Muslims win, and the hope for a Muslim Reformation dies, the rest of the world too will pay an enormous price — not only in blood spilled but also in freedom lost. But if that Reformation comes, then Farkhunda will not have defied the mullahs in vain. [Boston Globe] Read more
