My Faith Is a Mess

She recently talked with Beliefnet senior producer Deborah Caldwell.

Let me start this way: I completely acknowledge that every faith has its share of literalists. I don't deny that for a second. What I am pointing out is that

within Islam today is literalism the mainstream. The reason it is mainstream is that we Muslims, even in the West, are routinely raised to believe that because the Qur'an comes after the Torah and the Bible, it is the final and therefore perfect manifesto of God's will, not given to being interpreted or analyzed, never mind questioned. And this is dangerous because when--not if--abuse happens under the banner of our faith, most of us, including those of us who are "well-educated professionals" have no clue how to debate, dissent, revise, or reform because we have not been introduced to the virtues of critical thinking.

Ah, now this is where I might respectfully dispute this premise. We absolutely have a history of critical thinking and obviously I go into it in the book-it's the tradition of

. But it's not very long lived. In fact, it's quite short lived. It existed roughly between the 9th and the 11th centuries. And most Muslims don't even know about it.

Continued on page 2: »