{"id":214,"date":"2009-01-30T14:07:08","date_gmt":"2009-01-30T14:07:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/2009\/01\/quranist-reformers-under-perse.html"},"modified":"2009-01-30T14:07:08","modified_gmt":"2009-01-30T14:07:08","slug":"quranist-reformers-under-perse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/01\/quranist-reformers-under-perse.html","title":{"rendered":"Qur’anist reformers under persecution in Egypt"},"content":{"rendered":"

There is a school of Islamic interpretation called Qur’anism that I hadn’t heard of before, which adopts a Qur’an-centric approach to religious practice with a liberal mindset towards reform and political freedom. Naturally, they are being persecuted for it – even in Egypt<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Many Americans do not realize that there is a war being
\nwaged in Egypt against Muslim reformers. These reformers call
\nthemselves “Koranists” because they focus solely on the Koran and
\nadvocate a modern interpretation of Islam that rejects Shariah law.<\/p>\n

These self-declared leaders of the “Islamic Reformation” number in
\nthe thousands and are connected globally through the Internet. For
\nnearly a decade, as this movement has gained momentum, they have come
\nunder increased attack from the Egyptian government for their religious
\nideas. Al Azhar University, which is based in Cairo and is the leading
\ncenter for conservative Sunni learning in the world, has rejected the
\nviews of the Koranists and has sought to systematically dismantle the
\nmovement.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

There is an interesting and vibrant discussion on the topic of Qur’anism over at Talk Islam<\/a>, including some actual Qur’anists themselves. It is a great debate to gain insight into some of the variety of religious thought within Islam, since the audience at Talk Islam is quite diverse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There is a school of Islamic interpretation called Qur’anism that I hadn’t heard of before, which adopts a Qur’an-centric approach to religious practice with a liberal mindset towards reform and political freedom. Naturally, they are being persecuted for it – even in Egypt: Many Americans do not realize that there is a war being waged…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":165,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,113,24,67],"class_list":["post-214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-gates-of-ijtihad","tag-egypt","tag-freedom-of-religion","tag-islam","tag-quran"],"yoast_head":"\nQur'anist reformers under persecution in Egypt - City of Brass<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Qur'anist reformers under persecution in Egypt - City of Brass\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"There is a school of Islamic interpretation called Qur’anism that I hadn’t heard of before, which adopts a Qur’an-centric approach to religious practice with a liberal mindset towards reform and political freedom. Naturally, they are being persecuted for it – even in Egypt: Many Americans do not realize that there is a war being waged…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/01\/quranist-reformers-under-perse.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"City of Brass\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-01-30T14:07:08+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Aziz Poonawalla\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Qur'anist reformers under persecution in Egypt - City of Brass","robots":{"index":"noindex","follow":"follow"},"og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Qur'anist reformers under persecution in Egypt - City of Brass","og_description":"There is a school of Islamic interpretation called Qur’anism that I hadn’t heard of before, which adopts a Qur’an-centric approach to religious practice with a liberal mindset towards reform and political freedom. 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City of Brass is his weblog, which was founded in 2002 under the name UNMEDIA. He is a co-founder of the annual Brass Crescent Awards. The name City of Brass refers to the Story of the City of Brass in the Thousand and One Nights, and the poem by Rudyard Kipling of the same name: Here was a people whom, after their works, thou shalt see wept over for their lost dominion; And in this palace is the last information respecting lords collected in the dust. -- Thousand and One Nights, Story of the City of Brass IN A land that the sand overlays, the ways to her gates are untrod, A multitude ended their days whose fates were made splendid by God, Till they grew drunk and were smitten with madness and went to their fall, And of these is a story written: but Allah Alone knoweth all! -- Rudyard Kipling, The City of Brass (1909)"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/165"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}