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You assert that all religions contain errors and need to adapt to modern life. Naturally, any system needing to update itself admits some error in its origins: if it is in need of fundamental reform, it has failed to achieve its purpose according to its original principles, rules and beliefs. Were Islam unable to deal with the complexities of the present age then reform, at the least, would be needed. Islam however, claims to offer a universal and timeless system of life built on Islamic sources, and so reform would undermine, if not invalidate, this claim rendering it imperfect as you say.
Society has indeed changed over the course of human history, but it is important to identify its nature before discussing how to respond. That response may not require reform or adaptation. Indeed, the reality of man's nature has not fundamentally altered. The principle problems experienced thousands of years ago, such as the need to fulfil our basic survival and instinctive needs, and the need to regulate our relationships, individually and in society, have not changed. It is the complexity of things, the materials and technology around us, which have primarily changed through scientific progress over many centuries. New thoughts on understanding the world continually evolve through the accumulation of human experiences over time, but they do not reflect a change in our fundamental nature, intellect or our needs.
Thus, a system of life originating thousands of years ago may still be applicable today. This is on the proviso that its message is not specific to a particular age, but is timeless, universal in its appeal and has a mechanism to apply its principles on issues and developments that arise over time. Failing these will render it specific to an age, people and circumstance. Islam presented society a system of life to solve man's problems, not as Muslims or non-Muslims but as human beings, over fourteen centuries ago. Addressing human beings as human beings, having not changed in their fundamental nature, makes its message timeless, indeed universal - not racial, tribal or nationalistic. Islam did not reject advances in science or technology: history demonstrates that Muslims occupied a pivotal role in the development of both. Islam's mechanism of dealing with change, ijtihad, which I have touched on briefly, allows Muslims to take a view on modern issues. Islam is therefore perfectly valid today.
The issue for Islam is not therefore one of reform, but of applying Islam using the tool of ijtihad on modern problems. Liberal secularism also has its roots in principles and concepts that date far back, to the works of ancient Greece from where its notions of democracy, justice, the form of state and the principles of epistemology were born. Liberal secularists do not believe that time has weathered these thoughts nor rendered them outdated.
I have referred to the term Ijtihad and so allow me to clarify that it is not a process of ambiguous interpretation subject to personal preference as some have attempted to describe it. It is a defined method of deriving rules for new circumstances. It does so through referring the subject matter of a new problem with an event or issue articulating a similar subject matter in Islamic texts. Evaluating the similarity between the two, a verdict is derived based upon rules and principles in the similar Islamic text. This does not represent changing Islamic principles to suit a situation, but rather applying these principles to provide a view on such situations. The absence of this process in the Muslim world has contributed extensively to its stagnation, particularly over the past two centuries.
Your call for 'creative adaptation' and reform, including the need for a secular outlook, demonstrates the yardstick you use to judge Islam. It is through the filtered lenses of liberal secularism that you have made your criticisms as you suggest the Muslim world adopt some of its key tenets. You mention your gratitude of learning from the west, as you advocate the western ideology with a moral and spiritual veneer. Criticising from this standpoint does no more than identify the lack of liberal secular values in Islam and state that the two are different. Islam represents a fundamentally different paradigm of life to that of liberal secularism or capitalism. It is natural for those who subscribe to a particular paradigm to criticise on the basis of, and with respect to, their own beliefs, but this is a relative, not universal, basis of criticism and deriving truth.
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