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Subject: Islam's Future

by Daniel Pipes

New York Post

August 13, 2002

A very optimistic article. The following are excerpts from it

http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/54569.htmhttp://www.nypost.

com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/54569.htm:

......... In May, the Turkish religious authorities ruled - completely

contrary to Islamic custom - to permit women to pray next to men and to

attend mosque services while menstruating. The High Religious Affairs Board

decided this on the (distinctly modern) basis that men and women are "equal

and complementary beings." Next month, this same board takes up the

extremely delicate topic of permitting Muslim women to marry non-Muslim men,

when it will perhaps again rule against centuries of practice.

If Turkish theologians can execute such changes, why not theologians in

other countries, too? And if practices concerning women can be changed, why

not those concerning jihad or the role of Islamic law as a whole? Islam can

adjust to modernity no less than have other faiths. ..........