I read a Newsweek article called "The New Face of Islam" (*) written by C. Dickey and O. Matthews that comments on Osama bin Laden’s Islam and discusses the Hadith revision going on in Turkey.

The authors had two goals in mind: 1) present Osama bin Laden’s (OBL) Islam as erroneous, and 2), suggest that a significant, scholarly, reinterpretation, or "re-thinking" of the Hadith, (a significant part of the Islamic source materials) is underway that will enable a theological undergirding for the re-making of Islam into a more kinder, gentler, religion.

First point: the authors present OBL’s Islam as aberrant, as a recent invention, and as a distortion of real Islam:

Obviously the Newsweek authors were spoon fed some propaganda. If the Newsweek journalists spent 3 minutes searching the web they would have found plenty of material documenting the violence in the Quran and Islam. The shallow and shoddy work of many Newsweek journalists never ceases to amaze me.

To begin with, Islam does allow the murder of civilians. Perhaps in Islam’s view they are not "innocents"? Here are some examples of the civilians that Muhammad and the early Muslims had murdered:

1) The murder of Asma bint Marwan

2) The murder of a slave woman who criticized Muhammad

3) The order to murder an apostate – Ibn Sarh

4) The order to murder slave girls who mocked Muhammad years earlier

5) The murder of a 120 year old Jewish man Abu Afak

The Quran does command the killing of pagans not willing to embrace Islam:

6) The command to kill pagans – Sura 9:5

Muhammad’s closest friends murdered apostates:

7) Ali’s killing of the Christians

I could go on. OBL has abundant historical and textual support to teach that Islam commands the killing of certain civilians. Muhammad did it, the "Righteously Guided" Caliphs did it, and respected Muslim scholars have sanctioned it ever since.

The Islamic teachings that allow these murders are theological, and are to be applied in a social, and political, context. Islam is after all both a spiritual and political religion; there is no separation of church and state in Islam. Islam allows the murder of civilians who oppose Islam be it by voice only.

However, OBL does NOT have the historical and textual support to teach that Islam commands the indiscriminate killing of any non-Muslim civilians or of Muslims who disagree with him. That is where he has failed and transgressed the Islamic limitations. In that light many Muslims have been repulsed by OBL’s excesses and are now turning against him. (Since there is a dark and violent, element inherent in Islam, it is to be expected that once the bloodletting gets started it will transgress Muhammad’s rules: the spirit of murder knows few man-made bounds).

Islamic teaching prohibits the deliberate targeting of women and children but allows their deaths as collateral damage. What the Muslims did in Beslan would not be accepted by Muhammad, but he would bless and sanction the 9/11 attack. Muhammad destroyed his enemies financial strength during his conquests. He killed or massacred males from puberty on up, but he enslaved women and children.

The point is that there are many Muslims who understand the differences, and while they reject OBL’s excesses, they do not reject Islam’s command to kill civilians, or to conquer for Islam via jihad – holy war. Robert Spencer documents this thoroughly.

What’s laughable is that Newsweek authors did not offer one source material quote or reference in support, or against, their argument. How could professional journalists fail to offer a single reference about the critical issue at hand? It is good that Newsweek and similar major news print organizations are losing readers and going out of business. They provide a poor quality product to the public.

The author’s second point deals with a re-interpretation of Hadith, (thus affecting Islamic doctrine), done by a set of scholars in Turkey.

This effort is covered elsewhere on the net in greater detail than Newsweek’s.

The Newsweek authors are misrepresenting the Turk’s efforts. You can read about it in more detail here. The Turks are not attempting to revise or modernize Islam.

Aside from Newsweek’s error, the attempts to re-interpret and modernize Islam have existed, and failed, for hundreds of years. It is not surprising to find Muslims wishing to soften Islam’s harsh and brutal edicts. However, the four major schools of Islam, Hanifi, al-Shafi’i, Maliki, and Hanbali, have closed the doors of ijtihad and they are not re-opening them. Read about it in more detail here.

What schools did the Newsweek authors say were interested in re-opening the doors of interpretation? Anyone?

The real enemy, the real threat, the dark force that threatens us is not al-Qaeda, it is Islam. OBL and al-Qaeda are just branches off the tree. I challenge anyone to read the Islamic source materials for themselves, the Quran, the Hadith, the Sira – biographical writings, the books of Islamic law, the writings of the great Islamic scholars, and come up with a different conclusion.