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Shireen Qudosi and the question of Islamic reformers

Oct 14, 2019 12:00 pm By Robert Spencer

Recently I had an unpleasant online encounter with the self-styled “Muslim Reformer” Shireen Qudosi that highlighted some of the principal problems with the entire Muslim reform movement in the West, and showed why so many people are skeptical of these “reformers.” Please pardon the personal references in the first part of this; this post is actually not about me at all, but the personal story is necessary to illustrate some things about Qudosi.

It began when Qudosi responded to a tweet by Mansoor Shams, the “Muslim Marine,” including me among a long list people Shams said one should not learn Islam from. Qudosi replied, “Agreed brother.”

I thought this was odd, since in 2016 I followed Qudosi on Twitter, and she sent me a message saying that my following her was “a bit of an honor.”

So I asked her about the change, and she replied: “Yes we all know you think I’m a closet Islamist, Robert.” This was a false claim, so I asked her to substantiate it. To that she responded: “To jog your memory, years ago you wrote a response to an article I published — in it I’m clumped along with CAIR. Did you specifically say Islamist? No. Is there a distinction for you between your [sic] Islamists and non-Islamists are viewed? Doesn’t look like it.” The article she was referring to is here. This article says this, contrary to Qudosi’s claim that in it she is “clumped along with CAIR”: “Qudosi, of course, is not in the same class as CAIR.” And of course nowhere does it call her an “Islamist,” and in drawing the distinction between her and CAIR (as well as between her and Daisy Khan of Ground Zero Mosque fame), it does exactly what she claims I don’t do, draw a distinction between “Islamists and non-Islamists.” More importantly, this article is from 2010, six years before she told me that my following her was “a bit of an honor.”

All right. So I had a disagreeable exchange with Shireen Qudosi. Big deal. But there are larger implications here. The main one is that this exchange reveals Qudosi to be entirely duplicitous or completely incoherent in her thinking, her both. Another indication of that is on her Twitter page, where she identifies herself as a “Muslim reformer” in her bio and then says she doesn’t want to be called a Muslim. Yes, that’s right, she calls herself a Muslim and then says she doesn’t want to be called a Muslim.

Here is the key point to all this: the same incoherence marks Qudosi’s “reformist” writings about Islam. For example, in an article about female genital mutilation (FGM) and Jumana Nugarwala. a Muslim doctor who was prosecuted for the practice, she writes: “there is nothing in Dr. Nagarwala’s Islamic faith that condones or justifies this horrific act.” Then in the following paragraph, she writes: “The mutilation of little girls has received the protection of faith by critics and proponents of the practice, both of whom often rely on ‘Hadiths’ to support their positions on the issue. Hadiths are a collection of theological references curating strictly vetted sayings and teachings of the Prophet Muhammad. However, Hadiths are glorified second-hand accounts of what supposedly did or did not happen more than a millennium ago, and collected many years after the prophet’s death. They’ve been wrongly ossified as a part of the Islamic faith when in fact Hadiths are nothing more than a primitive game of ‘he said, she said.'”

Did you catch that? “There is nothing Dr. Nagarwala’s Islamic faith that condones or justifies” FGM, but FGM “has received the protection of faith” from people who rely on Hadiths that have been “wrongly ossified as a part of the Islamic faith,” and which record “strictly vetted sayings and teachings of the Prophet Muhammad.” So there is no justification in Islam for FGM, except for the justification in Islam for FGM. Qudosi obviously doesn’t accept as authentic the statements attributed to Muhammad that justify FGM, but she admits they exist, and even that they’re “part of the Islamic faith.” Yet then she claims that there no justification in the Islamic faith for FGM.

Qudosi disparages the Hadith and says they’re “wrongly ossified as a part of the Islamic faith,” without ever stating the fact that hers is a decidedly a minority and non-traditional view in Islam, or that Islamic law as codified by all the Sunni and Shia schools of jurisprudence relies on the Hadith and considers statements of Muhammad that are deemed authentic to be normative for Muslim faith and practice. By not mentioning the fact that 99% of Muslim theologians or more accept the Hadith, Qudosi is misleading uninformed non-Muslim readers into complacency: they’ll go away assuming that Islamic teaching on FGM is benign except for a few “extremists” who have interpreted it “wrongly,” and thus never confront the actual root causes of FGM in Islamic teaching.

This doesn’t mean that Shireen Qudosi is a “closet Islamist.” It does mean that whatever she is, she is not a genuine reformer.

I’m all for reform in Islam, but you can’t fix it unless you admit it’s broken. I once knew a genuine Islamic reformer, my good friend the late Tashbih Sayyed, who was a member of the Jihad Watch Board. Rather than falsely claiming that various aspects of Islam that jihadis used to justify violence and oppression were not really part of Islam at all, Sayyed forthrightly acknowledged that they were, and called for them to be reconsidered and rejected. That is what separates real Islamic reformers from fakes: real Islamic reformers admit that there are aspects of Islam that need to be reformed. They don’t pretend that the noxious aspects are not really part of Islam at all. They are not either duplicitous or impossibly muddled in their thinking, as is Shireen Qudosi. Fake reformers rely on the ignorance of non-Muslims about Islam, and when they claim that Islamic teaching is not what it demonstrably is, they show that they’re not reformers at all. And since they mislead people into thinking the challenge of Islam, jihad, and Sharia is not what it is, they do more harm than good. Conservatives especially are avid to find and support self-proclaimed Islamic reformers, so as to demonstrate that they’re not “anti-Muslim” (Leftists, by contrast, don’t care about Islamic reformers, as they have no trouble embracing “Palestinian” jihadis and others of their ilk). Fake reformers make out like bandits taking advantage of these people. This is not beneficial to anyone, except the fake reformers themselves.

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Filed Under: Islamic reform, Moderate Muslims Tagged With: Shireen Qudosi


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Comments

  1. elee says

    Oct 14, 2019 at 12:18 pm

    thebigW is right. Knowing what you do, how could you expect anything from a Muslim but kitman taqiiya tawriyah and an agenda to subjugate the world?

  2. Liz says

    Oct 14, 2019 at 12:28 pm

    Thank you. This post clears up a few things regarding recent events in Minneapolis and St Cloud and her participation.

    We have all the duplicity from Islam plus the “know it all” keyboard “activists” plus the infiltrators… No wonder it is becoming harder and harder to gain any traction in this war.

    This is truly a spiritual battle. We have got to remember that we are not alligned with the greatest of deceivers, we must turn to God. Pray for help and discernment. We must be very clear that Jesus died for our sins and be brave sharing the truth.

    • Ray Jarman says

      Oct 14, 2019 at 1:36 pm

      +++++++++++++++++1 Very well expressed Liz.

    • somehistory says

      Oct 14, 2019 at 3:51 pm

      +10

  3. Ray Jarman says

    Oct 14, 2019 at 1:34 pm

    Since V1:115 is written, “And the words of thy Lord are perfect in truth and in justice: none can change his words: He is the Hearing, Knowing.” how is it possible to reform Islam? In Christianity, Jesus Christ died to atone for the sins of man and the sacrament represents the body and blood of Christ. We Christians still believe in the teachings of the ancient prophets such as Samuel, particularly Isiah and the Ten Commandments. Unlike Islam, we are taught that we are all children of God and that through the atonement of Christ, we can return to our Heavenly Father and nowhere in the Qur’an is such sentiment expressed. Not since 70AD when the Temple in Jerusalem have the Jews offered animal sacrifice. My question to a “reformist” of Islam, is would it still be Islam if the acts and words of Allah were altered or discarded? It seems to me that reformist is another word for apostate.

    • Lilith Wept says

      Oct 17, 2019 at 12:56 pm

      I agree. From my studies of Islam, I don’t believe it can be reformed.
      If you ignore the part about “ Allah’s words can’t be changed” and the part about Mohammed is the perfect example of a Moslem and his behaviour should be copied ,

      and then take out all the hate filled, violent, misogynistic, supremeist parts of the Koran and Hadith …what are you left with? Not enough to form a “ religion”….

      Although, I would like to see someone do just that, to show how much of Islam is violent and hate filled….to show all that’s left of both the Koran and the Hadiths after stripping out the violent hate filled parts and show exactly what’s left ( and what they removed) .

      And this is not touching on the parts of Islam that are just plain wrong, like how a child is formed, why a child resembles one parent or the other, the sun setting in a muddy pool etc and all the twisting of the stories Biblical characters ….

  4. Walter Sieruk says

    Oct 14, 2019 at 1:36 pm

    The idea and quest to attempt have a “reformation of Islam” trying to do so is a waste of time and effort. This is because “reforming Islam” is not actually possible, it’s an action of futility. For It should be noted that Islam can’t be changed from violent and deadly to non –violent and peaceful because the very core essence of Islam is that of violence and killing. As found in the Quran 9:121, 5:33, 9:5, 111, 47:4.

    The very best that may be realistically hoped for would be a watered-down type of Islam is mild and non-violent.

    This is in contrast to hard core Quran based Islam which is the violent and murderous Islam practice Muslim jihad terror organizations, as ISIS ,Al Qaeda , Hezbollah ,Hamas and so forth .

    To put this in another way, the Bible informs its reader “What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is lacking cannot be numbered.” Ecclesiastes 1 :15. [N.K.J.N.] Therefore this verse may be understood when applying it to the idea of folly of “reforming Islam” As in, “What is crooked cannot be made straight in. “The violent nature can’t be straightened to be made non-violent” and “what is lacking cannot be numbered” may be understood as “Such a violent and hate-filled religion is lacking in love and compassion and thus can’t be numbered or counted as a truly peaceful religion.”

    • Jule Bacal says

      Oct 15, 2019 at 4:07 am

      I agree but how can you realistically expect all Muslims to give up a faith they Believe in same as Christians believe in Christ. Of course Christ is a so much better model for people but the Faith/belief they have been brought up with and are taught to be Afraid not to Believe and even have friends, family, governments kill for not Believing has got to be almost impossible. It seems like all we can do is Ban it as a foreign government (which it is) like Samoa and sanction every Muslim country from our travel, trade, market etc.

  5. Flavius Claudius Iulianus says

    Oct 14, 2019 at 2:00 pm

    It’s a mistake to believe that Islam is ‘reformable.’ Partly to blame for this mistaken view is the successful evolution of other religions. Yes, Christianity and Judaism have changed, evolved and reformed but Islam is not ‘reformable,’ never will be. As the well-informed know, a central tenet of Islam is that Mohammad is the last prophet and his word is the last word. Therefore, any reinterpretation of the literal words of Mohammad is a big no-no. Written directly into the Koran are the words of Allah, “[t]his day I have perfected for you your religion …” To alter what Allah has perfected would be blasphemous. The literal interpretation has always been and will always be considered the ‘strongest’ reading of the Islamic scriptures, and therefore will always be deemed the correct reading.

    Even if Islam were ‘reformable,’ do we want the West to be involved in no less than five-hundred years of religious wars? (That is the length of time it took Europe to resolve the Catholic-Protestant divide.) And, if I may remind the reader, Islam has already been engaged in internecine conflicts/war for most of its history.

    As soon as one tries to reform Islam, one begins the process of creating a whole new religion. The landscape of Middle Eastern religions is littered with spin-offs from Islam. (Some consider themselves to still be Muslims and others no longer.) A brief sampling: the Baha’i faith, the Ahmadis, the Druze, the Ismailis, the Alawites, etc.

    And most of those few Islamic reformers that we see are not undertaking any real reforms; they are engaging in “sophisticated taqiyya,” because, in the end, they are all Islamic supremacists.

    The only effective way to deal with Islam is isolation and defense. Left to their own machinations, isolated Islamic societies weaken and shrink, and become less of a threat to the rest of humanity.

  6. Walter Sieruk says

    Oct 14, 2019 at 2:32 pm

    To present yet another view of the subject of “reforming Islam ” by a former Muslim later converted to Christ.

    So on the topic of a reformation within Islam, a very different yet possible valid and true view on this had been explain by the Christian, Nabeel Qureshi ,who was in the past was a Muslim .He wrote in his book which is entitled ANSWERING JIHAD wrote about the suggestion “that Islam needs a reformation .What they may not realize is that radical Islam is the Islamic reformation. This might sound shocking, but consider: Just as the Protestant Reformation was an attempt to raze centuries of Catholic tradition and return to the canonical text, so radical Islam is an attempt to raze centuries of traditions of various schools of Islamic thought and return to the canonical text of the Quran and Muhammad’s life. This desire to return to the original form of Islam can be seen not only in the words of Sayyid Qutb, but also in his method. He focused almost entirely on references to the Quran. it is true also of the Muslim Brotherhood and ISIS today, whose publications and proclamations are punctuated by references to the Quran and Hadith literature. Radical Muslim organizations are explicit in their aim to reform Islam.” page 75. Further on pages 79,80 the author makes his case clear by writing that “Radical Islam is the Islamic reformation . The endeavor to modernize Islam and make it relevant to the twenty -first century is called progressive Islam. Progressive Muslim thought leaders, though few in number and limited in influence are present and are working to recreate Islam’s religious framework from within. Indeed, that is what it would take for Islam to become devoted to peace – not reformation but reimagination.

  7. Westman says

    Oct 14, 2019 at 3:23 pm

    Well, she’s right about the Hadith containing fraud. However, most Muslims believe its narrators so any real “reformation” must consider it as “gospel”.

  8. somehistory says

    Oct 14, 2019 at 3:57 pm

    The ***moslim***woman is either very confused about what she believes, or she is a pathological liar.

    I have one point of disagreement. “This is not beneficial to anyone, except the fake reformers themselves.”

    Lying and deceit, remaining in the clutches of satan by remaining moslim…even if one does not wish to be called such by others…will never “benefit” the liar for islam. Even if he/she makes money from the practice. Giving one’s soul over to satan is a losing proposition…always. Lying to deceive is what satan the devil does and these “fake reformers,” are doing the same.

  9. DHazard says

    Oct 14, 2019 at 4:25 pm

    So how did Christians (in the beginning, Catholics) go from burning heretics to courting their enemies? They went in a series of steps. But they didn’t have Islam’s huge problem. The Quran says that it is the direct word of God and therefore perfect. So it’s just a matter of whether Muslims in large will ever admit the Quran had some human intervention involved, which introduced errors. This is just a half way step but would be the best the World can expect from their challenged children.

  10. keya says

    Oct 14, 2019 at 5:23 pm

    She is still a Muslim. So cannot be trusted. I will only trust an ex muslim.

  11. FireFox says

    Oct 15, 2019 at 3:16 am

    No reform will ever happen without Islam collapsing like a house of cards.
    The quran is god allah’s word – who will change that?
    Bad enough that allah: failed miserably in science and biology, succumbs to Mohammed’s bartering skills; caters to Mohammad’s every earthly desire, changes his mind and abrogates his old truths, and even allows Aisha’s sheep to eat some of his revelations – it is still allah’s direct complete perfect and FINAL word delivered to the final prophet and perfect example of a man.
    Not one word can change, for if it does, the entirety of Islam collapses for the sham that it is.
    So believers must follow allah’s every command: to believe themselves superior to the infidel kufar, to hate, fight, and subjugate the entire human race, to treat women as inferiors, to hate Jews and Christians, to kill unbelievers and apostates, to take sex slaves, to practice expansionism and terror, to lie for Islam, to defy multiculturalism, and to shun thinking and freedom.
    And so all moslems must surrender to the cult and never even attempt to change the direct complete perfect and FINAL word delivered to the final prophet and perfect example of a man.
    Islam is the eternal trap of moslems and an eternal threat to mankind.
    Islam is the greatest evil and insidious cancer ever thrust upon this world.
    For everywhere it goes, discord, division, conflict, terror, and death follow.
    It belongs with itself, back in the desert from which it came.

  12. Vann Boseman says

    Oct 15, 2019 at 7:12 am

    This is an outstanding article to me. Islam and many leaders of liberals have a long term view and medium term view of getting what they want. This is a powerful strategy given the general modern desire in the west for immediate gratification. The difference between the strategy of these particular liberals and Islam is the comfort with and use of deception.

    The nature of Spencer’s revelation of his interaction with Qudosi is striking in that it reveals a style of lying that is familiar to me in viewing the actions of Muslims that seek to lie to promote Islam. This style creates an authoritarian straw man of something in the past, speaking of it at a later date only in a matter to show Islam or their personal advancement in a positive light, and showing no intention of accurately portraying past events. One question that immediately comes to mind is that is whether the Muslims that do this reflect a truth that Islam has a higher than normal rate of delusional people who are incapable of realistically remembering the past, or that many in Islam profoundly embrace deceit to the core of their being in a way that is totally alien to those in the West?

    History is important because if you do not know where you have been, then you cannot know who you are or why you are who you are. So perhaps a more important question is what happens to a person psychologically when you knowingly embrace deceit on one issue promoting deceit as a deeply, as a part of your religion, or in the case of Islam, many issues? I think it would be arrogantly unappreciative of the diversity of human experience to give a specific answer, but I can imagine someone leading such a life might be more prone to hurt themselves or others. Certainly a person leading such a life deeply embracing deceit will tend to encounter negative consequences that could not be foreseen by anyone even if some of the consequences may be anticipated, especially by a professional.

    Who are the people who, like Qudosi knowingly lie on behalf of Islam? Importantly, these people have probably disqualified themselves to give an answer to themselves, or others.

  13. jca reid says

    Oct 15, 2019 at 7:15 am

    The term “Muslim Reformers” is an oxymoron. Islam CANNOT reform. It’s laid down in the Koran, & probably the hadiths, that Islam cannot change as one is changing “Allah’s/God’s” words commandments as told to the “Big M”. Want to change the world & make it better for Everyone? – then do away with Islam. As a PS, there is this Muslim term “bida”, I think. Basically Muslims have to stick to the old ways of the 7th. Century. Therefore NO: watches, pens, papers. computers, internal combustion engines, jet airplanes, TVs, modern medicines/treatments, etc. etc.. Now, if a Muslim is doing this he/she is committing “Takfiri”. They’re then taken before their Imam & ordered to, “return to the fold”. If they don’t, their throats are to be cut A good solution, well it’s a start, cut they’ve to cut the throats of hundreds of millions of their own followers’ throats. Islam is a quite correctly called a cancer.

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