Thread by @DrJavadTHashmi

Your "thought experiment" can hardly justify that name & is unsophisticated truck driver-level rhetoric that does not befit you, at least from what I have seen elsewhere as far as your intellectual potential (which as yet has to be reached). It will take all of two seconds...1/

https://twitter.com/XGONDALX/status/1387108726591705091

of thought for me to answer your challenge. You raise two simple points: 1) hand amputation & 2) sex slavery in the Qur'an. Both of these are ahistorical & decontextualized lines of attack. As for the first, it is well-accepted that the punishment of hand amputation... 2/

preceded the Qur'an & Islam: "Remarkably, not only stoning and hand-amputation, but nearly the entire range of Islamic adultery and theft legislation have pre-Islamic parallels" (Young 2005). As Islamic reformists have long argued, had the punishment of the time been prison... 3/

as opposed to hand amputation, then we can safely assume that this would likely have been found in the Qur'an instead. What is uniquely *Qur'anic* in this regard, however, is the verse that follows the hand-amputation verse (Q 5:38): 4/

"But whosoever repents after his wrongdoing, and makes amends, God will relent unto him. Truly God is Forgiving, Merciful" (Q 5:39). This is the truly unique Qur'anic aspect; whereas the punishments are incidental & historical, the Qur'anic theme of forgiveness & mercy... 5/

as well as reform, rehabilitation, & reconciliation carries throughout the Qur'anic message, including even its discussion of murder (contrary to popular opinion, the Qur'an calls for forgiveness & amnesty here) & even war (here again, forgiveness & amnesty are the ideal)... 6/

How you could not see why a modern Muslim would see this as a valuable message is beyond me. Yet, you stick with your ahistorical & presentist analysis, which is of course tied intimately to the Islamist & fundamentalist discourse as a parasite needs its host. 7/

Coming to "sex slavery," you are again being ahistorical, presentist, & decontextualist, since this is the name of your game. What is really being discussed is concubinage, a relationship that has existed for a very long time & cannot be reduced to mere "sex slavery." 8/

Here too the Qur'an did not introduce slavery nor concubinage. Instead, throughout the Qur'an we find a liberatory message, "And what will make you know what the steep path is? It is the freeing of a slave" (Q 90:12-3). A multitude of verses stress the virtue of emancipation. 9/

Contrary to the traditional narrative, the Qur'an even closes the door to slave acquisition through war (Q 47:4). Although the Qur'an stops short of full abolition of slavery, it neither sanctions any form of slave acquisition, leaving us to conclude that... 10/

what is being discussed are those slaves already in bondage, bought & sold as they are. Even here, however, the Qur'an calls to emancipate them. No less than William G. Clarence Smith in his monumental study expressed surprise that early Muslims did not go on to appreciate... 11/

this emancipatory ethic. I argue that they did, but they unfortunately limited this to fellow Muslims & were blinded by theological bigotry towards non-Muslims, thereby sustaining the slave trade. Coming back to the point, however, it is not difficult to see why a reformist 12/

like me or @AkyolinEnglish would find inspiration in the Qur'an for forgiveness & mercy--as well as an emancipatory ethic. So, when we read the Qur'an in this sensible, contextualized, & historical way, we are not "enabling Islamism" as you say, but rather... 13/

striking at its very heart, using what they claim to follow ("Qur'an is our law") against them. The very reasonableness of this interpretation also strikes at your narrative, which--like I said--is a parasite to its Islamist host. 14/
@AkyolinEnglish
@KhalilAndani