80fi nding a way forward on the practical prob lem of
reform.
However, I’m worried that progress on the prac-
tical prob lem will always be impeded by inertia
on the intellectual one. Any position arrived at
through this (granted, more appealing and more
modern) approach to interpretation seems unstable,
because fundamentalism can always rise again.
And it will tend to rise again, to the degree that
anyone feels the impulse to hew closely to the
texts. What can you say to a person who thinks,
“Okay, Maajid, you may be smarter than I am, but
I just want to know what the Qur’an actually says.
It says here that I should hate and fear infi dels
and take none as friends. So I’m just going to go
with that and not split hairs.”
There are many places in the Qur’an and
ahadith where the most straightforward reading
seems to yield something akin to the clear prohibi-
tion against eating bacon. Consider apostasy: Have
you found a way to lift the stigma from this thought
crime, or at least make it a nonpunishable offense?Nawaz Yes, we’ve actually published a paper on that.
I didn’t write it. Dr. Hasan did. You saw his fatwa
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