Islam Hotline in Britian.

This article points out some ofthe problms that arise when trying to define Islam. I thought the middle portion of the article was interesting, because I never realized that there really is no central authority for Muslims--so the comparison to a Muslim "Vatican" was really off-the-mark, at least as Islam is described in this very article.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8078344.stm

I had known that there was no real authority in Islam. For example, I don't believe there is a sanctioning body for clergy--if I'm not mistaken, a mullah or imam is someone who through holiness has earned that title by popular acclaim, not by a rigorous course of study under a body charged with preserving orthodoxy. The sole authority is the Prophet (which I suppose has the analog in our religion in those who believe in sola scriptura).

I tried to read the article with some sense of how it might be received, and I suppose I felt like it sounded like the Islamic equivalent of Bishop Spong announcing that he could do away with 90% of what people think is important to believe, while citing academic theologians who back him up on his dismantling of the traditional faith. Because it really did strike me that to say "well, 90% of this stuff no one agrees on" is roughly translated as "90% of this stuff, there's no point taking a position on." And the appeal to a university as a religious authority struck me, as a Catholic looking at Notre Dame or Marquette or Georgetown, as comical.

That's not to say that the hotline has it wrong--I have no idea. But it hardly seemed like a young Muslim would be as inspired in his faith by something so tepid as this, when the competition is a fiery imam who seems passionate and certain and not at all wishy washy. This article seems more inspired to comfort lukewarm Anglicans.

I don't know if there isn't just too much internal tension within Islam to be able to expect passionate and committed orthodoxy that isn't also unnerving to a Western secular democracy.

I found this out when helping my daughter research the stance on abortion by the three major religons, Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Judaism and Islam do not have a central authority and, actually most Christians faiths don't either. Being Catholic, one tends to assume the other religons run like the Church. With Judaism and Islam, it is more of religous scholars issuing opinons on religous matters.

With regard to Islam, the generally accepted view is that a fetus becomes a Muslim 100 days after conception, so after 3 months of pregnancy it would be considered murder to perform an abortion. However, I did find Islamic sites that professed a belief that it occurs upon conception.

The point is, there is nothing like the authoritarian structure of the Catholic Church. Which may explain why it so often attacked, because it presents a stationary target. The publication of the Catechists, approved by the Pope, provideds written evidence of Catholic Doctrine.