According to Islam's law, you are already Muslim when you are born as a child of Muslim parents. It is genetic, so to speak
islam already possesses and opwns the still unfold future, that means.
People have strange perception of Islamic identity, and time and again make the mistake to comapare it to western culture, translated into Arabic. they do no realise to what degree it is very, totally, completely ALIEN indeed. The comparison with the events in Wittenberg just is an example. AL is totally, completely, 100%ly, absolutely right, and many international academic experts on Islam agree, that you can'T pick away some unwanted aspects of Islam and then you have a reformated Islam, like you had a reformated church in Europe after Luther. You have something totally different indeed.
Muhammad wanted to rule the world even beyond his death. For that he taught rules and laws that declare it illegal to leave Islam, seek answers outside the Quran, live a live outside Ummah, and so on. He also knew that only totalitarian unity is the guarantee for maximum strnegth of a social network and community. what I call the massive "cultural penetration power" of Islam is coming from it's neverchanging structure and theology, even it'S inability to change and reformate. It means stagnation, but it also means maximum power inside the limits and barriers of these stagnated communal order, and maximum resisting power towards the outside of that community. The bad news about totalitarianism is: it works so extremely well and forms the strongest of all possible social communities - only the price for the individual is hefty. Think of ants, and other state-building insects - the single unit is nothing, the community is an almost irresistable force. - These rules and laws of Islam are considered to be valid once and for all. These are essential and substantial and most basic parts of Islamic ideology, of it's laws and theological demands. If you say they are no longer part of Islam, you are not talking about islam at all. It only is all Islam, or no Islam at all.
I stayed a longer time in Turkey: Kurdistan and Anatolia. The poor heartland, where around 80% of Turkish people are living. This is not the Westernized tourist metrpoles that give the imprerssion of Turkey being a Western state. This is the turkish reality, harsh and extrneely poor. for many it is a fight for most essential survival. Plus in the East, there is war and coinstant fighting, sometimes noticed by world medias, sometimes not. And here, ultra-orthodox Islam always was alive, and was hiding from Attaturk's reach and attempt to supress it. It is totally wrong to think that laicism ever was in control of Turkish Islam - Islam was not dead, but was hiding, sleeping during a winter, and now has awakened again - and the military and Attaturk and laicism was not able to do anything about it to prevent it. I have repeatedly explained some impressions from those times that I collected, I must not repeat all that again. I just refer to it again to illustrate how unmoving and undividable Islamic ideology is. western liberties and rights and demcoracy - are no match for that determined attidue of mind.
People here sometimes attack my oncompromised stand against Islam and try to label me as being blind towards Islam's true nature. but
I insist I am not so determined because I do not know Islam, but because I know it's ideological drive, it's political motivation, and it's heart and essence so well now, both by theoretic study and experience in real life.
The most competent critic of Islam that I do know of (both in english and German language) is H.-P. Raddatz, a studied orientalist and internationally reputated Islam-expert, and the ammounts of background references in his books both to Christian and church and Islamic theology and history as well are monumental, making his voluminous books very demanding to read. It is not by random chance that his extremely detailed knowledge also makes him the most unforgiving and uncompromising critics of Islam that I have ever red. Knowledge about Islam must turn you into a sceptic and critic of it sooner or later. John Paul II. was a layman concerning Islam, and consequently his policies towards it were naive and led to growing distortions in the perception of islam and the chances of a dialogue. Benedict is an intimate expert of Islam, a reputation he has held since long inside the church: and he has taken a far more realistic and thus: tougher stand towards Islam. Islam needs the uneducation of people, both amongst it's followers, and the infidels, thus it limits education to the Quran and Hadith, and has ruled out all sciences and arts that are knowledge-oriented and not exclusively focussing on pragmatic uses. And thus it tries to deceive and hide and prevent any objective information of infidels about it's true inner core and mechanisms. Islam does not lead to higher knowledge - it prevents knowledge. What wisdom means in the teachings of Jesus or Buddha - is dogmatic obedience and believing in the teaching of Muhammad.
Raddatz is also one of the most-hated troublemakers and saboteurs of the "dialogue", killing illusions of western naivists with simple overwhelming academical proof and evidence taken from Islam's scriptures and history itself. No wonder that european lefties love that he had fled to the US, and is threatend by Muslim murders. there has been anti-raddatz hate-sites in the past, just wishing him death and all hell - and run not by Muslims, but by western dialogue-drunken "pacifists".
Too bad his books are not available in English, Avon Lady, you would love him. His books are also excellent reference works.
His coreworks are "Von Gott zu Allah?", "Von Allah zum Terror?" and "Allahs Schleier-Die Frau im Kampf der Kulturen", these three books are forming a trilogy of thopurough academical analysis on Islamic history, ideology and scripture. There also is "Die türkische Gefahr. Risiken und Chancen", and just released: "Iran: Persische Hochkultur und irrationale Macht", which I still have not red myself. If you read just the trilogy, you will be equipped with a very fundamental, clear-seeing and illusion-killing knowledge about Islamic history, scripture and theology. I recommend these three books before any others that I know in English or German. I red many other books, too, of course, but these i consider to be the best. He also is unforgiving in his criticism of the west, and the church, btw. It is hard to accuse him of one-sided bias. Islam's strength not only derives from it totalitarian monolithism, but also from the weakness of illusions of the West - Raddatz makes that hurting truth very clear. He refuses to accept irrational compromise, and plain lies.
Before next time somebody accuses me of not being informed on real Islam - make sure your own knowledge is at least of that standard.