History is being made. For the first time in 1,400 years, a document is being published that represents "a revolutionary reinterpretation of Islam." 

Turkey's (a secular nation, by the way) Department of Religious Affairs has commissioned a team of theologians to carry out a revision of the Hadith, Islam's second most sacred text after the Koran.  Posed on a knife edge (just think of what happened when a Danish newspaper ran some cartoons), the team is trying to determine which sayings (or "hadiths") where from Muhammad and which ones where added later on.

The BBC quotes an example by Prof Mehmet Gormez, an offical in the Department of Religious Affairs:

"There are some messages that ban women from travelling for three days or more without their husband's permission and they are genuine.

"But this isn't a religious ban. It came about because in the Prophet's time it simply wasn't safe for a woman to travel alone like that. But as time has passed, people have made permanent what was only supposed to be a temporary ban for safety reasons."

The project justifies such bold interference in the 1,400-year-old content of the Hadith by rigorous academic research.

Prof Gormez points out that in another speech, the Prophet said "he longed for the day when a woman might travel long distances alone".

So, he argues, it is clear what the Prophet's goal was.

Not one to stop half way, the nation of Turkey goes one step further: it has "given theological training to 450 women, and appointed them as senior imams called 'vaizes'." That's right. It has appointed women as senior imams in a religion that sees women as nothing!!

Can you see the radical impact of this?!!! 

"This is kind of akin to the Christian Reformation," he [Fadi Hakura, an expert on Turkey from Chatham House in London, Turkey] says.

"Not exactly the same, but if you think, it's changing the theological foundations of [the] religion."

WOW!! If this "new Islam" spreads over the Muslim world, it will have an immediate and major impact on the way they interact with the Western world. Not to mention the changes in Human Rights that would come about has a result of the new interpretation…..   

Wow… my mind is reeling with the implications of such a reformations…

Note: This article reminds me of another article I recently read in the Jerusalem Post entitled "The development of a jihadist's mind".  This article was written by a Muslim who originally joined a Jihadist group only to realize the error of his ways. He now works to reform Islam as a peace religion by flagging dangerous passages and reinterpreting them to be nonviolent. Similar to what is happening in Turkey.