Islam as we know needs reform according to ex-Muslim Ayaan Hirsi Ali. 

Ali argues for five amendments to the faith. “Only when these five things are recognized as inherently harmful and when they are repudiated and nullified,” she writes, “will a true Muslim reformation have been achieved.”

Those five notions are:

• The infallibility of the Prophet Mohammed and the literal interpretation of the Koran

• The idea that life after death is more important than life on earth

• Sharia law

• Allowing any Muslim to enforce ideas of right and wrong on another

• Jihad, or holy war

Rejecting these ideas, some of which date to the 7th century, is a shocking proposition to the faithful.

“The biggest obstacle to change within the Muslim world,” Ali writes, “is precisely its suppression of the sort of critical thinking I am attempting here.”

Many highly respected individuals across the Muslim world are speaking out, none so more important than the President of Egypt, Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi. His recent interview by the Wall Street Journal is both revealing and revolutionary in regards to the beginning of a new interpretation of the Koran.. 

“There are misconceptions and misperceptions about the real Islam,” now-President Sisi tells me during a two-hour interview in his ornate, century-old presidential palace in Heliopolis. “Religion is guarded by its spirit, by its core, not by human beings. Human beings only take the core and deviate it to the right or left.”

Does he mean to say, I ask, that members of the Muslim Brotherhood are bad Muslims? “It’s the ideology, the ideas,” he replies.

“The real Islamic religion grants absolute freedom for the whole people to believe or not believe. Never does Islam dictate to kill others because they do not believe in Islam. Never does it dictate that [Muslims] have the right to dictate [their beliefs] to the whole world. Never does Islam say that only Muslims will go to paradise and others go to hell.”