Momentum is building within the Muslim world to re-examine what had seemed immutable tenets of the faith, to challenge what had been taken as literal truths and to open wide the doors of interpretation (ijtihad) that some schools of Islam tried to close centuries ago.

great must-read article, including more discussion of the Turkish project to re-evaluate the hadith corpus.

I long for a Muslim environment that is spiritually fresher, deeper, and untainted by a Saudi-style conservatism or bitterness over the war on terror.

read the whole thing!