I am in complete agreement with Mr. Sadiq on the main points. There is only one issue on which I want to add some thoughts. I know I'm drawing a tangent here and it’s not the main topic of discussion but I think its relevant. While discussing why a number of relatively educated people are leaning
towards a more liberal version of Islam, a lot of people say that that is because "Islam has been hijacked by extremist elements". Lately, especially
since the atrocities of 9/11, its being said with much more frequency than before and I have seen prominent thinkers like Tariq Ali also stating it. I
have a feeling that this thesis is being taken for granted, without really examining the premises.

Has Islam really been hijacked? Is the phenomenon of intolerance something new to Islam? Can we substantiate that claim by history?

Going back some 1400 odd years, one of the most appalling incidents in the early history of Islam was the killing (dare I say massacre?) of all the
adult men in the native Jewish tribe called Banu-Quraiza. This is really a very rare-reported event. Obviously, the version presented by Islam’s
detractors maintains that it was done to assimilate total power in Madina whereas Muslim historians claim that what happened to Banu-Quraiza was
justice. Even if I totally discount the anti-Islam version and concentrate on the apologetic version of Muslim historians, the whole episode has holes
so big that you can slip a Titanic through them.

Fast forward to the era of Umar, the second caliph. I know Muslims take pride in the conquests of Islamic Armies under Umar. All I ask is, what was the express purpose of those invasions? Why did Muslims take it upon themselves to dominate half the globe by virtue of sword?

Let's talk about the turbulent times that ended in the elimination of Khilafat-e-Rashda. The wars of Jumal and Saffain consumed hundreds if not
thousands of people on an issue, which Islam claimed to have gotten rid of. Didn't people trained, taught and nurtured by prophet himself know that
Islam doesn't subscribe to tribal pride and ancestral rules? I very much doubt that. Yet they took the matter to such heights that it consumed that
state, a state that claimed to have the solution for every problem in every aspect of life, in about 40 years? Even Pakistan has lasted longer than that
with all it's problems.

Then came the ancestral dynasties of Umayyad and Abbasids and Fatmids etc. The tolerance level was such that people were getting killed and imprisoned on issues ranging from ridiculously absurd to merely trivial. Is Quran Khaliq or Makhlooq? Is there a wahi-e-khafi or not? Can anyone in his right mind waste a single minute discussing such things, let alone getting so worked up as giving a fatwa to murder the opposing party?

I grant you that there was a flicker of time where secular knowledge really took over the mainstream intellectual scene in Islamic society but,
according to what I know, it was just that, a flicker, nothing else.

The only area where you can really find tolerance in Islam is the school of thought of mystics. THEY preached and practiced tolerance. But can we say that they were mainstream Islam? Is Bulhay Shah an Islamic scholar? No one can say that after reading him. He was a humanist who happened to be a MUSLIM. He didn't denounce Islam but he didn't denounce Hindu-mat or Christianity either. He was born a Muslim so he used Islamic metaphors to convey his message. Almost same is the case of other mystics. Islam can hardly claim credit for their tolerance, after all

phook musala, pan sut lota
na phaD tasbeeh, aasa, sota
Aashiq kainday day day hooka
tark halaloN kha murdar

can not be said in a Friday sermon.

So Islam has been hijacked or is it in need to be hijacked? I think the later but my opinion is subject to correction since I am no expert in Islam
or it's history.