Could Agnostic Islam Stop ISIS' Terrorism?

Another Paris style attack in Jakarta, Indonesia by the ISIS! More innocent lives harmed by such ruthless terror. While the world searches for ways and means to stop the ISIS, my friend referred an article to me – an interview of Hassan Radwan by the Clarion Project.

Clarion Project is an organization that promotes tolerance and moderation to challenge extremism. 1 Hassan Radwan is an agnostic Muslim writer, activist and the founder of the Facebook discussion group "Agnostic Muslims and Friends."

Hassan Radwan suggests that agnostic Islam is the best means to stop ISIS. How could agnostic Islam stop ISIS?

Hassan Radwan recommends a distinctive methodology to understand the Quran - to fundamentally negate Quran's infallibility and interpret it based on human reason and conscience tethered to tolerance and moderation ingrained in the goodness of present time and culture. Read this rather lengthy quotation scrupulously so to understand Radwan, "The only way to defeat extremism is to get to the root cause. Groups like ISIS are merely a symptom. The root cause in my opinion is the belief in the infallibility of the Quran. Yes, of course I am aware there are many other factors such as the often foolish and misguided policy of some Western governments towards the Middle East as well as many other social and political factors such as the rise of the Salafi form of Islam. But they alone cannot account for the existence of the harsh puritanical and supremacist form of Islam that seeks to impose political and religious authority throughout the world...

...But as long as we don't tackle the belief that the Quran is the infallible words of God then no matter how many problems are solved or inequalities righted there will always be another group seeking to impose the word of God against reason and conscience.

This is why when you defeat one group another even more desperate rises from their ashes. The idea that the Quran is fallible will of course come as a terrible shock to most Muslims brought up as we are to believe the Quran is the perfect and infallible word of God, but I firmly believe that once we Muslims get passed this shock and emotional reaction and begin to reflect more rationally we will see that in fact this is the only way to save the real soul of Islam from the extremists who are in fact the ones destroying it.

In actual fact the Qur'an never uses words like infallible, perfect nor miraculous. The reason this belief seems to have gained ground is because of the challenge the Quran makes to "bring something like it." Though being unable to imitate something doesn't of course mean it is either perfect or infallible. The Quran does say it is from God, but then again what I'm saying doesn't contradict that. I accept the Quran was inspired by God. It's just not verbatim his actual speech.

Revelation and inspiration is a mystery. I believe that to a lesser or greater extent we can all be inspired in different ways. How we express this inspiration is determined by our environment, personality and limitations. Whatever inspiration Prophet Muhammad received, it had to be expressed though his language, his person, his character and his culture. This must be borne in mind when reading the Quran. They are human words attempting to convey spiritual experiences beyond human language and conceptualization.

Thus we as Muslims can draw wisdom and benefit from the Quran as long as we apply our reason and conscience. Yes, of course our reason and conscience are fallible, but so is the Quran, particularly when one appreciates that it was formed by a human being in a very different time and context as our own today" (Emphasis Mine).2