There Is No Islam

Jeb Koogler reminds us of a crucial point:

Religion does not speak and therefore cannot be essentialized. To talk of Islam as though it has a correct interpretation, i.e. “Islam says…”, is to begin from a poor understanding of religious hermeneutics. It is human beings who subjectively, and in a continuously changing way, interpret religious texts and provide accounts as to “correct” religious dogma and practice.

We often witness this attempt to essentialize Islam in contexts like this one: “What does Islam say about killing apostates?” This is a nonsensical question. “Islam” says nothing about the issue. Rather, the different schools of Islamic jurisprudence say something, groups of Indonesia and Saudi and Pakistani Muslims say various things, classical Sufis say other things, and so forth. We cannot speak about a definable essence — or correct meaning — of a religion with 1.2 billion adherents.