I have argued differently.
Quietly, in cities in Asia, Africa, and the Mid East, there has been tremendous, even explosive growth and modernization. The urban dwellers have embraced this change and have adapted their lives and Islam to make it all fit together.
There was no Martin Luther. There was no Pope, no Vatican.
Along came Usama bin Laden who took up the task of Islamic counter reformation. He did not seek a new direction, he sought to destroy all the modernization, the intolerable change, the adaptation. Usama bin Ladin sought followers to force reversion to a fundamentalist Islam that had not existed for many years outside the primitive areas of Saudi Arabia.
He found followers. They go by Al Qaeda, Muslim Brother Hood and Daish. The counter reformation was not successful, even by force of conquering arms. The mass of modernized, evolved Islam rejected the counter reformation. .
Violence or not, Sharia, the political and legal framework of Islam must be rejected. It comes before and after Osama Bin Laden.
Sharia is still in use in the “modern” Islamic countries.
It is the antithesis of our constitutional democracy.
Saudi funding of Whabism as well is a disaster.
“The counter reformation was not successful, even by force of conquering arms. The mass of modernized, evolved Islam rejected the counter reformation.”
What is your example of “mass of modernized, evolved Islam”?
Turkey? No, that doesn’t work. It’s becoming more Islamist by the day.
Indonesia? No, that doesn’t work. It too is becoming more Islamist by the day.
Seriously, where do you find this “modernized, evolved Islam”?
Along came Barack Hussein Obama who took up the task of Islamic counter reformation in America. He is even more evil than Usama bin Laden and his spawns, including ISIS.