Get set to be bored stiff again, or just skip my rant...

Well, before you dance on the grave of the Medieval Church of Rome, Rome herself was not sacked by Christians. The breakdown of civilization as Europe had known if for centuries was achieved by pagan tribes which adopted over time, among other things such as their art and architecture, the dominant religion of Rome at the time of its fall as well. Last I checked, most historians agree that what little was left of Roman civilization by the time the "Dark Ages" rolled around was to be found within the confines of the church. As such, it was from inside the church itself that the Reformation was born. Where people find an excuse then to call the church to task for preserving civilization I have no idea. Before Christianization, many pagan cultures considered it the height of nobility and morality to visit your neighbor’s homeland, kill him, rob him of his goods, and slog off to home with them. It was an activity venerated in song and poem, and set forth even as a religious value. It should come as a surprise to no one then that they retained for a long time certain aspects of those values despite the slow spread of Christianity through those cultures in the following centuries.

The Protestant reformation doesn't really have any counterpart in Islam, since the seat of Islamic power has not been captured by foreign powers and the religion changed in fundamental ways by its inheritors in order to serve more suitably for them and their culture as opposed to Rome’s.

Possibly it would be all for the best if Islam went through a Renaissance, or Age of Enlightenment, but it is not due for any sort of internal reformation anytime soon that I can see. It’s hard to imagine what previous civilization they could possibly hearken back to in order to fuel a Renaissance. Islam itself represents the pinnacle of that region’s achievements anywhere at all in its history. Ideas that were once rather progressive in comparison to their neighbors have become hopelessly outmoded, and yet they appear largely unwilling to abandon them.

Nominally secular governments such as the old USSR and modern China's do not exactly bode well for any supposed intrinsic superiority of secularism over religion as a cultural norm anyhow, so possibly that's not the real key to progress either.

It is like pulling teeth to get people to get past their prejudices, their need to idenntify people and label them as 'bad', and see that the only real way forward is cooperation, compromise, and coalition building between various groups rather than singling out the ones that are to be considered, by definition, wrong. Where Islam is concerned, it seems apparant at least to me that the way forward is not so much in any sort of religious reform, as in bringing their people, who already are interested in having more direct influence within their own governments by the way, the support they need to make the change to more democractic institutions.

Once their people have power firmly in their own grasp, they will be in a position to shape their churches in the way they see fit, rather than the other way around.