The foundation of Islamic pluralism can be summed up in one indisputable verse: “There can be no compulsion in religion” (2:256). This means that the antiquated partitioning of the world into spheres of belief (dar al-Islam) and unbelief (dar al-Harb), which was first developed during the Crusades but which still maintains its grasp on the imaginations of Traditionalist theologians, is utterly unjustifiable. It also means that the ideology of those Islamic puritans like the Wahhabists who wish to return Islam to some imaginary ideal of original purity must be once and for all abandoned. Islam
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