How easy is it to be a liberal Muslim?

It is comfortable as long as one stays silent. But this attitude often comes not from resolving the questions of faith but from a fading interest in religion, and it is more honest to examine the differences seriously and then decide.

Among Muslims today there are also many shades, from very strict to almost secular. The real question is where the liberal attitude comes from. Often it is not the result of a serious effort to resolve the differences between the various schools. It tends to grow out of a quiet loss of interest in religion.

An open-minded, generous person finds it hard to join one school against all the others. But instead of looking closely at the differences, such a person avoids the question and says that everyone is somehow right. It would be more honest to examine the paths and decide which one is right, or to say openly that none of them is. Whoever strikes out everything that divides until only the common ground is left almost always ends up at the secular end.

This path is easy mainly as long as one stays silent. Then no one minds what one believes privately or how one lives. Only those who speak openly about differences in belief stir up unrest.

The greater cost shows itself in morality. Morality only stays alive when it is tied to God. As long as it is linked to belief in God, it is like a valid coin. Once that link is cut, it easily becomes hollow. Something similar happened in the history of Europe, when many remained Christians in name while their lives were no longer carried by faith.

The children are affected most of all. Parents may find a kind of peace for themselves in this attitude. But they then lack a shared foundation, rooted in faith, on which to speak with their children. And so generations grow up in the same family who hardly understand one another any more.