This is one of the most interesting articles I’ve ever read about “the development of the Jihadist mind.” It’s written by a former Jihadi, Tawfik Hamid, who carefully explains how the radicalized and how he, in the end, broke with Salafism and embraced a more tolerant and peaceful kind of Islam: his own.

Note that he became less radical when he focused solely on the Koran. It’s often said that Muslims radicals get all or most of their ‘inspiration’ to become terrorists from the Koran, but the fact of the matter is that the Koran isn’t even almost suffice to make a person believe that blowing yourself up is just dandy.

Tawfik explains that it wasn’t the Koran that radicalized him, it were other radicals and, more importantly, writings outside of the Koran.

How did he break with it? Easy: he ignored Salafist books, essays, etc. and focused purely on the Koran. Then, and this is also very important, he decided to interpret the Koran in his own, individualistic way.

Many Muslims don’t read the Koran themselves and let, instead, others tell them what the Koran says, how it should be interpreted, etc. What the Muslim world need is some kind of protestant reformation. What do I mean by that? I mean that they need a reformation which encourages people to read their own holy book, in their own time, and interpret it themselves.

That’s an important part of Protestantism: don’t forget that before Protestantism most Christians didn’t read the Bible. Instead, they had priests and bishops tell them what to believe. Once the Bible got translated in their own languages and Christians started reading it all by themselves, at home, Europe changed.

I think that this is exactly what Muslims need as well. Individualism.