Ayaan Hirsi Ali calls for an Islamic reformation and draws connections to the Protestant Reformation -- urbanization, technological advances, and the best interest of European political leaders primed the Protestant Reformation and Muslim-majority nations are now in the same position. She posits 5 theses for an Islamic reformation, but so far she hasn't mentioned some of the glaring differences between the PR and a possible IR.

I would like to point out that the PR returned Christianity to a fundamentalist practice "Just the facts, ma'am," getting rid of all unnecessary and additional religious doctrine in favor of following what the Bible alone says. This would be the equivalent of tossing out the hadith and all fatwas and returning to practice solely what the Koran teaches. However, the author quotes various passages from the Koran that center around violence for seemingly small/ambiguous offenses, hellfire, and calls to warfare. This is a part of the DNA of the Koran, so returning to the fundamentals of the Koran would not reform Islam in the way that returning to the fundamentals of the Bible reformed Christianity.

I'm not saying that similar passages are not in the Bible, they are. But it is pretty clearly delineated where Israel as a political entity stops and where being a member of the chosen people is no longer defined by a physical condition but a spiritual position. Israel as a political nation was consumed with defining who was an infidel (deserving of death, slavery, fire and brimstone) and who was a member of God's chosen people and thus deserving of God's blessing and prosperity. In fact, Jewish people seeing the long-awaited Messiah as a political leader was one of the reasons they rejected Jesus's claims to be the Messiah--he himself rejected the calls to be a political leader in favor of being a spiritual leader.

The problem that Christianity has with fundamentalist Christians is the same one that Islam has with fundamentalist Muslims--applying spiritual practice to political structure. The difference seems to be that the New Testament of the Bible clearly states that "our battle is not against flesh and blood", that "our citizenship is in heaven" and not of this world. So it is easy to refute fundamentalist Christian practice using the Bible itself. But can the same be done with the Koran? Indeed, it would be a much easier struggle if there was a New Testament, a reforming Messiah in the Koran.