No, that is quite easy to understand.
It's the immutability of scripture and of its interpretation that I have trouble with. That would demand not only inspiration, but also some sort of divine warranty that the specific religious message is solid and encompassing to a degree that I don't think is at all possible in reality. There is a reason why even hardcore Christians and Orthodox Jews have learned to reject slavery and some sorts of corporal punishment, for instance.
While I understand that some Muslims (most? I really don't know) will take offense at the very idea, scripture will not and cannot be valid until the end of times (or the coming of the Mahdi, I suppose). The world is far too complex and goes through much too powerful changes to allow that. And that is a good thing, too, for faith is no reason not to grown and learn along the generations.
Well, that is the case. In the Quran god dives that warranty. But there is something else, which makes it also likely, that as you may already know, memorizing the entire Quran is something that a lot of Muslims do. In the old days, it was even more crucial, because if you have lots of people who memorize the entire Quran, it's hard to change something in it, without them realizing.
The Quran set rules, moral stuff, there is nothing that changed that makes morals change. People's behavior change yes, but just because for example in the past it was okay to have slaves, doesn't mean they were right in that. Right is right and wrong is wrong in anytime. And there is exceptions, which would be identified or easily concluded that in this particular case right and wrong will be different than usual, because of the different circumstances. An obvious example, if someone attacked or threatened my life, and i killed him while defending myself, not intentionally but i was defending my life(self defense in other words), then it's not wrong. So, aside from such situations, right and wring is the same in any time.
I'm afraid that amounts to much the same.
Not at all. The difference in interpretations result in completely different outcomes. It's only the idea of changing rules we believe the Quran says. I mean if we interpret a verse, and can't see any other possible meaning to the verse, we can't change the outcome we take from that. If there is another interpretation, then that solves it. Before someone becomes a Muslim, he must make sure that he learns all the rules, to make sure he agrees with all of them. If there are some he don't agree with, he should try to make sure that there is no possibility that there is another meaning for the verse and so, if there isn't, he shouldn't become a Muslim.
I'm not sure I understand why not.
Because we are not assured that we understand all the teachings correctly, we are only assured that they will always be available for us, like they always used to, without any less information. But for example, there are lots of Hadiths that are wrong and added, which can result in wrong things, which means we are not properly following our religion. Also, there are traits that is common with muslims today, that are against the teachings of Islam. So, our implementation today isn't perfect neither.
