Faith Autonomy Quotes
One of the interesting similarities between Islam and Judaism is that there is no intermediary between a person and God. There is no hierarchy of validity of interpretation other than what culturally people tend to want to respect clerics. Different cultural subgroups respect different clerical leaders and in many cases, no leaders at all. The latter is the majority in Judaism but still the minority among Muslims, The Baroness is one of the Islamic Reformers who gives little or no credence or respect to intermediaries especially males.
This quotation illustrates the difficulty when a jurisdiction adopts an established religion. From a freedom point of view, it is bad that Hamas insisted on all these rules for Muslims, but when they insist that Christians (and others) follow them as well, it becomes very difficult to have a harmonious society.
There were times and places where the Ottoman Turks forced Islam upon conquered peoples. However, much of the time, they operated with a pragmatic tolerance so that they could govern smoothly. The non-Muslims were always second class citizens however. See {635095} for another example.
