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Turkey has taken a look at the Hadith and found it...unpalatable. This is very good news; I have always felt that Islam is in dire need of reform (as Christianity has reformed to it's present state of pulled teeth). From the BBC...

Turkey is preparing to publish a document that represents a revolutionary reinterpretation of Islam - and a controversial and radical modernization of the religion.

The country's powerful Department of Religious Affairs has commissioned a team of theologians at Ankara University to carry out a fundamental revision of the Hadith, the second most sacred text in Islam after the Koran.

The Hadith is a collection of thousands of sayings reputed to come from the Prophet Muhammad.

As such, it is the principal guide for Muslims in interpreting the Koran and the source of the vast majority of Islamic law, or Sharia.

"This is kind of akin to the Christian Reformation. Not exactly the same, but... it's changing the theological foundations of [the] religion."
Fadi Hakura,
Turkey expert, Chatham House

But the Turkish state has come to see the Hadith as having an often negative influence on a society it is in a hurry to modernize, and believes it responsible for obscuring the original values of Islam.

It says that a significant number of the sayings were never uttered by Muhammad, and even some that were need now to be reinterpreted.

This is great news; I've not heard of any other form of Sharia that's not hardliner-sanctioned.
But you think that those silly cartoons printed in Danish newspapers evoked a negative response? Ha! I think the fatawa will be flying, soon enough.

I would say this will ferment some real al-Qaeda negative responses. Maybe this will take some of the attention off of the 'Great Satan' in the Middle East, and cause the eye of Sharia to focus more on Turkey.

Some of the quotes from that BBC article...on female genital mutilation (that's hopefully the first Islamicism to go on the scrap heap)

"Unfortunately you can even justify through alleged hadiths, the Muslim - or pseudo-Muslim - practice of female genital mutilation"

And, as in the Bible (especially the old testament) many passages were written to mold the 'culture' at that time in history to do things that promoted staying alive...prohibitions on eating pork or seafood for example, because of the lack of refrigeration caused a short shelf life of those products, and bacteria and parasites love that stuff uncooked.

"Some messages ban women from travelling without their husband's permission... But this isn't a religious ban. It came about because it simply wasn't safe for a woman to travel alone."

A thinking man, bucking the fundamentalists. The future Headless Horseman of Reform?

"You can find messages which say 'that is what the Prophet ordered us to do'. But you can show historically how they came into being, as influences from other cultures, that were then projected onto Islamic tradition."

The argument is that Islamic tradition has been gradually hijacked by various - often conservative - cultures, seeking to use the religion for various forms of social control.

Leaders of the Hadith project say successive generations have embellished the text, attributing their political aims to the Prophet Muhammad himself.

Muhammad was no saint (nor a very good prophet, either) but...baby steps, baby steps.

Let's see how this goes over in some more...strident Islamic States, shall we?

I know what a turd looks like...what's the equivalent of a Islamic Punch Bowl?