between normative and novel renderings may be a step in the process of reform but alone does not constitute reform itself. For reform, unlike schism or revolution, is typically an internal, incremental consensus building. After all, it defeats the whole purpose of reform to lose or alienate the very constituency that one is seeking to redirect. Thus, like the tingling in one's nose before a sneeze, a novel view may be a step on the road to reform, and it may not, depending on the direction in which the various tensions involved are resolved. In any event, reform itself will always be a matter of time, circumstances, and players, not simply of an individual interpreter putting forth a novel view - however valid, sophisticated, or even substantively superior that view may be.
-Sherman A. Jackson, Islam and the Problem of Black Suffering, p. 12
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