"The Ottoman Empire, hoping to stave off decline in the 19th century, launched a series of internal reforms, known as the tanzimat. Though this wasn’t the intent, the tanzimat hastened what Wael Hallaq, a scholar of Islamic law, calls the “evisceration” of the sharia. In an attempt to codify and control what had been an organic and constantly evolving body of law, the state was strengthened and centralized, its authoritarian tendencies exacerbated, and the clerics weakened. Secularists, meanwhile, believed that the Islamic state couldn’t be reformed and that holding on to religious foundations would only stand in the way of progress. If embracing secular nationalism had led to Europe’s ascendance, they argued, then why shouldn’t it do the same for the Middle East?"

"Secularists, meanwhile, believed that the Islamic state couldn’t be reformed..." Why, I wonder?, and I do so without sarcasm. These were Muslim secularists. I bet because sharia was too black-and-white and too unforgiving. The FIRST SENTENCE in the Koran is: "This book is not to be doubted."