Public remarks by Turkey’s powerful President Recep Tayyip Erdogan have often raised eyebrows in the West in recent years. However, in a March 8 speech on International Women's Day, Erdogan broke this pattern and said something that could only be music to liberal ears: He condemned misogynist clerics who degrade women, and even said, “Islam must be updated."

The speech was made to hundreds of Turkish women from various walks of life who were invited to the presidential complex in Ankara for International Women's Day. In his address to the women, Erdogan implicitly referred to a few ultraconservative scholars in Turkey who recently outraged society by defending misogynist practices such as wife beating. "Recently, some people claiming to be clerics issued statements contradicting religion,” Erdogan said. “They have no place in our times. They don't realize how Islam needs to be updated and is updated accordingly. You can't apply the practices applied 15 centuries ago today. Islam changes and adapts to the conditions of different ages. This is the beauty of Islam.”

This progressive take on religion, especially the very suggestion that “Islam needs to be updated,” came as a cold shower to some of the typically pro-Erdogan commentators. On social media, many of them stood silent, whereas others offered mild criticism, repeating the usual mantra that “Islam is perfect,” it needs no “update” and it is only Muslims who need to improve themselves by living up to Islam’s fixed commandments.

A day later, Erdogan refined his initial remark about updating Islam and said he seeks no "reform in religion.” ("Reform” is a dirty word in conservative parlance.) “Our holy Quran has and will always have words to say, its commandments will never change,” Erdogan affirmed. However, he added, “The independent reasoning derived from the Quran” — in other words many clauses in classic jurisprudence would “surely change according to the time, the conditions and the possibilities.”