Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Church and State

I am not advocating Theocracy. In fact the worst form of a Religious State today is not Iran but Saudi Arabia followed by Israel, both of which are not run by the clergy. I am simply stating that I am not a fan of Secularism based on where I see it headed. In my mind secularism is not the holy grail of good governance. Perhaps the US is a bad example of an ideal secularist state in which case I have less reason to be concerned. I also understand that here I am in a minority amongst my group, who have for good reason grown tired of Religious people.

For the moment Secularism seems to be the better of two evils but there is a third alternate. Take Turkey, it is a Muslim country which believes that freedom of Religion should be allowed or Ireland which is a Catholic Country that believes in freedom of Religion. Clearly freedom of religion is not a secularist monopoly and that is my point.

There is a lot that we can learn from secularism and it stands as a bulwark, so far, against religious extremism but in many cases it is morphing into a religion in itself and France is a good example of treating Secularism as its official religion.

My last and most important point is that mankind's biggest challenge is, has always been and will always be to tread a moral path in the conduct of his life. The morality of secularism based on double standards, might is right, racial inequality and other shortcomings of self interest is not a good goal to pursue. We will and must fall back on the morality of God, which is the morality of self accountability based on faith. Unfortunately neither system has proven to be sustainable in the long run. The tussle between man made morality and God's morality is built into the system to be an eternal struggle.

Khusro

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

salam jazakallah for ur so many humble contributions for the muslim umma in nyc. I hope ur efforts will be turned into in many fruitfuls results specially for the muslims in usa who are afraid of speaking for themselves.

ambreen said...

May allah be with u always in the kind efforts you are providing for the muslim umma. ameen.