We are on track ... are we?

In my honest opinion, the idea being propelled by the original report: ...
"Support the idea that religion and the state can be separate in Islam too and that this does not endanger the faith but, in fact, may strengthen it".
... is ridiculous in its roots. And we Pakistanis are not the only target of this expansive conspiracy. This same doctrine is being implemented in Iraq. Islam, unlike any other religion, is a full code of conduct ... which guides you from matters simple as personal hygiene to matters complex as running a state. To assume that the state can be governed by keeping the religion out, is not only foolish but outrightly suicidal for in doing so, inevitably we will force the two to clash with eachother. And when that happens the death of the one of the two (religion or state) will remain the only way out. A choice we wouldn't want to make. And we have been there before ... remember the last caliphate (Khilafat-e-Usmania)? But the other end, the belief in extreme nationalism and tribalism, is equally dangerous too! The great philosopher thinker Allama Iqbal has written a beautiful couplet which sums up the attitude of a Muslim towards these ideas of extremism.

In ta'aza khudaon main sab say bara hay watan,
Jo iss ka banay pairhan woh mazhab ka kafan hay!
Translation:
The biggest among the freshly made idols is that of extreme nationalism,
Whatever fits it as a robe, becomes the burial-cloth for the faith!

Islam encourages Muslims to help their countrymen. A Muslim must look after his neighbors regardless of their faith and make sure that they have what they need. That sense of good neighborliness is strongly emphasized by the Prophet who has spoken about every aspect of it. We need to remind ourselves of its essence by quoting the Hadith in which the Prophet swears by Allah three times that a certain person is not a believer. When his companions asked him to define that wretched person, he said: "He who goes to bed having eaten well while his neighbor remains hungry and he is aware of that fact."
Each one of us belongs to a particular country and it's only natural to want the best for our countrymen regardless of their faith. The best way to do that would be to be honest in all our dealings and not succumb to corruption and injustice. But Islam also asks Muslims to take a stand when some people seek to promote the love for a country by defying the teachings of the religion itself. They make an idol out of the country/tribe/sect and urge other Muslims to follow that path. Such people are the biggest threat to our ummah, even bigger a threat than the people of other religions. These people work by proping up identities and ideas which divide Muslims into smaller groups and make them focus on rather irrelevant issues. We Muslims ourselves are partly responsible for the predicament which we find ourselves in, by forgetting what we were told by our Holy Prophet (pbuh). A hadith of our beloved Prophet Mohammad (pbuh) narrated by Abu Dawood says "He is not one of us who calls for Asabiyyah (extreme nationalism/tribalism) or who fights for Asabiyyah or who dies for Asabiyyah."


Rameez Khalid <razocky[at]hotmail.com> writes:
Mercredi, 22 Novembre 2006, 13h 53min 22s
We are on track
For Ilyas's disturbance I, up to my understanding, can only say that this particular statement of this report depicts the ideas which Christians got from Islamic jurist, physician and philosopher Ibn-e-Rushd or Averroës. He said that metaphysical truths can be expressed by 2 ways: Philosophy and Religion, but he never proposed or suggested that basically there are two truths which the Christians misinterpreted as the theory of "double truths", just for separating the Church from the Govt. Basically Ibn-e-Rushd was of the idea that reason takes precedence over religion.
TC. AH.