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To Sharia or not to Sharia: The question of Islamopolitics
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/05/20135198390976229.htmlIslam does not seek to turn its adherents into a monolithic group, but instead celebrates diversity and pluralism.
Last Modified: 25 May 2013 17:18
Mohamed Ghilan
Mohamed Ghilan is a neuroscience PhD candidate at the University of Victoria, Canada, and a student of Islamic jurisprudence.
"Islam was never meant to be a prescribing force that dictates how society should be like," writes Ghilan [AP]
The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life recently released their latest results from a survey of Muslims around the world on religion, politics and society. Although there is wide variability, it seems that most Muslims want Sharia (Islamic Law) to be the governing law of their countries and to play an important role in the political process. However, although the majority of Muslims agree on the general principle of applying Sharia, they do not seem to agree on what that term means. Given the diversity of understanding and sources one can be exposed to in the Islamic tradition, this disagreement should not come as a surprise.
A romanticised history leading to failed reality
Although valid religious reasons might be cited from average Muslims for the desire of Sharia, the lack of Islamic education and awareness about how Sharia operates raises a flag to dig deeper into their motives. Children in the Muslim world are typically exposed to a romanticised and utopic historical account of how Muslims of the past were. It is an image of saints walking upon the Earth fulfilling the commandments of God and striving for more self-purification, while at the same time studying the world and contributing to science and the advancement of human knowledge at a miraculous rate. They are taught that Muslims today have strayed away so far from Islamic teachings that God is punishing them by depriving them from what the West has accomplished.
What has been lost on Muslims today is the methodology of "how" to be a Muslim. In selling their hypothetical utopia of the days that have passed, those who teach Islamic history in the Muslim world have inadvertently switched the focus from how one can be a practising Muslim who contributes to the greater good of society, to focusing on attempts to replicate the exact way past Muslims supposedly lived. Hence, many Muslims today are working hard to bring about quantum mechanical speculations to reality and take everyone back in time away from "evil" modernity. One way they do this is through advancing their various versions of Islamopolitics.
Winston Churchill said that "tact is the ability to tell someone to go to hell in such a way that they look forward to the trip". This tact is exemplified in the contemporary experience of the failure of Islamopolitics in Sudan. As Nesrine Malik pointed out last year in response to another oppressive act of the Sudanese government in the name of Sharia, Islamic rhetoric in politics was initially "a way of paying lip service to religion for the government to gain legitimacy". She mentioned how this false cloak of religiosity now serves as a "potent tool that allows the government to apply punishment harshly (but inconsistently) whenever it feels the need... to invoke the emotive power of religious offence".
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12 replies
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= new reply since forum marked as read
Because they *know* (via "another way of knowing"
that they absolutely have the CORRECT interpretation. Case closed.
It is interesting that liberal/moderate believers too claim this kind of absolute certainty, though thankfully they usually proclaim it in order to support overall positive goals. But it's the same kind of certainty, one that comes from religious faith.
