Prof Dr Colonel ( Retired)K Prabhakar Rao
Only one Muslim country, the Turkish republic has formally separated religion from State as law. It’s founder Mustafa Kamal (Ata Turk) has enacted the removal of Islam from the constitution and abrogation of Shariat, which ceased to be a part of the law of the land. Several Muslim States restricted Shariat to marriage, divorce and inheritance and adopted Western laws in other matters.
There has been some move like this in ‘Bath’ party that once ruled Iraq and is in now strong in Syria. However, Saddam Hussein, former President of Iraq has been dethroned after military action by US led coalition forces (1). Pakistan reeled under the dictatorships of army generals and General Parvez Musharraf who was the last British styled aristocrat in Pakistan with some modernity and vision for his country also stepped out. He harbored the hope of being a legendary Mustafa Kamal (Ata Turk) of Turkey for his feud- torn country. But the Military Fundamentalist Junta that engineered the coup for him against former Prime Minister Nawaz Sheriff had engulfed him while in power. He had precarious existence and If he deviated from the anti Indian and fundamentalist path, the Junta was capable of repeating a coup. He was therefore forced to do a great tight rope-balancing act in his country keeping the Junta happy till he was eased out (2).
Islamic demonology in anti secular writings includes names such as former legendary Presidents Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser and Anwar Saadat of Egypt, Shah Pehalwi of Iran, Afiz Al Assad of Syria, Saddam Hussein of Iraq, Mustafa Kamal of Turkey, King Farukh and Kings of Arabia.
All these men who had some modern and forward thinking lumped together as one mass are considered as great betrayers of Islam and as inside enemies who wear Muslim face, bear Muslim name, and is therefore much deadlier than the open enemies from outside (3). Thus for Muslims, Islam is not merely a system of belief and worship, a compartment of life so to speak distinct from other compartments which are the concern of non religious authorities administering non religious laws. It is rather whole of life and its rules include civil, criminal and even what we would call constitutional law (4). Democracy and modernity appear to be at the infinity in Muslim world ( Turkey is an exception) and everything centers around the scripture. Recent chaos in Iran is the glaring example of pseudo democracy in Iran where elections are conducted where results are predetermined.
The center of problem facing Arab Muslims and indeed all Muslims today worldwide is to find a new way of life-Islamic in character, which will be halfway between the West and East that will provide internal stability necessary to enable Muslims to face their problems independently.
The Arab world can borrow technology from the west, but it must find the answers to it’s deeper problems within itself. As per Abdullah Ai Al Qasimi in his book “These are the chains”, he stands out with a frank observation that, “ignorance based on religious doctrine has tied our people with knot upon knot”, and proceeds to analyses causes for backwardness among Muslims. Read it all here....
Source: Faith Freedom
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