With a number of people calling themselves liberal minded and renouncing religion, with the excuse of being unable to mix modern life and their region, religious leaders worry for the state of the future religion. Islam is not left out in this modern, liberal world. A number of people in the modern world equate religion to rigidity and stagnation.
Islam seeks to go beyond its teachings of prayer and worship, in addition to its set of moral counsels. It seeks to understand man’s relations with God as well as with fellow men. Since Islam also seeks to deal with individual rights and obligations, then it stands out more in the limelight than other religions, with respect of how it copes in its teachings with the ever-changing world.
It has been noted from a number of non-Muslim writers and intellectuals that have studied the Islamic laws, both civil and social, that Islam actually has a body of progressive laws. These progressive laws have led to Islam being attributed as an everlasting and living nation, capable of being manipulated or used in all circumstances and times.
An example of Dr Shibli Shama’il who is an Arabic materialist of Lebanon, regardless of being a materialist, he has expressed his appreciation of Islam as a living religion that can be applicable to all times. He is quoted as saying, ”Those Europeans who attack Islam, either do not know it or criticize it with the bad intention of making the people of the East skeptical about their laws and their system with a view to keeping them under the western tutelage.” This is an extraction from the second volume of his book. “Philosophy of Evolution” that is published in Arabic.
A number of people from the educated class, still question whether or not Islam is compatible with the present modern age. There is a perception that since the world is changing, religion too is bound to change. But if the question of whether or not Islam will evolve with change is answered in the philosophical sense, then it can be observed that it is only the material things of the world that are changing. It goes without saying that, with the modern world, imperfect things in life are replaced with perfect ones.
There are questions of the holy wars, the role of women, and the rise of fundamentalism in the world. Islam may have conflicts with the western world, but in the same breath there are also fundamental tensions within Islam. A number of Muslims feel that the tenants of the Muslim faith have been distorted with actions of its radical elements. Within Islam itself, there is an internal conflict between Muslims who are trying to reconcile tradition with open society and democracy, and those who have reverted to rigid practices and fundamentalist in order to counter the spread of modernism.
A large number of Muslims from all over the world are peace-loving and moderate people who are trying to go about their daily lives while struggling with their values, and trying to reconcile those values to the realities of the modern world. They are no different from any other religious affiliation that is trying to walk the straight path to God.
View the Original article
0 comments:
Post a Comment