Islam & Secularism- Introduction

Secular Muslim

How many shall find the couple of words unfit for coupling? How many perceive them as too afar concepts to be bound? Moreover, how many Muslims will find the book title invalidating their basic logic and mindsets? I wish not many, although I perceive they are.

The idea of this book, started to ferment upon reading the book of Ibn Warraq, "Why I am not a Muslim", added to the works of the former wahabi jurist Abdulla Qasimi, who converted to atheism after years of preaching Wahabism and defending it. Only observing Islam from the narrowest and most irrational sects' understanding was common between the two authors and allover their works. They followed the widely spoken words of Muslim jurists' today, which is wahabism in the case of Qasimi and salafism for Ibn Warraq.

In this work, I tried to help my readers unsheathe the falsehood of these two widely popular beliefs, lead to visualizing Islam as the most critical rival to secularism. Yet, as a Muslim, I do not reproach whoever non-Muslim holds this image about Islam, because we, Muslims, had hardly given any reason for anyone to renounce it. Contrarily, we give ongoing support fostering it, whether through behaviors, opinions, or attitudes many of us deliberately adopt.

This book will not be flirting brains, it is intended to quake not to pamper. It is not to affirm what is settled, but to create question marks whenever necessary, not as doubts are target itself, but as the pathway to truth goes through doubts. It is neither easy to the reader nor it was to the author. Knowing that the most jeopardous landmines field you can write in, while you live in a society like where I lived, is religion, especially one of the numerical majorities, unless you are planning to follow the mainstream roles, telling people what they know already to assure their comforting beliefs. Nevertheless, when you pair the name of Islam with secularism, and claim coherence of insights, you would better expect unpredictable degree of hassle.

Early in the 20th century, when the concept of democracy was rather new to Egypt, an Egyptian liberalist and one of enlightenment entrepreneurs, Prof. Lotfy Sayed was a candidate to national assembly, he selected his birthplace domain to represent, and happened to hold a convention there. His adversary alleged him to be a pagan, with all the negatives it carries to simple Muslims in the middle of Nile Delta by that time. The pragmatic competitor said; "he follows a pagan cult named democracy, you can ask him and he will not deny, for he is an overt pagan", upon the start of convention, the voters did, they asked Prof. Lotfy Sayed if he is really a democrat? He acknowledged with pride "I am a democrat and will remain so till the last day in my life". It was then, when last day of his life seemed to be very soon. The voters attacked him personally and destructed his conference tent, needless to mention, he lost election to the benefit of his pragmatic opponent.

What applied to democracy in the beginning of 20th century in Egypt, applies today to secularism in the start of the 21st century. Same public confusion and misconceptions, deliberately encouraged by the Ignorance Stakeholders, as I call the doctrinal and social leaders who attain unique role and status by misleading public masses. However, as Prof. Sayed generation carried out their task to make democracy palatable to public, our generation should carry-it-out a step farther. I think it is quite time for developing nations to learn more about the greatest fruit of humankind civilization, the state secularism, wherein everyone can live uninhibitedly and learn how to let others live the same. State secularism, I believe, is the balanced status of humanity, the balancing state between individual and group.

Let us to start from the very beginning, man was distinguishable from the previous species in animal kingdom, mainly by four balancing features. These are,

 Intellectual Capacity

 Freewill

 Ego

 Superego

Intellectual capacity, the glorious mind, the control room, or whatever you call it, I believe God granted this built-in compass to humans so they can at a definite stage maturate, reaching the state of equilibrium between individual´s demanding ego and the welfare of the encompassing society as a whole. This intellectual capacity was built over a cause-results relationship, segregating thoughts and behaviors to logical ones when cause/result or motive/ behavior relations lay in coherence, and illogical ones when coherence is missing. Innovation was a fruit of this intellectual capacity, as only humankind could challenge norms and seek perfection by adopting changes. From launching a fire to launching a rocket, every single tool man developed was a gift of this creative power.

Then comes the freewill, as the creative power in man´s mind needed liberation to excel. God granted freedom to us, without it, unleashed power of innovation was to be meaningless, only together with freewill it works toward the Earth prosperity. As usual, accountability comes in coupling with authority, humankind held accountable for all their acts and deeds before the Divine judgment, only based on their absolute freewill. Those who claimed man to be destined to specific ends apart from his willingness and deeds were not aware they are opening the widest gate, wherefrom millions strayed to atheism. Man can never be destined and obliged then judged on his own deeds, any degree of obligation can alter the fairness of judgment.

The reason they thought about destiny, was mixing between individual and group freewill. I did not decide to be born on September 8th 1973. However, my parents decided to make a baby almost nine months earlier to that date. A man dies while crossing a high road in non-pedestrians zone did not decide to die, but he decided to cross when his freewill intersected with another man's will, this who decided to drive through the same point at the same moment. It is the global interaction of human freewill with each other, and also with the universe, what some jurists called it to be the widely spoken destiny.

Ego, which is affirmatively an inflated ego contrasted to animals, a one that is complex by nature and multi-dimensional by necessity, was a double-edged sword. Being inflated and demanding, one´s egoist satisfaction was usually on the expense of many others agony, also sometimes on the expense of his own suffering a way or another. However, on the other edge, ego was essential to achieve our delegation on this planet, the sacred Mission of Development. While the intellectual capacity represented the power to innovate, and freewill represented the opened yard for innovation, the Ego offered the motive to innovate. Ego calls everyman to actualize himself, and self-actualization needs differentiation from all others, which called for using the power to innovate. We believe ego to be expressed in Quran as the Demanding Spirit, all time urging us to achieve more joy, more satisfaction and more prominence over others, urging us to excel and to enjoy the delights of our excellence. Sometimes pulling us to what is agreed on among humankind as evils, not being an evil-tropic itself, but as evils usually appeared as a byproduct of egoistic processes.

Superego then comes to crown the mix. Even if we do have some arguments claiming animals to have a primitive superego, I will not debate this, as after all we can agree on the prominence of human superego. This divine element was intended to decelerate the egoist vanity, to balance its demands with the feeling of responsibility toward others, to booster cooperation and to decrease antagonisms. Here comes the role of religions and prophecies in my perception, to act as a divine support to our superegos, against the flooding demands of our egos, all under guidance of the great master, that lies inside our skulls. Similar to ego, I believe superego to be what Quran expressed as the Blaming Spirit. The one keeps us conscious about any deeds or acts that might be straying from modesty or encroaching on others' interests and domains.

When you study the history of civilization, you will find it –in a sense- a matter of global interaction between these powers. You can express theories like mode of production, class struggle, and dialectical materialism for example in this light. You can better understand the law of negation and law of transformation on this background of quadric-factual forces in humankind.

Then, why God did not state it clear to us? Why it took humankind long ages of war and hatred to get closer to equilibrium only few decades ago? This even was achieved over a very limited span in what we call the first world, then when it shall prevail?

The nature of the target equilibrium itself mandated this. A nature that required the whole transaction to be a product of man mind, not a product of divine guidance, in-order-to be able to persuade the egoistic tendency to stop at a limit, it was a must to be a secular lesson, through which ego comprehends where to stop, before one´s boundary spanning gets him into agonizing harm. For example, if you believed your son´s fiancé is not his best fit by any mean, and you started challenging his intentions to marry her, he will be reluctant to understand your point and even if he followed your advice, he will keep blaming you maybe for the rest of his life for wasting his soulmate. However, if you tried to limit your advice to prolonging the engagement period before wedding, this will be palatable to him and if your gut feelings were true, he will find out himself; he will realize by time what you have earlier realized by experience. Similarly, God wanted us to reach the platform of equilibrium based on trials and errors, after he granted us all what it takes to reach this platform.

I believe state secularism and a special type of spiritual social secularism (SSS) are the ever-sake point of equilibrium. Humanity definitely had learned this lesson the very hard way, the blood shed before attaining the overwhelming EU today, was not a diminutive amount at all. It took ages of a scanty comprehension of religions, during which rivulets of innocent blood were shed, millions died to satisfy vanity and greed of few hundreds among politicians and Popes. Then who suffered more learned faster, Europe learned earlier that in a secular state, everyone, including the very religious, could live safely and construct better. Today, I see the state that was built on secular foundation by the wisdom of the Founding Fathers, the United States of America, slightly straying by time toward religiosity, maybe as it never realized what being governed by clergy leads to. This is the difference between equilibrium when learned the hard way, only to be engraved in the mass mind, and equilibrium when it is driven and gifted to masses by elite minds, only to be vulnerable to public astray.

Shall this means religious faith became no more of value to man after reaching the equilibrium?

Shall this means law can replace one´s faith?

No, on contrary, we believe religious faith gives a very significant dimension to the entire life, the achieved equilibrium relying on mind´s capacity never means the superego does not crave its divine support anymore. During man´s life, he has to make decisions on thousands of minors and majors, and while these decisions might seem equal or all ok from a secular standpoint, religion in its genuine delineation should guide the decision to the best out of them. For instance, when it happens you meet someone who needs financial support, you are a good citizen from the secular standpoint if you backed him-up or not, but religion calls you to go the extra-mile supporting him. Nonetheless, some individuals can reach this forthright level and make the same decision apart from religious traditions, "doing good deeds only because it deserves being to be done" as the founder of ethical secularity once said, but how many on the other hand needs the religious call to do this? How many will fail to beat their ego without an affirmation of doubled compensation in afterlife? I think they are many, a fair majority I can say.

Being a Muslim who believes in secularism as a proven way-out for humankind to prosper, I worked-out this book to support secularism in the Developing World, my homeland Egypt being part of it. Being a simple man who had always believed umbrellas of religious, ethnic, gender and social slogans were made to cover individual´s vanity, I wrote my words here to penetrate these spidery umbrella. Finally, being a man who finds no contradiction between the real Islam and real secularism, I wrote here what I think to be real about both.

Saying real Islam, because we have three concepts for Islam nowadays, out of which, I believe only one to be real: we have the Islam as it is perceived by several non-Muslims, a bloody outdated sect, which is surely a highly mislead perception. Then, we have Islam as perceived by a good percentage of Muslims, to be a set of solid and detailed instructions, an understanding which is essentially disabling to man´s freedom, giving him only limited choices between wasting his life or wasting his afterlife, needless to mention this understanding stands as false as the first. Lastly, we have the real Islam, the modest evolving faith, the one primed with a variety of developmental options. Islam as perceived by the early founders of the Islamic society and early religious scientists, the one God wanted for us.

As for real secularism, I meant a stream of secularism that does not deviate to be antitheism. I have always seen the war between religion and science as a facade war, and yes, it was someday created by fanatic religious authorities. Nevertheless, today it is commonly maintained by them, plus fanatic secularists too. Knowing that whoever falls in love with own ideology usually falls in the extremists´ valley, we find anti-theists when turning hostile and intruding to others´ boundaries as bad as religious fanatics. Therefore, real secularism in my perception is the one that does not drift from its original purpose to be an anti-religious stream built on oppressive foundations.

One day Confucius was asked "what shall you do master if you ruled the entire world? "It was then when he answered, "I shall standardize the meaning of terms". When we listen to politicians and international organizations' figure heads, we materialize what the great Chinese philosopher meant. Words without definite meanings can drift from means of guidance to means of astray. I believe based on the sensitivity of the subject, touching two holy ideologies, each to its defenders, I feel needy to define meanings. Accordingly, I preferred to start this book in its first chapter with some definitions and brief elaboration about basic concepts of both Islam and secular ideology, as a tactic to disambiguate in advance. Therefore, I will ask even those who knows the definitions and concepts, to take the time reading it, to unify our understanding of words and conceptions during the course of this study.