Daily Times

The people of France were exercising their right of spending a weekend in whichever way they deemed fit when the so-called Islamists chartered the final actions of their worldly life in a manner that ruined whatever good, if any, they may have done in their lives. The cardinal sin of taking 129 innocent lives and injuring more than 300 others of their humankind will never leave them in the hereafter and they will surely meet justice. Their horrible deed was not for the supremacy of God. The Lord belongs as much to the Christians and Jews as He does to the Muslims.

The Islamophobes are using this dastardly act of sheer brutality to malign the Islamic faith. However, it is good that despite being unfashionable there are people in the west who come out and say that it is not religion but brainwashing with a twisted doctrine that is making people act inhumanly. It is therefore not for this article to answer Megyn Kelly, Robert Spencer or the like for there are others out in the west who suffice. On this one can only say that unless the soul transforms, one carries the violence within into the religion one follows. It is for this reason that we find some Buddhist monks committing horrible acts of violence in Myanmar (Burma) though Buddhism never advocates violence. While in the short term urgent security response and elimination of active terror cells anywhere and everywhere is a must the point of real concern is why so many are getting their doctrine twisted and expressing violence. What can be done to stop this?

The separation of the church and state in the west brought about a transformation there that led to the non-acceptance of the expression of violence in the name of religion. Things had not always been such. Around the ninth century, when the nexus between Christian clerics and the monarchs had evolved for mutual benefit, Popes Leo IV and John VIII declared that killing unbelievers was actually spiritually beneficial for Christian soldiers: their sins could be erased if they killed in defence of the church. The infamous Spanish Inquisition also has its roots in this alliance and twisted doctrine.

In Muslim faith too the idea of the need of protection of the faith by the state was brought in later. It was an idea stemming from the necessity of the rulers needing legitimacy for governance after the assassination of Hazrat Ali, the fourth caliph. For this, the institution of clerics was created and a nexus formed, which was based on scratching each other’s back. This continued into their rule in Spain and even in Turkey till it was uprooted by Kemal Ata Turk.

The monarchs, to protect their rule, used the services of the clerics to make the people believe that the state and faith were inseparable. This was but a sly move to thwart any challenge to their legitimacy as rulers. That the first Constitution of the state of Medina, also known as the Charter of Medina, formed when its inhabitants, the refugees and the local population of Muslims and Jews agreed to bind themselves into one nation, did not reflect this. It called people of differing faiths one community to the exclusion of all men. It protected the rights of all inhabitants. This was shamelessly forgotten for political reasons. The efforts towards mixing sate and religion were so successful that even the authenticity of the saying of the Holy Prophet (PBUH) declaring “love for one’s homeland is part of faith”, which requires patriotism from all Muslims residing in other lands, was put into question. The clerics cherry picked verses from the holy Quran to assist the rulers in dealing with their subjects and never stopped them from initiating wars, a few purely for territorial gains. This was despite the fact that war was only allowed for those wronged. This was to later become the fuel for inter-faith acrimony, although the holy book calls for convergence on the basis of what is common.

Since states use force to enforce their commands, the idea of using force to comply others to follow the requirement of religion took root in society and weak minds accepted the use of force to further a doctrine although the faith had declared: “There is no compulsion in religion.” The twisted mind assumed the role of a warden — often a brutal one — though the Quran says: “Admonish thou then; thou art but an admonisher. Thou art not over them a warden.”

If the world is to become a safe place where all can generally live in peace there is an urgent need to make all possible efforts in the Muslim majority states to bring about this disconnection between faith and the state. The use of force in matters of religion was not an issue that developed from the bottom upwards. It rather developed the other way around. The unwinding also has to be done in that order. This change will eventually come from within but outside help will undoubtedly quicken the pace.

Islam is a potent force and its spread in the Indo-Chinese region though the work of Muslim traders is undebated. That argument alone could win over a whole region and points to the inherent strength of the argument. The Muslim populace needs to be made aware of the fact that their faith does not require the protection of the state. Since the faith-state relationship has evolved over centuries there are beneficiaries of this system and they offer strong resistance to any reform. For the good of humanity, the west should employ all possible means to assist Muslim majority states in achieving this reformation that goes with the fundamental teachings of their faith.

The writer can be reached at thelogicalguy@yahoo.com