Monthly Archives: March 2017

This is a serialization of the book titled ‘Crisis in Islam’. The full book and its Endnotes may be accessed at:

I ended the previous chapter with an enquiry about what Muslims did to Muslims and non-Arabs whose land they invaded. I intend to elaborate on this, not out of a wish to discredit what Muslims have glorified for centuries, but to understand the reasons behind what is happening today. I believe that today’s culture is very much connected to that history, and we must be able to admit that and accept a critical review of our history. We should aim at achieving a rationality that will enable us to understand our message to mankind, if we have any message left.

No sooner had the Prophet departed this world than the age of Jāhiliya (ignorance) raised its head again.[i] That should not be surprising, as ethics and norms do not change overnight.  It may not be easy for every man to shed the dress of ignorance just by reciting the Shahāda (declaration of faith).[ii] (more…)

This is a serialization of the book titled ‘Crisis in Islam’. The full book and its Endnotes may be accessed at:

My friend wrote to me saying: “….. But for the Imāmate and Caliphate to be a political issue is better than being a religious issue.”

But this is the essence of what I aim to achieve here. What I want to show is that the history of Islam as it exists today is a political history and not a religious one; that the Caliphate was political and not religious; and that the Shari’a was not a result of any Divine assignment, but instituted by the fuqahā and politicians to serve the state. I do not, however, mean in any of this that they were all wrong, but I want to state that these policies were not necessarily religious and that we must stop brainwashing peoples’ minds as we have done for the past thirteen centuries, telling them that it was all Divine assignment for the good of ‘the best nation produced for mankind’ and all is of the essence of religion itself. This recognition will allow us to deal rationally and objectively with our history without hiding under a religious cover, attributing every happening, no matter how significant or insignificant it is, to Divine assignment to the Muslims in order to amend this world and whoever is in it.

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