In the UK there has been an agenda by the British government to
secularise the Muslim community and make them accept the values of
Secularism and Democracy.
Recently there have been many articles, debates and discussion on the
subject of the evolution theory and its place within religion. A lot of
this discussion has taken place in the context of whether Muslims
accept evolution or not, and if not, why not as evolution is now a well
established ‘fact’, which cannot be rejected. This article is not
intended to be a refutation of why evolution is not a part of Islam, for
this is a well established within the Islamic tradition, that Adam (as)
was created by Allah (swt) and Allah (swt) blew Adam’s (as) soul into a
clay human body, which Allah (swt) shaped and fashioned.
The question I would like my reader’s to focus on is why has this
subject of the evolution theory suddenly become an issue within Islamic
circles as if this is a new topic. This theory has been around for many
decades and most Muslim scholars and intellectuals, accepted that it had
no place within Islam as it contradicts clearly stated texts within the
Qur’an, yet this theory has raised its ugly head again and this time it
is being used to tell Muslims that at the least this must be an
acceptable theory within Islam and at the most that it must be accepted
as the narrative of Adam’s (as) creation. Many have tackled this issue
from the perspective of theology and fiqh, but very a few have looked at
the political ramifications and context to this whole discussion.
In the UK there has been an agenda by the British government to
secularise the Muslim community and make them accept the values of
Secularism and Democracy. This has been stated within the government’s
own PREVENT agenda among other reports and documents. The way the
government has done this is to deliberately raise, what the government
views as, topical issues within Islam which do not agree with the values
of Secularism and Democracy in order to show how Islam has a ‘backward
view’ in these topical issue; then to force the Muslim community into
line by trying to highlight the so called ‘backwardness’ of Islam and
the fact that society has moved on from these primitive values and
Muslims now need to accept the values of the West as they are the only
standard that all should live by.
Therefore it is no coincidence that we have seen how Muslims were
told that they should accept that their Prophet (saw) will be insulted
and that this is a part of freedom of speech; we were also lectured
about how Muslims should allow Muslim woman to lead men in the Friday
and the 5 obligatory prayers and this is about the equality of the
sexes; that Muslims must accept homosexuals into Islam as this is about
treating people of all sexual orientation equally; that Muslims should
allow Muslim woman to marry non-Muslim men, as all people and religions
are the same. Within this context fits the current discussion about
evolution that it is about further trying to secularise the Muslim
community so they become a part of Britain, adopt its values and forget
their Ummah and Islam.
In all these areas, Islam’s rulings, in origin, have been very clear
and it has never been a discussion among the vast majority of scholars
of Islam, regardless of their school of thought, barring a handful of
scholars who are either very obscure or their view was in the minority
view of their school and hence forgotten until revived recently. Yet
these obscure views are now being given a new lease of life and being
made prominent in order to undermine Islam and subject it to the
standards and values of Secularism and Democracy and this was never the
intention of the scholars who even gave these minority views in the
first place.
Yet today we have so called Muslims scholars, Imams and theologians
who are advocating these obscure views and digging them up to show to
the Muslim community in Britain and ultimately globally that Islam
agrees with Secularism and Democracy and that Muslims should not feel
uncomfortable able this. The government funds these Muslim organisations
and individuals to do their bidding as it is easier to secularise the
Muslim community using their own people rather than trying to use
government ministers and hence the current discussion is now evolution
and in due time some other new issue will take its place.
Some have tried to argue that what is wrong with this dialogue and
debate, that this is healthy and it will get Muslims thinking about
these issues. Firstly in certain issues there is no dialogue or debate
for example, there is not dialogue or debate about insulting the Prophet
(saw) and his family, that is a red line and it must always stay a red
line otherwise we would have accepted implicitly that insulting the
Prophet (saw) is acceptable and hence accepted freedom of speech. The
second issue is that the moment we open the doors of debate and dialogue
to these matters which are clear and fundamental in our deen, then it
is open season on everything else in Islam as well, this is evident from
the last couple years. The more the Muslim community has been
accommodating of these disingenuous types of debates and dialogues the
more the Muslim community has come under pressure to compromise on
further issues.
Lastly under this dialogue and debate banner we must be careful to
make sure that these types of discussion do not find their way to in the
area of legitimate difference of opinion because there seems to be an
apparent difference of opinion among scholars. If this happens, then
what type of Islam will we have left our future generations, an Islam
fraught with differences of opinion on every subject from the most
fundamental of questions like where did humans come from, to the simple
questions and this will lead us down the same path as Christianity where
they cannot even agree on whether Jesus existed or not. If this happens
to Islam then we can expect it to go down the same route as
Christianity in this country and that is clear for all to see. This also
would mean that the British government has achieved its goals and aims,
as it wants to do to Islam what is has done to Christianity, to subject
it to the standards and values of Secularism.
The original duty of the Muslim community in this country is one of
calling the non-Muslims to Islam and to show them that Islam is the only
alternative to the current misery they are facing due to the economic
meltdown within western countries and this is an opportunity for the
Muslim community here to show them how Islam will deal with this and
other problems which this society faces, so we should not allow this
discussion on the evolution theory to distract us and take us away from
the real discussions and debates that are happening within this society.
And who is better in speech than one who invites to Allah and does righteousness and says, “Indeed, I am of the Muslims.” [Quran 41:33] (HTB)
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