Everyone has a personal view and we should respect all. This is the very thing that secularism talks about. It teaches us to exist with others.
I'm not sure about other religion, but Islamic laws are failed for sure in Afghanistan. Its a recent example. But then again, its my personal view.
Dear Gautam, in the world in which we live nothing is handed to anyone on the plate rather people make efforts and these efforts are relative to each other ie a tug of war or a sea-saw. If we instead stuck to a certain standard which is good for us all then such struggle against each other could end otherwise there is no end to this carry on because each person or community wants to get as much from the other as much it can.
There is no such thing that you live your way and I live my way. Whenever horses do not pull the cart in the same direction they pull it apart. So long as people do not have a sensible direction they will always be pulling in different directions and as a result some will lose others will win and humanity falls apart when we do that.
Secular world is fighting within itself because of conflict of interests and religious world is in conflict within itself again due to conflict of interests. So the only way people can exist in peace is when they all have such goals and guidelines as unite them in genuine interests. This is what islam offers and no other ideology religious or secular.
Which religion offers terms for peace as good as the quran and which secularism offers any such terms for peace? None. It is all an exercise in vain to try and justify things without really trying to understand any of them.
The nature of our existence as I already explained things is such that we cannot live without each other. The reason we are born of each other, we are looked after by each other. How many babies will survive if we left them on their own after birth? So if we need help of others right from the day we are born then when exactly do we become totally independent of others? First we ourselves are dependent then we take on dependents ourselves. Our dependence on each other is for food and drink right from the start and if we keep it that way things remain fine but when we try to move away from this setting troubles start. Because once we become so called independent then we start robbing each other in the name of religion or secularism and in the proess we do not mind killing each other. So what have we achieved other than fractured our human family along wrong ideas?
The idea that religious divide or secular divine gives us anything good is a make belief, put in our heads by those who think they are clever than others so they can use and abuse them. If a person is clever he should show it by doing something great for his human family not try to come up with silly plans to destroy a whole lot of them.
As for your idea about islam has failed, my question is, what is islam? Does quran teach things that so many mullahs promote in the name of islam or attribute to islam and so many nonmuslim attack islam by using them as evidence against islam? Islam in the actual quranic text does not teach people to harm each other, in fact it tells them not to do so. Take killing an innocent person, the quran tells us that killing even a single person is like killing the whole of mankind.
The quran only allows taking of a human life in case of murder but only if compensation is not seen as the right way for dealing with the situation. Or in order to stop unrest or civil war whereby loss of more lives will become inevitable. Or in self defense. In short there arise situations whereby taking a life is allowed in islam but there is no better way to deal with situation in that case.
Most of the stuff about islam was invented by mullahs on demand of kings or rulers of the time a few decades after the death of the prophet. People have been inventing a lot of nonsense stories and attributing them to islam. They have been inventing laws and calling them islamic. This is no secret every sect in islam knows it.
What is main difference between shias and sunnies when it comes to source of islamic information? They each have different collections of ahadith books and they have their own law books ie islamic jurisprudence or shariah as they want us to know them.
This is why rules were invented and applied to sort out genuine information about islam from the one made up. However these rules are just collecting dust and muslims have plenty time to fight each other but no time to study things for knowing the truth about things.
You will see muslims fighting over definitions of certain terms and there uses eg monotheism and polytheism, sunnah=tradition or bidah=innovation, taqleed and ghair muqallidiyat=conformity and nonconformity etc etc.
All this happened because muslim rulers tried to move the real islam out of their their way and promoted this version which always confused everyone. Some rulers did this because they were not genuine muslims because they did not believe in brotherhood but in master slave relationship but others just followed what was handed down to them like ourselves rather than going back to roots to rediscover what islam exactly was. Thus confusion about islam kept increasing with time and that is how we are where we are.
Talebanic islam was not right because they got their islam mostly from ahadith and fiqh books and they did this because they took on wrong definition of word sunnah. To them sunnah meant following each and every move or rest of the prophet. This is how people managed to inject into islamic information made up stuff but it is possible to clearly show that it is not islam. I have explained this in my other thread but here are my main points for sake of ease.
Word Sunnah is from root SEEN, NOON and NOON. It has many meanings eg path, tradition, habit, age, era, formula, rule, law etc etc.
1)The fact is that people live as they live each according to his own nature or personality.
2)No two people are alike nor are they expect to be.
3)It is not possible to know each and every move of anyone ever.
4)It is not possible to have information about anyone to each and every minute detail
5)It is not possible to transmit vast information perfectly.
6)The prophet was a man not a woman, he lived like a man not like a woman. Women cannot grow beard and they have periods and give birth etc etc.
So any information of this nature cannot be called sunnah of the prophet because most of such information does not even exist.
The quran telling us the life of the prophet is best example for us to follow cannot mean this because the quran was not sent for us to do the impossible. So anyone who interprets the quran in an impractical way is misinterpreting the quran.
Even in the quran there are verses which according to existing interpretations tell us that certain things were only and only for the prophet and not for his followers. This tells us very clearly that the whole life of the prophet is not an example for us to follow.
The other factor is the changing world in which we live ie we all were born babies but we did not remain babies. So things that change with time and place cannot be defined as sunnah either.
All these things force us by way of reason to define sunnah objectively. So the question is what is sunnah purpose wise?
The only answer is that Allah sent the prophet with his mission like a king sends his general for a battle to the battle ground to fight the war.
The question is, what role his followers ought to play? They are supposed to learn his goals, guidelines, ways and means and help accomplish the goals. The followers are supposed to be supporters of their prophets ie they are supposed to help them do what they came to do. Like children help their parents or army helps its general win the battle.
This has nothing to do with daadhi, kurta pajaama or pagdi per se because a man has to wear clothes. People live as they see their societies living. The fight is all about what is right and what is wrong and why?
In this context if we have to do things we should do them the right way ie we must have right goals and use right ways and means to achieve them.
Now coming to beard, it is not the sunnah of the prophet at all rather that is the way his society used to live. All he did was told people to do things such a way that they look right and good. You wear clothes but ensure they fulfil their purposes eg they cover your body, they are nice and clean, they protect you from heat and cold or danger and they look great on you when you wear them.
You have a beard then look after it ie don't make it look terrible on you because that will reflect badly on your personality. You wash your beard, comb it, trim it properly etc etc.
I hope my explanation helps understand the definition of word sunnah. Sunnah if taken as doing each and everything the prophet did then we would not have grown out of 7th century arabia because the prophet traveled by camels, horses and donkeys. Inventing cars, plans and rockets etc would be wrong because it would finish off these sunnahs. He did not communicate using phones and so on. Our prophet did not live like prophets before him rather they lived as per their own time and that shows clearly that such things cannot be sunnah. Adam wore tree leaves as per their translations of the quran so all prophets should have done the same but they did not.
So the very insistence of taleban that islam is what they say islam is is clearly not islam that we find in the quran. It shows taleban very clearly on the wrong side of things. If a people are so wrong in this very basic thing can they be right in claiming that the prophet married his wife ayesha when she was six years old? Of course these are things invented by those of such character to show the prophet in bad light.
Also if we read 4/6, 19, the quran tells us even according to normal translations that people must not marry till they reach age of marriage and are mature enough to take on responsibilities involved and that man should not take woman against her will. Proving clearly that mullahs are not correct when they say such silly things about the prophet.
I can go on explaining things that are wrong with interpretation of islam by mullahs but this should give you some idea what I am talking about. It is therefore important that we all learn things with understanding and sense of right and wrong. otherwise we are filling our heads with useless information because information is only useful once we have put it together sensibly.
Thanks for giving me opportunity to share my views. regards and all the best.
