Islam and the Secular State

"The most urgent task facing Muslim society, I think, is the reformulation of the sharia. Here, the human rights lawyer Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im has provided an invaluable lead. He has written extensively on Islam and human rights. In this book he argues that Islam cannot have a viable future without rethinking Islamic law and the relationship between religion and the secular state in all Muslim societies. The sharia needs to be free from state control, he suggests, just as the state should not be allowed to misuse religious authority. An-Na’im is a profound thinker with a deep knowledge of Islamic sources; and offers a penetrating analysis of Islamic law in our time, examining the role of sharia in Turkey, India and Indonesia, and its possible future development and evolution. And I couldn’t agree more with his assertion that the idea of human rights and citizenship are totally consistent with Islamic values and norms. I am always hopeful. After all, a major function of faith is to give us cautious hope. This is why Küng also concludes his book by expressing ‘unshakable hope’ about the future. But hope is intrinsic in the very idea of future. An awareness of the future can empower people and open up possibilities where none existed before. The future is a frontier where all things are possible, including the possibility of breaking the power and the hold of the present over our future. But for that to happen we should see the future not as a commodity but as a domain of alternative potentials and promises."