I'm understand that, and I myself often say things like 'Islam supports many Liberal views' when talking to non-Muslims, but I feel that labelling it 'Secular Islam' will add more confusion - after all, Secularism is a very specific term; it means the separation of religion from public affairs. If the Islam already promotes tolerance, why separate it from public affairs?
Surely our message should be that Islam is tolerant. 'Secularise Islam' sounds more like "Islam is intolerant, but we want to be tolerant, so we are going to separate Islam from our State"
That is counterproductive in my opinion.
Islam is a religion.
Islamism (or Political Islam) is a modern political movement/ideology (inspired more by nineteenth/twentieth century European utopian political ideologies than Islamic Religion) that strives to drive legitimacy from Islam. Many Muslims (as well as Non Muslims) fail to distinguish between the two (i.e. Islamism and traditional Islamic Religion). Islamism (and not Islam) is opposed to secularism (and all other "isms"). Therefore, in my opinion, using such terminology to clear up this confusion is not counterproductive.
Also, the Founding Fathers of Pakistan not only used such
terminology, they proudly declared their adherence to such philosophies/ideologies and "welcomed" those who followed them saying that their actions were perfectly justified.
Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, the man who developed the idea of Indian Muslim Nationalism (TNT)that ultimately led to the creation of Pakistan, in a lecture given by him before a large and very influential audience of Muslims in Lucknow, on 18th December, 1887, said :
" ..... Gentlemen, I am not a Conservative, I am a great Liberal.... "
Allama Muhammad Iqbal, the man behind the idea of Pakistan, said:
"We heartily welcome the liberal movement in modern Islam..."
and
"The claim of the present generation of Muslim liberals to re-interpret the foundational legal principles, in the light of their own experience and the altered conditions of modern life, is, in my opinion, perfectly justified."
(Mohammad Iqbal, The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam)
And
Jinnah, the creator of Pakistan, fits quite closely the model of the classic liberal politician.
He wanted a Liberal constitution for Pakistan (as recorded by Fatima Jinnah in "My Brother")
Similarly, another such term/philosophy used/espoused by our Founding Fathers was
"Islamic Socialism"
In his Chittagong 1948 broadcast, the Governor General (i.e.
Muhammad Ali Jinnah) espoused Islamic Socialism (Burke, 2007, pp.166).
Before him
Allama Iqbal had said God plus Bolshevism is Islam.
Hasrat Mohani used the term Islamic Communism.
Liaquat Ali Khan called Islamic Socialism the state policy of Pakistan (Symonds, 1976, pp.182).
Fatimah Jinnah with reference to her brother’s Chittagong speech advocated Islamic Socialism (Khan,1976, pp. 25, 26).
Dr. Muhammad Ali Siddiqui is witness that the Raja of Mahmudabad favored Islamic Socialism, in Katrak Hall, Karachi in 1967 (Siddiqui, 1998, pp.18)
Addressing workers in the Calcutta of 1943 ,
Jinnah said:
"Why am I turning my blood into water, for the rich, for the capitalist? No, for you, the poor people. There are so many places where one cannot get a square meal a day. Is that Pakistan? If that is Pakistan I would not want it."
Jinnah said :
"You are only voicing my sentiments and the sentiments of millions of Musalmans when you say that Pakistan should be based on sure foundations of social justice and Islamic socialism which emphasizes equality and brother-hood of man."
i never got so emotional on incidents like this... before whenever i think that yes finally our country is moving forward an incident like this happens and than i realize that it's majority of jahils who actually rule this country we're too few and too weak to do anything
