Secularism, Liberalism and Islam

• Religious people have distanced themselves from the state, society and politics although they need to take part actively in what's going on in the country.
• There may be knowledge and philosophies outside Islam that are compatible with Islam and have nothing wrong with them. They consist of the good, the neutral and the ugly. The good is that which can be used to further the aims of Islam. The neutral is neither against Islam and nor for Islam. The ugly consists of those concepts that are against Islam. It is only when we train Ulema who master both Islam and Modern education that we can understand modern philosophies in the light of Islam.
• Secularism refers to taking religion out of the state, society and humanity. It simply means you can be a good person without having taqwa (the act of staying away from sins for the sake of Allah), without adopting Sunnah, without Allah and religion basically.
• State:Separating religion from politics/governance. It began historically in Europe in order to separate the Catholic Church from tyrannical monarchical rule in Europe because they were getting legitimacy from Church.
• Society:Religion should be taken out of the Public  and expressions of religion and faith should be banned e.g. banning beard, hijaab, or public display of religion in Turkey
• Humanity: Separating religion from the definition of a good human being. You can be a perfect human being without having any relationship with the creator. Redefined the definition of goodness and virtue and separated religious ethics from laws. e.g. legalizing alchohol,gambling,pornography
• The secularists in our country unfortunately are intolerant and against religion. Secularism does not have to equal atheism. Many believing Christians and Jews are secular although they practice their own faith. Faith is a private matter but when it comes to running the society, it becomes a public matter because some people choose not to let the Quran and Sunnah guide society so religion has a key role in defining how the society should be run.  A truly neutral secular state(soft secularism) allows all religions to be practiced freely. A biased secular state(hard secularism) tries to limit religion.
• ISLAMIC STATE: When Islam enters an individual, is a barbarian or a monster or a terrorist created? NO, the most noble and purest human being is created. So when it enters the society, you will have a pure, just, fair, noble and ethical society.  An Islamic state does not force Shariah on people and we find the evidence in all of Muslim history. Rather, an Islamic state is a beautiful model state in which people willingly and consciously follow religion. Islam guides the laws and defines how the state should be run but there is no imposition of shariah on the private individual. Some people are against laws based on religions and they are a matter of great debate e.g. apostasy law,blasphemy law 
• Apostasy law: one who abandons religion and becomes a murtad, the punishment for that is death.  Some people view apostasy equivalent to treason with death punishment. Some believed in exile or punishment. Some believed that the person should be invited to Islam and given a chance.  But if we look at our country practically, there are all types of expression of atheism, immodesty, freedom of expression and action. There is useless fear mongering about this. Similarly, blasphemy law also has multiple punishments like death and imprisonment.. These laws can only be enacted when social and economic justice has been established. 
• Minority rights: Rights of minority given by Sayyidna RasulAllah SAWW were more than any other faith. The best time for jews was in Spain and the Ottoman empire under muslims. But there needs to be a certain limit when somebody who is not part of the religion tries to portray themselves as part of the religion. Everybody can freely practice their own religion as long as they don't claim that their religion is Islam e.g. Qadianis cannot be muslims because they deny the seal of prophethood. And he claims that anybody who does not accept him as a prophet is not a muslim so does that make the whole ummah non muslim? They can have full rights as citizen and full rights to practice deen as long as they don't claim to be Muslims. They should accept their deen is different.
•  Gender rights: There is a myth of oppression in the elite. The oppression is basically in the masses. e.g. acid burning, abuse, honour killing. These things have nothing to do with Islam or secularism. Many secular and muslim men oppress women. The cure is Islam. If there is any man who will be able to treat a woman properly, he will be the one with the sunnah heart and sunnah personality. Such a man can never hurt a woman but unfortunately such men are in minority.
• The problems of our country are elitism, feudalism, corruption, injustice, education, health. These are the real key issues and we try to fuel other issues and exploit them. If every house decides to educate the workers in their home, the whole country could become educated. We pay workers the bare minimum and even less than the market value and substandard wages. We squeeze the poor. It is a problem irrespective of religion
• Immodesty is a big fitnah in this country and there is no common ground between secularists and Islam on this. It is destroying the youth. Intelligent people are being wasted because they get caught in sins of immodesty.Their is a growing discrimination against people following Islam based on their religiosity and they have fewer job opportunities.
• Common ground with Liberalism: 1)Constitutionalism. There should be a constitution and common principles guiding society.  2)Rule of Law: Their should be rule of law.No individual can take law in their own hands.  3)Equality 4)Civil rights 4)Democracy:Islam is not against or for democracy. Any form of government that gives rise to sunnah form of government is fine. There must be an Ameer and Majlis e shura. Ameer is the President and Shura are the advisors. Any government that can fulfill the goals of Islam in accordance with Quran is fine. Having elections based on a majority of illiterate people is not acceptable. People need to be educated before we can think of democracy. Our democracy is only based on exploitation by elite.
• Liberalism is based on the ‘harm principal’. It means, you can justify what you’re doing to be right by saying it doesn’t harm anyone. You say if I drink beer, I don’t do anybody’s nuqsan hence I can drink. It’s like you get into IBA, don’t set foot on the campus for four years, and then turn up on the graduation day and say I deserve a degree because I didn’t harm any student or any professor for that matter. I haven’t done anyone harm. Why should I not get the degree? You can’t get the degree because you didn’t do what you were required to do even though you avoided harming people.
• There is a group of people called Muslim secularists. They critically analyse everything except the existence of God. They say everything has to be shown and proven even if its in Quran. It has to appeal to the aqal. They do not accept the superiority of wahy over aqal. There are things in Islam that are transrational. Why do you offer 2 raka’ats in Fajr but 4 in Zuhr? There’s no explanation for it.
• You have to come to Allah on his terms and not on your terms. You have to submit to Allah, to His Commands and to His Will. This is what Islam is all about.
• People don’t want to do what’s in Quran and still please Ar-Rahman! Now that’s a new type of Islam.
• Reform comes from the word reformulate. You reformulate something that is wrong. Its a universally accepted fact that deen-nabawi is perfect. Then what exactly are they trying to change?
• We look for a version of diet Islam. It’s like having a double cheese burger with a diet coke and saying to yourself it’ll help me lose weight. Reformists keep on reducing the necessary things of the deen to make it more easy to follow and they kill the essence in the process.
• How to go about this mess then? One. Choose ilm over aqal. Two. Choose taqwa over nafs.
• Its not that we don’t wont to be wali of Allah, its just that we have poor taqwa management.  When we say choose taqwa over nafs, we mean fight your nafs and don’t fulfill its desires. Take sin to be sin. Reformists today change the definition of sin. When people don’t consider their act to be a sin, they don’t feel the guilt and hence they don’t do tauba. Bab-e-Taqwa of Jannah was already closed for us because we couldn’t stay away from sins, by not considering our sins a sin and hence not doing tauba for them, we also close Bab-e-Tauba for ourselves! How will we enter Jannah then?!
• Acquiring of ilm is emphasized over using one’s aqal because there are two approaches. The knowledge based approach and the ideology based approach.
• In the knowledge based approach, there is application of ilm with aqal. In the ideology based approach, there is application of aqal without ilm. This is what the young generation is doing nowadays. It’s like I attend an economics conference discussing the ideal model to be applied in the world. Three great economists put forward three models and their pro’s and cons and then decide that the first one is best. I then standup and object that no the third one is the best. They reject my claim because though I’m sitting in this conference of theirs, I don’t have ilm of this specific field of study i.e economics. I remain adamant that no I listened to your presentation for the past one hour and I am a really aqalmand insaan and so now you should accept what I say. They will not listen to me because one has to be able to master a particular field of study before they can express an opinion. You need to be aqalmand but your aqal can be applied only to the area of your ilm. It’s only when you spend years studying something and have acquired its ilm that you can pass a judgment. You need to study Marx to disagree with him. You need to have the ilm of Islam and then apply your aqal to it. Islamic scholarship is as solid a subject as economics – more than it in fact.
• Next, in the knowledge based approach, you read first and decide later. In the ideology based approach, you form opinions first, and then read.
• In the knowledge based approach, you keep the philosophy of ‘don’t disagree till you understand’. In the ideology based approach, your philosophy is ‘don’t agree till you understand.’
• In a nutshell, acquire ilm of the deen.
• The way to a university student’s heart is through his mind.  ‘Aapki aqal mera mukhatib hai magar aap ka dil mera shikaar hai.’ Rationality can take you only to a certain level. Its submission to revelation and love for Allah in one’s heart that does the main job.