Is Islam by its very nature antithetical to the development of democratic institutions? There has been much discussion of late, both inside and outside the Islamic world, about those elements in the Islamic past and those factors in the Muslim present that are favorable and unfavorable to the development of liberal democracy. From a historical perspective it would seem that of all the non-Western civilizations in the world, Islam offers the best prospects for Western-style democracy. Historically, culturally, and religiously, it is the closest to the West, sharing much - though by no means all - of the Judeo-Christian and Greco-Roman heritage that helped to form our modern civilization.

In the West, the Muslims face many questions just because of being Muslims, regularly. Pressing important questions. And there questions or something that referred to be concerned to post-enlightenment ideas. For instance, someone asks that why a Muslim gets offended when someone draws a picture of Prophet Muhammad SALLALLAHU ALAIHI WASALLAM. Isn't this freedom of expression or freedom of speech? And why are Muslims in this regard against the freedom of expression? Isn’t Islam therefore, a backward religion that needs to be reformed? do not need to have a reform within Islam? Because, actually you will find that Islam has aspects of it which are against enlightenment values, against the liberalism, against freedom of expression, against freedom of speech. Now the pivotal thing is that these questions to be asked! But what do Muslims need to do? And what do Westerns also need to do? Now here is a point. Every question has a presupposition. What is a presupposition? It is an assumption. Obviously hearing these questions, some Muslims they go immediately on the back foot. Now the post-colonial Western masters are using different techniques and there are different responses from Muslims. Somewhere literally bow at the knee, surrender, and give up, Yes sir you are right, there is a problem we need to fix it, we need to have revivalism in Islam, we need to have reform within Islam, we need to clean it up you are right. Some we’ll say we must reject this completely, this is a poison, this is a vicious ideology, and we must remove it. But in the upcoming days, what are we going to do? We are going to argue that the question is problematic itself. Allah says in holy Quran, اليوم اكملت لكم دينكم واتممت عليكم نعمتي ورضيت لكم الاسلام دينا

Today, I have perfected your religion for you and completed My favour upon you, and have granted Islam as a religion for you.

In this Modern era, it is often discussed the Islam needs the liberal interpretation. Well, moving ahead on this topic, let’s affirm that Islam is liberal itself then what is the need of a liberal interpretation of Islam? Because Islam is the original and the scriptural religion offered by Allah, which was presented by Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam and was adopted by his companions. There is nothing to be liberalized in Islam because it is already liberal. The original Islam is not extremely ritualistic or extremist or even excessively strict about the customs and forms ان الدين يسر indeed the religion is ease. Even there a numerous scholars who argue that, Islam has a liberal Outlook.

Here a question arises that then why do people say that Islam needs a liberal interpretation? Actually, the Islam that Muslims are presenting everywhere globally is not the precise and the actual form of Islam. Moreover, it has the aspects of extremism and excessive ritualistic ideologies. People consider that this is the real Islam. That is why they raise this question.

For example, if a woman comes to the mosque for the congregational prayer, then what would the imam do then? He will obviously stop her saying that women are not allowed in masjids. So people considered this to be the actual form of Islam and the actual ideology of Islam. But you know the reality. During the inceptional period of Islam, women used to come to mosques and attend the congregational prayers in masjid-e-nabawi. But nowadays due to the insecurity of women, they are not allowed to come to mosques. Actually on the other hand this is the utmost security for women given by Islam. But these Westerners conceive this as a kind of extremism. Nowadays, there is the viral concept of jihad which is the kind of extremism and is considered to be part of Islam. But extremism itself is separate from Islam. Just because of this concept of jihad,  the liberal influencers condemn the ideology of Islam.

Generally, liberalists affirm the promotion of progressive values such as democracy, gender equality, human rights, LGBT rights, women’s rights, religious pluralism, interfaith marriage, freedom of expression, freedom of thought, and freedom of religion; opposition to theocracy and total rejection of Islamism and Islamic fundamentalism. They also demand the open sexual relationships with whoever they want however they want whenever they want. Now here is a point, every 15 seconds a girl or a woman is harassed sexually all over the world you know why this happens? Just because of this kind of negative liberalistic ideologies. Sexual harassment, and marital allurement, these concepts become very common in these days. But the Islamic principles on the other hand limited this sexual relationship to certain arrays within certain restrictions so that these kinds of harassment reports would not exist anymore. This is a vivid example of the moral values of Islam and the erroneous ideology of liberalism

Islam was complete and perfect and it’s now also completely perfect and it will always be complete and perfect for every generation no matter how the Westerns criticize about the fundamentalism of Islam. This Islam is the pride for us not the the element of dissonance over the generations.

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