Islam and Morality

I am normally quite apathetic to respond to views made by the ignoramuses on Islam. Unfortunately however, sometimes you ought to rebut those misleading statements when they were seemingly sound logical and widely disseminated. There has been a heated debate for the past few weeks back in my home country and here centres around the issue of enforcement in Islam viewed by the secularist post-modernist advocates as infringment on one's rights and privacy. The basis of their dissent is that there is no enforcement in Islam but rather "confession"; Islam is a religion of compassion and mercy thus enforcement is tantamount to traumatising, degrading and humiliating the people; Islam guarantees individual's privacy and similar rallying cries propagated in the West by the so-called "human rights activists" (which is actually not right in the first place!).

Alas! I am deeply sickened at this perpetual shallow line of reasoning which is none other but the proof of the success of Western secular infiltration into the Muslim minds. The so-called "moderate Muslims" or "progressive Muslims" or the like who Charles Kurzman would revere them, belonging to a new breed of species called "liberal Muslims" - as opposed to the so-called "fundamentalists" (the pejorative term the Westerners themselves coined referring to certain religious groups, originally in Christianity) - cried foul again and again over any slightest issue of "Islamic" enforcement the authority trying to implement. The favourite secularist chantings like "modernity", "progressive", "human rights", "privacy" became the mantras of the day which are all but originated from the Western secular encephalons intrinsically imbued with the Western philosophical outlook and totally alien to the Islamic worldview. It does not mean that Islam is not modern or progressive or void of human rights, but what we mean to say here is that our concept and approach on these matters are totally different from others. Take for example what happened some time a few years back when the secularist-feminist group launched a campaign 'distributing condoms for free' in order to curb the rise of AIDS cases. Do you think the approach was Islamically or put it more plainly, morally right? Would it not have been much better to seriously advise the people and campaign for abstaining from any form of sexual misbehaviour, be loyal to one's wife or husband and be committed to one's religious teachings, instead of freely giving condoms which might on the other hand only further aggravate the deviance?

Coming back to the enforcement, why in Islam people should not be left to behave according to their own whim and fancies? It is simply because al-Qur'an is replete with Allah's calls for the Muslims to perfom 'Amar ma'ruf wa nahyu 'anil munkar" enjoining good and forbidding evils [to list but a few, see 3:104,3:110,9:71]. Furthermore, ALlah's wrath would befall (even the innocent people) if the evil activities were not put to stop. The Prophet (PBUH) has warned, "By Him in Whose Hand my life is, you either enjoin good and forbid evil, or Allah will certainly soon send His punishment to you. Then you will make supplication and it will not be accepted"[At-Tirmidhi]. This duty is actually obligatory upon each and every Muslim to perform it to the degree that he is capable of. It is even more so upon those in power (Ulul al-Amr) Hence, when enjoining good and forbidding evil is carried out by those in authority like JAWI, would'nt it be more effective compared to if it were conducted by any Tom, Dick and Harry? Who else on earth, if not those entrusted with power could put into practice efficaciously these commandments of ALlah?. Or should we wait for the "confession" or perhaps, another "tsunami" (May ALlah forbid) to come and only then we would begin taking action? Only God knows best.