Saluman:

To be honest, I have hears from many muslims that no islamic country has is truly practicing sharia. I aksed about Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Morocco, Turkey, Syria, Afghanistan etc.....they all said no.



Is that a problem with Sharia itself?

Saluman: I think there is a failure in the religion already.

What is emerging is that there is no united leadership in Islam. Whichever cleric or imam shouts the loudest gets the most followers. Unfortunately, the extreme ones who are empty barrels shout the loudest and take their followers on a fundamentalist reading of the Quran. We can see this as how liberal islamic speakers are accused of heresy by the radical ones.

Basic:
Bro, leave them. They're only proving that the adjective I qualified them with (brainless) fits them perfectly.

A little background

“If it wasn’t for their political problems and constant fighting between each other, the Muslims would have been on the moon by the 1400’s” was the statement made by a non-Muslim professor in a 400-level undergraduate class on the history of science.

Looking at the history of the Islamic Civilization, it is incredible to see how much the early muslims acheived within a short period of the advent of Islam. From medical surgeries and lighted streets in Islamic spain to astronomy, mathematics and libraries in baghdad. Few people know that theories of micro-evolution were formed by muslim religious scholars way before darwin and It was never a reason to disbelieve in Allah. The muslim world was hundreds of years ahead of the rest of the world and It took europe hundreds of years to get to the level of Islamic spain and baghdad... The muslims however lost baghdad and Spain to the mongols and the christians respectively.

The rate of advancement and development by the early muslims is yet to be replicated and only the last century of scientific advancement compares to it.

So what was responsible for this growth?

The muslims had spread into new territory and preserved the knowledge of the cities. They were spread across different parts of the world and were able to develop on the ideas that they acquired from these territories. Also, the basis of Islamic education was the Quran, so even when universities were established in the muslim world at that time, the Quran was the center of their education. The Quran inspired this quest for knowledge. No wonder many of the early muslim scientists were religious scholars too...

Up to the late 18th century, the muslims still had the Quran as the center of their education and made amazing strides... The madrasas were centers of learning...

What went wrong?

Constant in-fighting- This ranks as number 1 for me, I remember getting mixed feeling of pride and anger when i watched a documentary of Islamic spain... one of the reasons Spain fell is the fact that muslims were more interested in fighting each other for power rather than being united. They were ready to become allies with an invading army against their own brothers...

The abandonment of our scientific traditions: By the early 19th century, the ottoman empire of the muslims was having economic problems. As a result, instead of a selective application of science from europe to satisfy the need of its territory as it used to be, it became dependent.... The ottomans used to see themselves as superior to the europeans but the need to maintain political, military and economic strength saw them become dependent on european nations and an inferiority complex set-in... They began to think that science and development could only come from looking the western way, they began to even abandon islamic law... This led to their eventual fall, when the colonialists came calling... At this time, the religious scholars were still the most important people in muslim societies...

When we began to abandon the Quranic values and base to our education, we started lagging behind... but it was about to get worse:

Colonisation

Anyone that studies the algerian battle against the french colonizers would be amazed at the lengths they went to become independent.. Muslim scholars were massacred across the muslim world in battles against the colonizers. This led to an almost simultaneous movement by muslim scholars across the muslim world... Muslim scholars withdrew from society and went into seclusion.

The aim was to preserve Islamic knowledge, so they refused to learn the language of the colonizers or dress like the colonizers. They maintained the arabic language.... They were isolated from society... This turned out to be a big error in my opinion...

Something changed within the years of colonialism, the muslims had adopted western values of materialism. The muslim scholars could no longer integrate into the society because they were seen as those who belonged in the mosque. They were no longer the most important people in muslim society for probably the first time in Islamic history...

The most dangerous thing left by the colonizers was a mental colonization, the average algerian, tunisian or morocan today dreams of living in france or spain... We began to feel that the white man is better, smarter. This mental state is true of many african countries as well. We abandon our values and adopt the worst of western values.

The muslim scholars were no longer in touch with the needs of their society, the opinions (fatwas) they gave were seen as very distant from the realities of the societies in which they lived. The influx of the western idea of a divide between religious scholarship and 'secular' scholarship became a reality in the muslim world for the first time.

In the last century, there have been many angry movements across the muslim world to bring Islamic rule back to the muslim world. The humiliation of a great civilisation by invading forces has left many angry muslims, this anger has fed extremist groups amongst muslims to commit acts that are not only unislamic but inhuman. There are also many non-violent groups advocating for the the return of an Islamic State.

So is the solution to bring back Islamic rule right now? The answer is quite frankly a big NO. Why? We are simply not ready. The muslim world needs a deep reform before this can successfully happen and the way to do this is to use the prophetic formula.

Islamic Law and reforming the Islamic Society

We will look at this from two angles:

i. Individual
ii. Society

i. Individual: When an individual accepts islam, Islamic law becomes compulsory on him immediately.. So he fasts, prays, zakat, stays away from intoxicants, eats halal food...

So we have the first two steps for the individual as

Step 1: Faith
Step 2: Law

It might take some time for a new Muslim to adjust but it doesn't mean the laws do not apply to him immediately.... The level of compliance with the law depends on the individual conviction and effort.

As time goes, the person begins to adopt the Islamic morality and change habits, he is kind to his neighbours and the needy, he maintains family ties, he avoids financial corruption etc...This leads us to the third step

Step 3: Morality

So the three steps are faith - law - morality

The second area and more important area is that of society

The society:

The steps needed to implement islamic law on a society is slightly different but we must not confuse the two... Before Islamic law can be implemented on a society, two steps must be fulfilled first

Step 1: Faith
Step2 : Morality

Without these two, the law is either a complete failure or a joke.... Throughout the meccan life of the prophet, the morality of his companions were built up and two thirds of the Quran is about faith and morality.

In the 1920s, the united states placed a ban on alchohol. This is an element of Islamic law. It was a complete failure, there was more alcohol produced in the US at that time than at any other time in its history. It failed because the moral values were at odds with the law. Alcohol was not seen as a bad thing by society.

Many muslim countries who claim to be practicing parts of Islamic law, have the worst kinds of financial corruption by the elite, the worst kind of racism and class society, the very worst kinds. Even though they claim to follow Islamic law, they make a mockery of the entire process. Islamic justice system is based on reliable witness testimony, but if a society is morally bankrupt, it is not difficult to get people to tell lies so as to get someone punished.

Therefore, it is my view that muslims have to work towards building accountability and morality within their societies before we can talk about establishing Islamic law on the land...

The Prophet Musa and Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon them) were not given the permission to fight until the basis of faith and morality were built. To fulfill the demands of law, you need authority and authority was gained by fighting.

So how do we achieve this?

We need to first reclaim our identity...

1. It has to start with our education. We must bring religious education and acquired education back together again and stop seeing them as separate things... Religious scholars should come together with professionals from different fields and form think-tanks to come up with islamic solutions to modern day problems in line with the Quran and the sunnah. I am absolutely convinced that we can come up with a better way to deal with the economics of the world and eliminate usury, which is in my opinion is a plague in the modern economy and would lead to many more recessions. There is a need to merge Islamic knowledge with acquired knowledge and develop curriculum for Islamic psychologists, sociologists, psychiatrists etc in tertiary institutions.

This way, we will once again merge religious knowledge with what is now called 'secular' knowledge.

Also, Islam can guide thee development of science and lead to a situation where research is done in things that would actually benefit people instead of in things like the Nuclear bomb. It will clean up the incredibly corrupt pharmaceutical sector and the price of drugs would plummet. ( The profits made by these companies are obscene.)

At the same time, we need to develop a better curriculum for primary and secondary education by reintroducing the Quran back into our education. Muslim kids today know very little about the Quran even amongst arabs apart from memorization. We need them to do what they Quran asks us to do, reflect on the message. Every kid should be vast in his Islamic knowledge as well as his knowledge of the sciences and arts. We will once again have professionals who let Islam guide the application of their Knowledge. There is a school like that already in the US that i know of. I think, it will produce incredible people... Unfortunately, we do not have these in many parts of the muslim world..

ii. Corruption in Government - Periodic audits

Most muslim goverments are incredibly corrupt, any plan on properly implementing the Islamic law must be done by first eliminating corruption in government. Fortunately, as muslims we have a model we can build on... During the time of the second Caliph of Islam, Umar (RA) , public officials were made to declare their assets before and after service. Any extra wealth was given back to the state.

Governments are more complicated now but we need to look at ways of dealing in corruption in muslim governments before we can start moving towards a more Islamic society.

iv. Corruption in society

Once the corruption in government is taken care of, Societal corruption will gradually take a dive because government will be doing its job.

If we can handle the problems of faith and morality in our societies, then we can start talking about implementing the Islamic law... If it is done without this, the people will revolt against it and it will fail or like i said earlier, it will just be a joke.

For this to happen, the governments in the muslim world must build programs designed to re-establish the concepts of accountability and morality in muslim countries.

This will form the basis of a future Islamic state, any islamic state formed today will probably collapse in a decade or two and would be impossible to rebuild... The foundations have been lost... We need to regain it.

Assalam Aleikum

jerseyboy:
No religion out there is trying to seperate people from their heads.
Islam is not a religion. It is an instrument of terror.

tbaba1234: I wrote this earlier

https://www.nairaland.com/1068269/islamic-civilisation-islamic-law-reforming

baba ireti:
It is a pity that you Guys are unrepentantly anti-Islamic in nature and that is why you always strays in your views and opinions,you should for once be detached from bias and sentiment while commenting on Topics that affect religion or faith of those other than yours.

baba ireti:
Then if you call Islam an instrument of terror! what would you call the West (Israel,America,Britain) and the likes who monopolize the development of Nuclear power,use it on other Nations while at the same time feeling uneasiness in them on suspicion of their victims developing same? Islam abhor injustice and it has zero tolerance for cowardice,hence Muslims are only reacting to actions of the real terrorist christian Nations.

Basic:
Man, you don't believe everything you hear. Not every Muslim knows much about his religion. And most Muslims who'll open their mouths to tell tales about other countries have never been there.
The sharia is in use in Saudi Arabia and most other middle East nations. Though the implementation might not be 100%. In fact, it's not. But for someone to say they're not following it at all, that's a blunder.

princemol:
Why not 100%, islam claims dat her book came frm God direct n I believe d sharia law is included so why partial implementation? Can som1 answer dat pls?

freenature:

To be honest with both of you and all those who count sharia law as something good let me tell you something, it ain't good and also Turkey,Syria,Egypt and Morocco are not muslim countries,they are circular countries where christianity,islam and jewdaism exist...so when next you want to talk about this countries be factual and also what kind of law is a law that permits a person's hand to be cut off, if both of you were accused of stealing or doing anything that warrant i quote the so called sharia law will you be happy that your hand is going to be cut off?
wouldn't you try to plead for forgiveness and ask for a second chance to be forgiven ?
and without anybody cutting of your manhood for committing adultery ,you all should know that there is a curse attached to commiting adultery even without sharia law cutting of your manhood
....so i want to let you know that if you review sharia law critically you all will know that its an outrages law that calls for an outcry an also goes against human rights. ....

eggheaders: the Mad dogs are at there games again.abusing Islam is their hobbies. who give a damn about the opinion of uneducated brainwashed pastorpreur slaving low life's.

jimino: If u luk at it critically, islamic leader in nigeria nd some oda countries r failure because all der preach 2 der follower is war nt peace. Bt islamic leaders in Ghana preach peace. Y is nigeria islam diferent?

jimino: If u luk at it critically, islamic leader in nigeria nd some oda countries r failure because all der preach 2 der follower is war nt peace. Bt islamic leaders in Ghana preach peace. Y is nigeria islam diferent?

ade95: Am sure wot u christian guys are thinking of now, is muslim are boko-haram? Have u tot within irsef dat if de are truly muslims why do de blow mosques...if they are muslims dey wldnt waste fellow muslims...this ma question who blew d mosques? That 2 show u political pple are only using islam as a way of disrupting stabilization,ISLAM STANDS FOR PEACE....

Saluman: I think there is a failure in the religion already.

What is emerging is that there is no united leadership in Islam. Whichever cleric or imam shouts the loudest gets the most followers. Unfortunately, the extreme ones who are empty barrels shout the loudest and take their followers on a fundamentalist reading of the Quran. We can see this as how liberal islamic speakers are accused of heresy by the radical ones.

Saluman: I think there is a failure in the religion already.

What is emerging is that there is no united leadership in Islam. Whichever cleric or imam shouts the loudest gets the most followers. Unfortunately, the extreme ones who are empty barrels shout the loudest and take their followers on a fundamentalist reading of the Quran. We can see this as how liberal islamic speakers are accused of heresy by the radical ones.