The Mullah who is permitted to pray in India,Īs we consider the effects of capitalism in our lives, we should consider how religiosity functions, how it has been secularised and are we trying to fit within a new social order rather than critiquing its logic to bring back Islam. Mullah Ko Jo Hai Hind Mein Sajde Ki Ijazat The subcontinent philosopher and poet illustrated this well in his couplet: Islam has become widely contested following the collision of the Muslim world with European colonialism, Islamic civilisations dismantled, and Islam reduced to a personal faith and religion in collective discourse. The first manifestation of Islam was the Prophet Muhammad's Medinah followed by the domains of the early Khulafah after him, the Umayyads, the Abbasids and the Ottomans, with Islam being dismantled in 1924 by European powers resulting in a century of absence. This means that Muslims are expected to submit to the will of Allah and live according to Islamic principles. It is often forgotten it is also a discursive tradition that is intertwined with power and politics, with the concept of dar al-Islam (the 'abode of Islam') referring to the social and territorial embodiment of Islam. Islam is a deen, a way of life that is centered around the belief in and servitude of one God.

While true, it does not describe how such a separation is made possible, enacted, and reenacted. To say “Islam means submission to one God” says little about Islam as saying 'secularism is the ideology that upholds separation of church and state'.

الطريق إلى مكة by Muhammad Asad