Live Traffic

Dec 16, 2011

Does Islam allow freedom of religion?

It was the previous day a small group of athiests had a protest in the artificial beach to call for religious freedom. They call upon the government to amend the constitution. One of their strong argument is: since Islam allows religious freedom, the current constitution is against the principles of Islam.

Yes, it is true. Islam does not force anyone to become a muslim against his will although it claims the only religion acceptable before God after death. The Quran or the Last Testament calls itself the Criterion to judge between right and wrong and ask us to ponder on its words.

So, the problem with religious freedom is actually with our democracy. The majority decided to protect Islam in the land for religious harmony and unity of the society. This is what I understand. Thus, if we truly believe in democracy we need to digest its shortcomings. This is the fact.

The sad thing is democracy has no rules but is guided by whimps of the majority. Good or bad, ethical or unethical does not matter at all. This is why some western countries have passed laws to withhold minority rights. Again to protect certain values per majority thinking.

If you (Hilath, Simon and Yameen) want to bring religious freedom per Islam, will you first call upon the govt to replace democracy with khilafath which allowed religious freedom under Islamic rule.

Again you might change your previous stand on Islam for fear of Shariah in a Khilafath System and say "Islam prescribes death penalty for apostasy". Please let me assure you that you need not worry about it as long as you can keep your mouth shut and keep your belief to yourself. Nobody will come out to kill you.

However, if you come out to public to encourage others to denounce Islam or to belittle Islamic faith you will be seen as a danger to the whole society and would be got rid of for the better. This is a different scenario. It is like you betray your people and is readily commiting atrocities against them.
Digg Google Bookmarks reddit Mixx StumbleUpon Technorati Yahoo! Buzz DesignFloat Delicious BlinkList Furl

1 comments: on "Does Islam allow freedom of religion?"

Anonymous said...

Contrary to misguided belief, democracy means equality for all. If a so-called democracy cannot provide equal rights for all citizens then it's not democracy.

If democracy means what you think it means then we have been a democracy for the last three decades when Gayyoom was King. He had majority support for most of that time, right? So it must be democracy!

Also, Secularism is not synonymous with atheism. They're two very different things that has nothing to do with each other. The "small group of atheists" you refer to are secularists. But then again you don't necessarily have to be secularist to support for religious freedom.

You're over-simplifying a complex issue, and in doing so you're misrepresenting whole groups of people and disseminating false information about what a democracy is to already gullible Maldivians. Shame on you.