Why Muslims should love secularism

A good piece by Hussein Ibish on secularism and Islam, and how false definitions of secularism have been misappropriated, and that secularism offers, given the diversity within Islam and other religions, “religious freedom, religious authenticity, and religious meaning”:

What devout Muslims need to understand is that real secularism alone offers them something most of them seem to badly want: freedom. If there really is no compulsion in religion, only a secular society can provide that. Only in a secular system can Muslims be free to practice Islam exactly as they see fit. Any \”Islamic\” polity will of necessity be imposing a particular version or interpretation of Islam, which is an extremely heterodox set of traditions.

The claim that secularism is really just Christianity in disguise is manifestly false. The language is European, inherited from the Enlightenment. But both Western chauvinists and anti-Western demagogues badly misread the fact that although the specific language of modern human rights and freedoms is, for historical reasons, currently packaged in Western terms, this hardly means that they lack non-Western cognates, origins, or bases.

Since at least the 10th century, most Muslim societies have distinguished between political and religious authority, and it\’s absurd to claim that religious freedom originates only or even mainly as a concept from the Protestant Reformation. There are deep roots in both traditional and modern interpretations of Islam that lend themselves to political secularism.

Why Muslims should love secularism.