Dear Khalid:

I read your letter with great interest.  In my opinion secular has nothing to do with religion or any other dogmatic beliefs.  As I understand secular is concerned with worldly affairs rather than spiritual ones and in no way involve or belong to a religion.  In this context as I see it the term Secular Muslim is not only wrong but also confusing like Islamic Science.  In defining a liberal progressive Muslim the proper word we may use is Non-practising Muslim.  I feel the people who prefer to label themselves as Secular Muslims are basically apologetic about their faith.  It has become a common practice among Muslim Scholars to give new meanings and interpretations to Islamic faith.  Islam is a din of rituals and any Muslim even if he/she wishes to modify the basics won’t be able to do so.  The fundamentalist has a strong grip on the interpretations of the tenets of Islam.  No one can revolutionize the five pillars of Islam.  It is not possible to change the rituals of salat, soum, hajj and so on and so forth.  To me posture of sajda is totally against human dignity and it is more arduous for ladies.  I wonder how God is pleased by this pose.  There are other dignified ways to worship.  At this point these rituals are so deep rooted that any modifications are almost impossible unless some one wish to start a new sect creating more problems.

Talibans were close to the true Islam except floggings of women in streets and a few other minor ignorable deviations.  They tried to impose Islam in letter and spirit.  And strangely Muslims were crying foul.  Historically our track record is also not very objective and brilliant in any sense.  Think of wars among close companions of Prophet, ethnic cleansing of Jews from Madina by inhuman slaughter of 400 or so young Jews in the presence of the Prophet.  I have no explanation or comprehension for all that.  One way is to deny completely and believe it never happened.  That is what non-practicing Muslims do and the orthodox/practicing Muslims solemnly believe whatever happened was right and as per Sharia and it should only be that way.  Secular is skeptical and when one has doubts in religion how he or she can be a Muslim and Secular at the same time.  Basically what I am trying to say is that we should leave Islam as is.

rafiq