ملخص الجهاز:
Example If Muslims should have no difficulty in empathizing with the idea of morality in public life, it is partly because Prophet Muhammad is the only Chandra Muzaffar is president of the International Movement for a Just World, the former head of the Center for Civilizational Dialogue at the University Malaya, and a founding member of Malaysia's Social Justice Movement (Adil).
lndeed, in every state where religious elites are preponderantly powerful, they have become the custodians of morality, arrogating to themselves the sole privilege of interpreting the divine truth and thereby denying the individual the right to consciously understand, absorb, articulate, and disseminate values pertaining to what is good and beautiful in life.
Why is it that on a whole spectrum of moral concerns, from the failure to accord priority to poverty eradication to the inability to ensure that justice is done to non-Muslim minorities, Islamic states have not been able to meet the standards set by the religion itself?
22 It is a tragic commentary on the parlous state of affairs in Islamic societies that peaceful attempts to ensure that the gov- emment adheres to ethical principles are crushed mercilessly by the very people who profess to uphold morality in public life.
In fact, there are scores of intellectuals and even religious elites in a number of Muslim-majority societies who are averse to the idea of an Islamic state precisely because of its tendency to provide a narrow interpretation of law and morality, and of such issues as the rights of women and non-Muslim citizenship.