Middle Nation Book Discussion | The Impossible State, by Wael Hallaq: Chapter 5

Assalamu alaikum, everybody. Welcome to the discussion on Wail Halak's impossible state on chapter five just to run through the subheadings in the chapter. So the chapter five, we're discussing the political subject and the moral technologies of the self. And he as he does in his previous chapters, he makes a comparison of the two subheadings in the chapter. So in the political subject, he talks about the political subject in the modern state, modern nation state, and then the moral technologies of the self.

He talks about the the role of sharia in governing the Muslims morality, Muslims moral sphere. And then he makes a very brief comparison between the book between the two, and we can deliberate on the points he has raised on the two segments. I mean, when I read it, I I I think about myself as a Singaporean, and I was raised on propaganda, I mean, as are everybody, As everyone can attest to in Singapore. And but the thing here is while insist that we all went along with it, you know, just because the the model is like that. Therefore, the assumption is all of us just went along with it.

That's the the point of contention that I have with a lot of the things that he says. I

was thinking perhaps I can give a quick summary of the way I was thinking about this chapter in the context of the whole group. And maybe from the everybody else would raise the points where they don't agree or where they do agree, and maybe that would be a bit helpful for everybody to get on the same page. So so the summary, Sister Sama, that you gave on the group, that was fantastic, really. I think just on the starting point, I think the whole group, the the way Alak started is that he was not really starting from the point of view of Islam. He was sort of trying to find a more guide guidance for the modern state.

That's how the that's how he sort of starts his first preface. He mentions three phenomena that the the the narcissistic individuals, then social disintegration, and then the environmental damage, and says that any system of governments which has come up with these results must have it cannot be moral. And then he says that there has been a project going on in the West where they're trying to go back into the Western tradition and see if they can fit if they can source morality from from Aristotle, from Plato, like, renaissance morality kind of things. And what Kolat say that he he prepared that why not try sourcing from Islam? And then he says that in his attempt to do so, he he thinks that these two are not compatible and the rest of the book is about this this thing.

Yeah. And then, obviously, the rest of the summary, as you say. And then so it starts with saying, like, the five character characteristics of the modern state, not not necessarily nation state, and that's an interesting thing. I think only in this fifth chapter, he, for the first time, talks about nationalism. He didn't really talk about nationalism before this point at all.

He started from the point of view of state modern state from modernism, when it's just an old that. But only now he's talking about nationalism, and I'll get that and why he's only talking about nationalism now. The way I see it is that he started with the five character characteristics that that that that that he thinks is historically integral to the current modern state system. And then he goes then the next chapter, he starts by talking about the conception, the ontology of the state, the way it's conceptualized as the wheel, the the highest wheel, the supreme wheel of the nation, of the of the people under that state. So that's the first that he like, the after the preface, after pointing out the five characters.

So then this is the first point that he makes. And then he basically expands on these things. Like, if this is the conceptualization of the state of the governance system, then how does that affect making law? And how does that differ from the premodern Sharia based paradigm where we did not conceptualize governance like that? Governance was not the supreme will, and the supreme will, obviously, only belong to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.

And and and then it was thick, and it was sharia that was the paradigm. So he was in in all these subsequent chapters, he basically picks a topic, and then he shows how that how that ended up being shaped by the initial difference in the in the in the in the initial modern thought and the initial thought of the the the theoretical thought of the Islam. That's how I think he sort of puts these things. So first, he talks about the law because he talks about the situation of the state, and then he talked about the constitution of the sovereignty and how that differs. And these differences leads to the difference in the way the law is being made in modern state and how it was made in the previous pre modern Islamic governance.

And then then in the previous one, in the chapter four, he's talking about the legal and the political. And he basically says that because the modern state is coming from a Renaissance philosophy. This is all positivism. There is no there is no underlying morality there. There is no sense of thought.

There's only ease if if you are to use if are to talk if are to talk about Mughalak's language. And what happens, he says, is that that that basically the secular kind of idea ideologies are basically just a replacement for what we had before, which was the religion. And now in place of that, we have all this capitalism and all these things. So so the legal and then the political. And the political, they say that the citizens are basically sacrificing.

They're they're forming their political identity. Sorry. Just sorry. Are you guys sorry. It's my daughter over there.

Give me a second. Sorry. I

mean, excuse me. While while he's taking care of whatever he's taking care of, there's so many problems with what he just said. I can't even I can't even begin to list all of the problems with what you what brother just said, which is, he's not saying his own words. I know he's giving a summary of Alak's position, and it's faulty and flawed from start to finish. I can't I can't I I don't even know if I can list everything, but it starts from the very beginning when he's talking about his premise for even writing the book and saying, well, we have to look at basically the immoral outcomes in the West and see the state system or the govern governmental system that led to that.

What makes you think the governmental system led to that? That's not the that's not why. Your your government is immoral because your people are immoral because you don't have a moral basis in your life. This is what I've been saying from the beginning. Your problem is kufr.

It doesn't matter what system you have. This is your your problem. It's not the result of the system. This is this is already a mindset that, that morality and decency can only be, regulated by the state or by the government, by from the top down. He's he's entering the discussion with the, with the assumption that morality and virtue and decency and goodness and what have you can only be imposed upon the people, or regulated by the state, and otherwise, the people will not be that way.

He is absolutely dedicated to misdirecting and diverting attention away from the real source of the problems in the West to attribute the problems to the state, and so on. This is not their problem. This this is not the source

of the problem at all.

It it it's from from the beginning, the premise is wrong. And then from there, you have many, many other wrong things. Like I said, I don't even know if I can list all of them from what the brother just said.

Yes. I think he's back. Thank

you, Thank you. Yeah. That's that's that's exactly, I think, what Allak also points out here, to be honest, in this fifth chapter. And I think there was someone in the group chat who mentioned that he jumped from discussing about modern state to Imam Ghazali, to Sufism in this chapter. So how does he make that connection?

How does he make that position? And I think he's basically making the same argument that in the modern state, it is the state who is forming the individuals. And all these all these previous chapters, he was saying what states are doing in the current system. First, the state was making law, and then the state is making the the legal and what it was, the legal and the and the political. And in this chapter, he says that the the state is trying to shape the individual.

The state is trying to make subjects is trying to mold the subjectivity of the citizens and trying to mold the morality of the citizens. He says psychology. He didn't say psychology of the of the citizens. And he he contrasts that with the Islamic tradition and the premodern tradition, where it was not the state who did that, where it is not the government who did it. It was that was exactly the point he was actually making that in Islam No.

It's not. No. No. Sorry. It's not I'm sorry to this.

Or else you're misunderstanding me. Because I'm saying that the state does not do that. He is saying that the state is responsible for the immoral outcomes. The state is not responsible for the immoral outcomes. The kufr is responsible for the immoral outcomes, and it wouldn't matter what form of government you have.

You're gonna get the same immoral outcomes because you're an immoral society, and that wasn't imposed upon you by the government. The government was created by an immoral society, by a by a misguided society, and they're never gonna find a a way to be a moral society by means of any government that they can come up with because their their problem is essentially they're in the darkness. You know? The the the it's not what it's not what he's saying according to even what you said he's saying. It's the opposite.

I'm saying that his presumption that the state is responsible for the immorality of the people is wrong. Correct.

That that's a very good point, to be honest with that. But can I just put one sentence from him? Basically, I just copied and pasted from the chapter. He says, the sharia without a moral community, which assumes morally grounded individuals, was not sharia. So, basically, he's saying that we have a moral community, that Islam has a moral community, and this is what the modern state doesn't have in as a But it's not about the modern does.

Yeah. But but that's not because of the state. That's not because of the government system, but because of the enlightenment ideas. One form of, definitely. I mean, that is what permitted their society.

That is what gave birth to this government system. And what he's trying to say is that because it was born in that sort of which has this particular characteristics that even Christianity or other religious, they didn't have that. They didn't have they had some sort of claim truth claim. They had some sort of morality at least. But the modern state is based upon Kant and all these philosophers who were basically trying to start from secularism, that there is no supernatural.

There is nothing beyond human will. And that's why and because the state was created by these people, as Stadis said saying, because these people, these are the these are the type of people that created the system. So that's why they needed the police, not like the way he explains here. That's why they needed the school. That's why they needed the hospital and the public health to be the way it is.

So it is sort of like a cyclical thing, I think, the way he starts. He starts with he starts with sort of form of some form of philosophy. He explains how that led to the way the government is formed, and then he says that how how that how that how that is affecting the different things in the society and in the individual level, which was formed entirely differently in Islam because of the Islam's inherent theology. And and I think that's how he sort of approached every topic, really. I mean, it's not like he just says that it's the government which has done this.

He just say he sort of says, like, sort of who's the blame on those philosophers in a sense? Because that their idea produced this state, and this state is basically trying has become and had to had to serve these things because they have taken out all the morality from the society. They've taken out all the morality from the community and from the individual. So all these gaps had to be filled in by this new thing, which doesn't have anything Okay. But that's an that's

an assumption that the morality was there to begin with.

Which is why he goes back to the romanticism of the past. He that's why he's invoking Aristotle and Plato and so on. He needs to he invokes them because the West tries to romanticize a time. Okay.

But look at their society. Look at ancient Rome. Look at ancient Greece. How moral was their society? It was just as debauched and and and depraved as theirs is right now.

There's no difference. There's no difference.

And and he refuses to

It's a false dichotomy to pretend Yeah. Said before. We don't we shouldn't go by their, division of time. Timeline. Yeah.

Exactly. The time the timeline is false. We have to look at it from the correct, point of view, the actual realistic point of view, not what they tell us. You didn't have a dark ages and then an enlightenment and then a modern period. You've had one single way of being, And the only thing that changed was the personnel at the top.

That's all. So when you had a theocracy, which is what they had and which we never had, actually, it's the same as having a king. It's the same as having a prime minister, or it's the same as having a a president. You can pretend that the sovereign before the enlightenment, the sovereign was god, but, of course, it wasn't. It was the pope.

It was a man because you don't have laws in Christianity. You don't have a code of law, a penal code, or anything like that. You don't have those kind of rules and regulations in Christianity. It's not in the Bible. The Jews have it to a degree, but the but the Christians never did.

So it was always whatever the pope said. If the pope said thus and so, then that was the law. When the when the pope decided that that that they should go, that the Europeans should go, to the Muslim world for the Crusades, he said God wills it. What he meant was he willed it, and to them, it's the same thing. The king is the godhead for them.

That was always the case, and it's no different when you call it secularism. It's this it's a it's a secular theocracy that they have now. It's no different in reality.

And and also this this point about in the earlier chapters when he talks about, I think, the separation of powers where he actually has the audacity to claim that the sharia is institutionally defunct in Muslim societies, And that's a that's a that's a point of contention. I take I have personal problems with that because I, you know, I come from secular Singapore, but, you know, it's it's completely a fantasy of his to imagine that that Islam is completely divorced from my person. You know? That's a complete false dichotomy. And and and also the fact that you imagine that that public law because we have this nation states.

Okay. Never mind Singapore. Okay? Malaysia, Indonesia. That just because there there's something called the pub public law making because of the territorial borders and boundaries that we have, that that that this is not a negotiated space with Sharia as it at its epicenter.

You you insist that Sharia is absent. You know, Halak insists on that. So this is a problem because it's not based on reality. And because, you know, he it's his book and he talks about it like that. I readers are not, know, expected to take it, you know, so that's why we're having this this discussion and we're challenging the things that he's claiming.

And and this is one of the challenge that that, you know yeah. Okay. You I I I agree on the on the subjectivity that that he talks about in chapter five. Yes. The institutions that the modern nation states have formed and developed is with at its epicenter, the the the whole goal is to you know, productivity, materialism, all of that.

Yes. And it's, as Shahid said, Kufr based, and and and that's something that we need to identify. And just because that is the way it is projecting a country forward, it doesn't mean that the Muslims there are now, therefore, without tawhid or without incapacitated from acting according to tawhid. You know? That's another claim that he makes in the book, which is highly problematic.

You know?

Well, I mean I mean, first of all, just with regards to that, again, you can't go to any Muslim country today and ask anyone in the government whether Allah is sovereign or not and get and and and get a negative response. Every every Muslim in in in politics, every Muslim in government will uphold the sovereignty of Allah. That's just a fact. You're you're not gonna find that. And if, Muslims if a Muslim government, has to implement laws, has to implement rules, in their country that either, constitute a lack of sharia, in other words, they are not in they're not implementing something that is in the sharia, or if they are implementing something that contradicts with the sharia, that will be, if you look into it, the result of coercion and colonization.

It will be the result of coercion and colonization and responding to the real, circumstances that they are in and the choices that they have. It's not a matter that they have discarded the book of Allah and the sunnah. It's not that they've discarded the sharia. It's that that they're in certain circumstances. So it would be like saying that if if if a if a starving Muslim is forced to eat pork to survive, he has discarded the sharia.

No. This is coercion. This is compulsion, and they have to make an itch to head as to try to approach the situation in as Islamically a way as they possibly can, in a way that complies with the sharia as much as they can. And that is Islamic governance. That's what they've always done.

So I I I reject the the this whole premise.

Okay. Tala has raised her hand, so Tala is next. You can unmute yourself, Tala.

Think that yeah. I do have an issue with him kind of, you know, just say you know, completely divorcing that state from Sharia as, you know, making it sound like they're completely incompatible. If anything in a very globalized world, I have to say, it it it does help bring more organized systems in place. And it and you need it. You actually do need these organized systems in place.

And, nonetheless, you still have modern you know, you know, let's say, The Gulf, for example, or modern states where there are certain areas where people still do govern themselves and people actually you know, if you're talking about Bedouin communities or communities that are a little bit off the grid, they very much govern themselves, and the state has absolutely no say, in in how they choose to rule their own people. So they're not necessarily so they're not necessarily incompatible. And if the country was indeed completely against the way these smaller communities govern themselves, then they have they do have every power to stop that from happening if they think it's an issue. But, you know, because they we know that these smaller communities do tend to run according to certain Islamic laws that I'm I'm giving the example of Muslim countries per se. I think the the issue though that I do feel like he kind of touches on and is important to bring up is nationalism. Nationalism.

I do think that with a modern state, the you know, you do have the concept of nationalism is definitely more I mean, yeah, it's a challenge. I don't know how I don't so in the sense that there you do come across classes of people who do feel that sense of superiority as well. Not you know, people do have the right, for example, to have this or citizens have the right to have a sense of pride when it comes to where they're coming from and how their country's developing and how the country's the government is contributing to their own growth and how they're contributing to the country's growth. It's like, you know, give and take relationship.

But then to also fall into the trap of feeling superior to other surrounding states, I think that's where the issue lies. And I think I don't I mean, I'm just kind of trying to sorry. I'm just thinking as I speak, just trying to compare between the West and the East in the way it happens. I don't know how it happens in, like, Far East Asia, but I'm looking at at a more Middle Eastern perspective, I suppose, where, people have in ways they do tend to be classified as well in terms of, you know, Arabs, non Arabs, etcetera. So there is a sense of superiority that happens underlying it.

It's not it's not I don't I wouldn't say it's the state. I don't wanna say it's the state's fault per se perhaps, but I think it is an it is something that needs to be addressed in these discussions. So that's that's all I have to say. Sorry.

Tala. I mean, I I I think what what what Tala is trying to talk about is I mean, he he he does highlight in the book about the problem of nationalism, but it's not so much about the how individuals feel superior to another by virtue of whatever it is, whatever values or qualities that they may assume they have compared to other people. I don't think that's his area of interest at all. He's he he the premise of his discussion is, okay, the if you have two circles, one being the West, the the the domain the central domain of the Western circle is political dominion, political power. Everything that this western model seeks to pursue is with this goal in mind, complete dominion, exploitation of nature, you know, resources, whatever it is that you have.

The goal is production and materialism. And then Islam has in its central domain morality. So everything that comes out of this central domain, which is the paradigm that he's talking about for Muslims, is all flawless, pretty much. Okay? He wants to deny what actually took place in history, in our history, that it's not as simple and black and white as that.

You know, that we do have the the the more you see, in in denying in in claiming that we have now Sharia as institutionally defunct in chapter three, and then he goes on to chapter five in the technologies of the of the moral self. He talks about how we have not we I mean, earlier he says that we have relegated Islam to just in the private sphere. K? And then here in chapter five, he talks about how this practices that we have in the in the private sphere is central to our morality and the driver of our conscience and our person as Muslims. I mean, there's a point where in the book where he even makes blanket takfir, like, you don't pray on purpose, then you have apostated.

That's says that in the book. Okay? So I I I think he's confused and correctly because he's not a Muslim. He's writing from a purely academic point of view. So I can see the confusion very clearly because, again, you're contradict he's contradicting himself.

He says that, you know, Muslims are not really Muslims today because they're only paying lip service. But then at the same time, that's the the the five daily prayers, the the five pillars of Islam is the foundation that makes everybody moral for the, you know, for Muslims. You know? And so I I there's gonna be a lot of conflict up until this point. Now he's gonna go into the the onto economy and how the economy actually affects us.

And and and like I said in the discussion, if his complaint is about how governments and countries are subject to private business and private entities that compel us to go into a direction that is against our moral principles and values. Okay. I'm willing to go along with it. But he has yet to come to that point, obviously, because of the you know, he wants to make his premise and everything clear before he goes into that. So that's for the next two chapters to go into.

So anybody else would like to add to to this?

Can I just comment?

Yeah. Sure. Please.

First, with regards to nationalism, I agree to to an extent. However, I would challenge the idea or any suggestion that this is a new phenomenon in any way, shape, or form, and that it is, again, the creation of the modern state because it simply is not. Historically, that's not true. Within the Islamic lands, we've had this issue to the extent that you even have different. You have you have a a caliphate for one region and another caliphate for another region and another sultan for another region, and you have divisions on the basis of national nationality and region, and locality.

And you have a sense of identity based on your, locality, a sense of identity based on your region, a sense of identity based on your land, that's nothing new. That's not the creation of the nation state. That's not the creation of the modern state and so forth. And then I'll go back again. I I hate to keep repeating it, but this idea that the modern state, you'll have to remind me maybe if I I can't remember, that it emphasizes productivity and profitability and so on and and and progress and all of those things and not morality.

That's their morality. That is their morality. It's just it's not it everyone every government follows a set of values. They don't all follow the same set of values. And the and the and the the values that they have there will be crossover.

There's overlap between our values and their values. There's crossover. There's overlap. But the the the things that we prioritize, they deprioritize. It's on the list, but it's near the bottom.

At the top of the list is so called progress, profitability, productivity, and so on. That's what they prize the most. That's their value set. That's their list of of of priorities in terms of values. That's not ours.

So, obviously, they will and always have had a system that emphasizes those values over the values that are more important to us. So, again, it's still pretending that this is some kind of a modern phenomenon and that it's the result of the system rather than the system being the result of the society as it already exists and the morals and the values that they possess and always have. That's all.

Very clear. Thank you. Yeah. So instead of pretending that the modern state has deficiencies, he has to, you know, talk about the the the type of, I don't know. The negation of morality in this different societies or countries or whatever it is that you have identified, which is why, again, back to coming back to the practicality and applicability of what he's talking about is frustrating because there's nothing.

There's none. It's just theories. You know, he just leaves us with theories, and we just have to accept it. You know? It's like he's compelling us to accept it.

There's no conversation actually taking place in the book. He's just telling you, this is what it is. This is how it is. And then you have the alarmist and the Islamist who wants to who believe that the goal of seeking power and and government governmental power is to to ensure that you could enforce this morality on the public. You know?

Well, that that I mean, that is that is one of the responsibilities of power for us. That is absolutely one of the responsibilities of the authorities. There's no question about that. And that's another that's another issue. If he doesn't think that that's the case, if he doesn't think that in Islam or in the Muslim world that that's supposed to be one of the responsibilities of government, then he's thoroughly mistaken.

No. Obviously He he imagines that it's absent in the Muslim world today because of the formation of the nation states, which is clearly false. It's it's not

okay. It's not this is what I'm saying. It's not even absent in the West. It's just a different value system. It's a different morality.

But but they absolutely impose their morality. That's why you have conflicts in the West with people, for example, who don't agree with LGBT, but it's being imposed upon them. Because their value system says, you must tolerate this. You must accept this. That's their value system.

And then there are people in the society who don't share that exact same value system, and who reject it, and it's being imposed upon them. So, yes, the the state in in in the, the the so called modern state, yes, they do impose their sense of morality. There's no question about it. It's it's unavoidable. There isn't actually such a thing as an amoral state.

They have a value system. It's just not ours. They have their own moral priorities, and they're not our moral priorities. They value the so, you know, so called liberty and freedom and everybody do what they want to do, and the individual and so forth, and that's not what we value in the same way. We don't define it the same way.

But, obviously, if you if you look at their their founding documents and so forth, you see that the they they articulate what their values are, and they they try to adhere to them. And they have you know, they in the Supreme Court and what have you, constitutional lawyers and so on will debate about whether or not this actually upholds the principles and the values of the constitution. So it it the the whole thing the whole this is what I mean. The whole thing is so flawed, in my opinion. The whole premise is so flawed, and mistaken.

There's so many holes in it that I you know, it's, I don't know. Yeah. It

doesn't make any sense to me.

Okay. What do you read?

Not like, the more one reads, it's really like, where where is he coming from? Where is he going? Why is he telling me this? Right? Like, there are constantly these questions like, why why are you talking about Niyah?

Like, what is the purpose? How is Niyah connected to Sharia and to nation states? Like, are you gonna question my intentions with how I'm fasting, fasting, how I'm praying, how I'm doing Zakir? Like, what is your issue, man? Like, what are you doing?

Right? Like, I I could keep you know, I get to some section, and I'm like, what? Right? And exactly as Ustad's brother Shahid said, like, yeah, they have a moral system. Right?

It's called. Right? And it takes, you know, different values every fifty years. Right? You know, for a while, we prioritize race, then we prioritize, you know, whatever LGBTQ, then we prioritize, yeah, New King Iraq.

Right? You know, different values for different sessions, Ryan, like, for different, you know, periods. So, yeah, like, I'm confused. When I'm reading the book, I'm just confused, to be honest. Like, I don't know who it's intended for, what is he trying to achieve, who is he trying to convince.

I cannot find the answers, to be honest. And if I do, they're probably, like, sinister. Right? And I don't wanna, you know, assume that he's just trying to, you know, mess up.

Like like, when you ask

believe them.

You know, who is he trying to convince? You know? This is like I don't think he's

addressing those issues.

Yeah. But, like, he's an audience.

Read it

and be like, oh my god. Great job. You know?

It's like he he he's a he's an orientalist. You know? The so whoever is receiving this is receiving it like it's meant for an orientalist. You know? Because you want to just

I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

Yeah.

Like you said, it's all theory. None of this reflects reality. Neither for neither for our part of the world nor even for the West. It doesn't reflect reality. This is all in Halak's mind.

It's it's his conception of things, honestly. Because, like like, again, like what I what I was saying about about the West, every policy that they implement in the West, I I can only talk about The US, but I'm sure it's the same everywhere else, always has to be sold on the basis of its morality. On the they they sell it on I mean, you can you can you can cross reference this with the propaganda book. They have to sell every policy based on the values and the ideals and the principles that they have indoctrinated their public with. So how is it how how is there how is this not present in the state?

I don't understand. In reality, it's it's obviously present. It's just a different moral code, which is a moral code again based on COFA. So just say that. You know?

Yeah. I was supposed to

do it and at the problem to

where it actually is. I

was just thinking, like, if, you know, some Muslim scholar writes wrote wrote a book about, like, the intention of Christians when they're eating bread or drinking wine. Right? Like, really? Like, like, if you try to flip the, you know, narrative as if some Muslim is trying to advise Christians how to be Christian and how to adopt Christian values, like, I don't know. It just seems so far fetched.

Mean, you know?

You see, the the the point here is he seems to put a timeline on when Muslims really, really were Muslims. That's the premodern times and the modern times as if it's like a there's a there's a dichotomy in the timeline and that if I went back five hundred years, okay, and met somebody, that we will not recognize each other.

And he would be Muslim there. Right?

Yeah. Like, bar the the the the amenities and the facilities that modernity the material creature comforts that's that modernity has brought about. I really doubt that I would have anything different with my great great grandfather or grandmother if I met them. Mhmm. Mhmm.

If I go back in time, I refuse to accept that because, you know, again, I'm not talking about the material sense here. Okay? Obviously, materially, we are very different. Right? We have cars.

We don't ride on horses or whatever. As a Muslim, if I went back five hundred years or six hundred years or whatever, I wanna recognize the Muslims, and they will recognize me. You know? The audacity to say to to I I I mean

that's a salami thing.

I'm trying to give him more benefit of that than that, to be honest. But I think I think the issue comes in the fact that it almost sounds like Islam is I mean, when you look at it the other way around, it it also sounds like Islam is just not compatible with the modern modern age. That makes sense. When, you know, when we are you know, we're we're meant to believe that it's compatible for all ages and days and, like, you know, you can still you can still like, it's not black and white. There's a lot of gray and, like, very you know, the gray is a lot more when you compare it to black and white when it comes to rulings and opinions about different things starting from even the way you pray all the way to the way you live your life.

Right? You know, the things that are black and white are actually quite few in comparison. So it almost sounds like it's inflexible, and it almost sounds like you say, yeah, there is an issue rarely. There's an there's an issue with him trying to get into people's intentions as well when it comes to how you what you choose to do and how you choose to pray or how you choose to fast. Or there's certain I mean, there are sentences that are bit funny.

But I think I mean, I don't know. I also feel like, you know, if I were a non Muslim reading this. Right? So I think this is know, you when we're talking about who's the audience that he's trying to appeal, I don't well, I haven't thing is this is my first book as well, reading friends, so I don't know what, you know, the the details of the other books that he's read that he's written. Sorry.

But if I were a non Muslim reading this coming from a place of that we quite often see, to be honest, of that, you know, they have this sense of emptiness that they feel when it comes to certain morals and when it comes to certain I know the rules by which they live their life, I suppose. You know? As

a

non Muslim reading this, I might be more I'd find it appealing to know that there is a moral system that covers all aspects of my humanity as a person, you know, including the spiritual, emotional, intellectual, that goes beyond my control. I don't know if that makes sense. So I think I feel like I feel I'm trying to be the benefit of the doubt. I feel like he is trying to appeal to the non Muslim reading this in a way. I don't think I think if I were to come from that mentality, then I might find Islam actually more appealing in a way.

But the issue is you also create those fanatics who come into you know, like, the, you know, the very fresh converts who take everything in Islam as black and white on the other hand. And and and, you know, this is this is where the issue lies, I suppose. Like, you know, as a fresh as a person, oh, we're really, you know, they just they can turn it very easily into something that's black and white and doesn't necessarily fit with the modern day, and they decide that they wanna go live in the desert or something. But you know what I mean? But, yeah, I don't know.

I'm just trying to give them benefit of doubt.

And and even and not even that, to be honest. I mean, if just going carrying on from the trend of Isad Shahid and sister Salama. If I may just read a quote from Halak about the morality in West in West, he doesn't actually deny. To be honest, I think these three questions, like, what sister Salamu say, like, the the the why is why is al Qalaq saying that the Shia is defunct institutionally? That's one thing.

And then the the other question about what about the molesty in the West? They do have some molesty in the West, obviously. So how is he accounting for it? I think there is a good quotation, and that might give us an answer. It is here.

Western moral philosophy, as we saw, has developed certain critical spans of thought whose effect is a call to draw on the moral report here of the European intellectual heritage. That is exactly what was saying. That is from before the premodern era. So they are so he Palak is not denying the existence of morality in the West. What he's saying that it is the state who is basically defining the morality.

It is not living up to a morality which is already there. The morality is subservient to the government, not the other way around. And what he's trying to make a case of in all these points is that with premodern and, yeah, I'm saying the word premodern here in the sense that before the current government system that we see. In the Muslim world, there was a moral system which was above any government. And I think there were other quotes there as well.

Like, I think there was one that says about what is what is inalienable to humans regardless of any government. And that, I think, is what Pollak is trying to point at, that in West, there is nothing there's no such thing. Everything is being determined by the government, whether it's liberalism, whether it's communism, whether whatever it is. Whatever the state approves finally after the internal, you know, rivalry between different actions, that becomes the morality. But in case of Islam, it wasn't it wasn't that the sultan or the caliph had the chance to decide, had the last say on deciding what is morality.

It was already there in the society. This is this is exactly this is why I think what is saying is actually quite in line with what is saying in my opinion. Like, makes this point that even before modernity even before modernity, the West had the same problem. That's what Satshay says. And this book doesn't go back into the the first characteristic that Halak points out is that the current government system nation is a is a European phenomenon.

This came out of Europe. And what what what is that said, that perfectly explains why no other civilization had the necessity to have to formulate a government like this that that has to do all these moral works, that has to do all these, you know, shaping up the individuals, formulation of the legalities, and all that. The we didn't need that, and that's exactly what Halak is saying. We didn't need our government to do that. And what what so so so, basically, because they didn't have it even before the modern era, even before when they had religion, That is why and he says this in in other parts that this the the modern state is basically just a secularized version of previous theocracy.