Spirit of Islam, May 2015

R ELIGIOUS extremism is a phenomenon that emerges when a religious community has degenerated. When a community falls prey to degeneration, it begins to display this tendency. This degeneration occurs in accordance with a natural law and no religious community is an exception to this law. Today, the Muslim ummah (community) is in a state of degeneration. Along with other signs of degeneration, it is afflicted with the disease of religious extremism. When degeneration develops amongst the later generations of any religious community, then in accordance with natural laws, its members lose their religious spirit. What they are left with is just the external forms of religion. It can be said, then, that religious extremism is but another name for religiosity based simply on form. Efforts to work with a community that has degenerated have to begin with the reform of individual members, and not in the form of mass movements. Whenever form-based religiosity establishes itself in a religious community that is in a state of degeneration, it so happens that the external forms of every religious issue is given great importance. At such times, people start focussing on the correct pronunciation of the words of their scriptures whilst ignoring the spirit of the divine message. Instead of trying to cultivate humbleness and submission in their worship, they lay great stress on the external form of their prayers. They debate endlessly about the nitty-gritty of religious laws. They think that religious life is all about maintaining and preserving a sort of community-based identity. A religious community in the state of degeneration becomes just like any other conventional, materialistically-oriented social group. However, because of its historical traditions, it is not possible for it to cut-off all links with its religion. Its religion now becomes simply an inherited tradition and a source of its communal identity. The history of its religion becomes a source of communal pride. All its institutions RELIGIOUS EXTREMISM Phenomenon of Degeneration