A Secular Reading of Religion; a Critical Analysis of al-Ashmawi Religious Approach

Today, in the Arab world a current of modern thought has intended to limit religion to spirituality. This current has softly passed the religious tradition and law, and has preferred the religion without socio-political precepts to the religion of them. Mohammad Saeed al-Ashmawi (1932-2013) is one representative of this approach. He has presented a secular interpretation of religion in the Islamic world by adopting a historical approach to the Qur'an, humanizing the Qur'anic rhetoric, and limiting the validity of prophetic traditions and jurisprudential laws to the time of the Prophet. This paper, in an analytical and document-base method, seeks to evaluate and critique his premises of this secular approach. The findings of the study show that there are intrinsic inconsistencies in his thought including defeating the purpose of the Wise God, denial of the immortality of religion, human completely being needless to religion, denial of the daf`i revelation of the Qur'an , and the denial of the Prophet's infallibility. These issues have challenged al-Ashmawi's approach to religious studies.