The Evaluation of the Views of Sayyid Aḥmd Khān Hindī to Secularism

The explanation of the relationship between religion and worldly life is one of the challenging contemporary discussions at a global level, one that has arrayed rejecting and acknowledging Muslim thinkers against each other. Hence, paying attention to and criticizing Muslim neo-thinkers’ viewpoints who favor secularism and reject the social rules of Islam is of utmost importance. Sayyid Aḥmd Khān Hindī is one of suchlike people who has accepted secularism much before other Muslim neo-thinkers. His views in this regard can be discussed under titles such as considering religion as limited to worshipping and spiritual issues, favoring secular rather than religious education and training, deeming social rules and regulations as changeable, opting for the separation of religion from politics and government, and supporting the separation of religion from economy. Sayyid Aḥmd Khān’s viewpoints are flawed due to several reasons, including their reliance on humanism in content and thought system as well as their inconsideration of the cultural and training principles and indices of Islam, the trans-temporality and human-needs-based nature of the social rules of Islam, the ascription of the absolute sovereignty to God and the assignment of a role to divine revelation in the application of this sovereignty in Islam, and the existence of numerous verses and narrations that regard economy and express its rules.