Secularism is closely linked with atheism in the West. Secularism emerged in Europe due to theocratic church rule, which hindered scientific progress and introduced superstitions into religion. Priests and monks blended superstitions with science and appointed themselves as judges over scientific theories. As the scientific movement gained momentum and provided evidence contrary to church teachings, a rebellion against the church began, leading European people to separate religion from daily life.
Secularism did not stop at separating religion from politics and daily life, limiting it to a spiritual relationship between man and his Creator. With the decline of religious influence, secularism moved to a more extreme phase, marked by atheistic secularism disguised under scientific research. This reached its peak with the emergence of Karl Marx's ideas. Marx's materialistic ideas stemmed from communism, initially an economic doctrine to counter capitalist exploitation, but they took on an ideological dimension. His philosophy aimed to convince people that religion was invented by the rich to control the poor. Secularism thus centered around materialism, denying the existence of a supreme ultimate authority and severing the connection between heaven and earth.
I present this lengthy introduction, which includes a brief historical overview of the development of secularism in the West, to address Arab secularists who claim to believe in God, high moral values, and a final authority. They assert that their secularism is far from atheism and merely consists of separating religion from politics and governance. This is how Secularism began in Europe but then transformed into atheism and blasphemy among a significant portion of the world’s population.
Some Arab thinkers, like Abdel Wahab El-Messiri—who tried to bridge the gap between Islam and the West—divided secularism into comprehensive secularism, which is atheistic and denies the existence of a creator, cutting all ties with religion and centering man around himself, and partial secularism, which means separating religion from governance and politics. These thinkers believe that this division could serve as a common ground for everyone in the Ummah's project.
Nevertheless, partial secularism remains a bridge to atheism, not only based on the historical narrative of secularism's development in Europe, eventually leading to atheistic doctrine, but also due to the delusion of those who follow this path that the human psyche can be compartmentalized. They believe each aspect of human existence (spiritual and material) can operate in its own sphere. When educational curricula, economic theories, and intellectual frameworks are stripped of religious ideas, the educated youth find themselves in a state of contradiction. They face the choice between faith, which is described as rigid, backward, regressive, and anti-scientific (according to secularists), and enlightenment, which, in this context, means severing the connection with religion, probably leading to atheism.
This idea is not foreign. Even the Encyclopedia Britannica, when discussing atheism and dividing it into theoretical and practical atheism, included secularism as part of practical atheism.
You will find that proponents of what is known as partial secularism are the fiercest defenders of atheistic philosophers and writers. They fervently defend them, elevate them as role models, and promote their ideas and philosophies. How does this align with their proclaimed adherence to Islamic values!
If many Arab secularists who claim their secularism is limited to rejecting a religious state audaciously defend Darwin's theory in his book “On the Origin of Species,” which assumes that humans originated from a germ living in a stagnant swamp millions of years ago and that the ape is a stage in human evolution, leading to the collapse of religious beliefs and the spread of atheism, is this not reason enough to assert that partial secularism strongly leads to comprehensive atheistic secularism?
Arab secularists, who claim their secularism is limited to separating religion from governance, focus all their arguments on attacking religious fundamentals, denying the Sunnah, alleging that Sharia laws are historical conditions, and other ideas that strip religion of its sanctity. This undoubtedly leads to religious doubt and opens the doors wide to atheism.
I do not claim that every secularist is an atheist, but it is undeniable that every atheist is a secularist. Atheism is the endpoint of secularism, as the idea of neutralizing God ultimately leads to the idea of denying Him.
Secularism found a foothold in our Ummah because it invaded our core at a time of weakness and lack of adherence to religion, with the support of the West, which holds the reins of power, and the presence of Western-influenced Arab currents dazzled by the splendor of Western civilization. The only salvation for the Ummah lies in returning to Islam, which offers the correct view of the universe, life, and the relationship between heaven and earth and whose methodology flourishes the world with religion.
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