INDEED ALL PRAISE AND THANKS ARE DUE TO ALLAH, WE PRAISE HIM, WE SEEK HIS ASSISTANCE, WE SEEK HIS FORGIVENESS, WE SEEK HIS GUIDANCE.
Within the world, there will always exist two contradicting ideas. These ideas, if present within the same theatre, will cause intellectual friction between the carriers of these two ideas. This is because the idea regulates the behaviour, the concepts and the emotions of the carrier, so when this idea comes into contact with the opposing one, friction will materialise between the two, initially intellectually, and finally physically.
Islām is an idea, and the only true idea. As it and only it is the truth, every other thought is false. Even if the thought were to agree with Islām, or be as close as an inch to the Islāmic idea, the fact that it isn’t based upon the Islāmic idea renders it false from the outset. Therefore, since its inception, the Islāmic thought has opposed all others, whether they be the thoughts of polytheism, the thoughts of Christianity or Judaism, or whether they be the thoughts of Capitalism or Liberalism.
It is therefore inevitable that the Islāmic thought would have friction with the other ideas, because the nature of the Islāmic thought is to attack the false creeds and demolish them, while simultaneously building and consolidating its own thought.
“Rather, We dash the truth upon falsehood, and it destroys it, and thereupon it departs. ”
— Surah al-Anbiya: 18
This is why we see in the Sīrah, how the Prophet (ﷺ) attacked the false creed of the Quraysh, attacking the idols, the cheating in the marketplace, the burying of girls alive, the treatment of the orphans etc. He (ﷺ) did not sit still but rather combatted the false ideas with the Islāmic thought, and vanquished them.
Similarly today, when we face the thoughts of Capitalism, Secularism or Democracy, we should not be on the defensive when discussing these issues, rather we should be attacking these concepts and highlighting their inconsistencies and flaws. They are flawed from the beginning, because they do not stem from the Creator but from a limited man, unlike Islām which was sent to us by the All-Knowing Creator. We do not need to ‘defend’ the truth, because the truth defends itself, and it has Allāh (swt) as its Helper, rather we have to go on the offensive and preemptively strike the thoughts of Kufr. These ideologies and false doctrines of today have no support or helper, so it should be easy to conquer these ideas.
“That is because Allāh is the protector of those who have believed and because the disbelievers have no protector.”
— Surah Muhammad: 11
It is upto us as Muslims, to plunge ourselves into this intellectual battlefield, to not only save ourselves from the havoc this falsehood has wreaked on us but we have to look further and save the world from it, and resume the Islamic way of life, where nobody is better than anybody except in taqwa.
“Alif, Lam, Ra. [This is] a Book which We have revealed to you, [O Muhammad], that you might bring mankind out of darknesses into the light by permission of their Lord – to the path of the Exalted in Might, the Praiseworthy.”
— Surah Ibrahim: 1