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al-isl§m and al-Êm§n 49The traditional understanding of al-isl§m has seriously corruptedour minds and has caused us to stagnate in our thinking of al-isl§m.The fateful error of defining religion exclusively in terms of the performanceof the rituals of al-Êm§n, and the false labelling of these ritualsas pillars of al-isl§m, has meant that religion was defined inisolation from ethical laws that are universally applicable. It meantthat a person’s religiosity was measured solely by his or her fulfilmentof ritual obligations, regardless of that person’s moral or social behaviourin society. The confusion of al-isl§m with al-Êm§n has producedother conceptual difficulties, for example, the confusion betweenseveral different degrees of ‘permission’ and ‘prohibition’, such as,a) al-Èal§l / al-Èar§m, what is absolutely allowed / absolute taboo (andwhich can only be decreed by God), and b) al-masmåÈ / al-mamnå#,what is permitted / forbidden (which is decreed by positive law), c)al-ma#råf / al-munkar, what is prescribed as right / proscribed aswrong (the result of popular practice and social conventions), d)al-Èasan / al-qabÊÈ, what is good or bad (and which is subject to thepersonal taste of each individual). This confusion between legal,social, and moral rules, and the muddling of the many different levelsof jurisdictions, has created this dreadful current trend among manyMuslims to excessively label things as absolute taboos (i.e., Èar§m),for which there is no evidence in the divine text of the Book. We hear,for example, that for a woman to show her face in public, to hear awoman’s voice, to play musical instruments, to make sculptures, totake photographs, or, for fear that the devil might slip into someone’smouth, to yawn with one’s mouth open, even to clip one’s fingernailsat night, all things that are normal everyday activities, have suddenlybecome absolute taboos! We should remember that the great sins inal-isl§m are only those acts that transgress the ten commandments ofthese economic conditions do not exist any longer, the ethics that accompanied themmust also disappear. However, such a position, where implemented, led to utterfrustration and disappointment because it cut people off from morality and divineguidance, which were not replaced by something better. The practice of discardingmoral guidance under the pretext of a Neo-Marxist deconstruction of history hasgiven rise to an attitude of moral licentiousness whereby murder, disrespect for parents,fraud, false testimony, and adultery are perceived as perfectly normal. We knowthe abandonment of ethical rules has led Arab-Muslim societies into a deep moralcrisis and will, if it is not rectified, eventually trigger their total destruction. We needto understand that divine commandments express a moral culture that is universaland applicable to all humans of any historical, religious, or economic background.These commandments can never be replaced or redefined."