Alhamdulillah, as promised, the full video of my debate at Chatham House, on the topic ‘Should Religion be Separate from State?’ is now available to watch online.

Once again, jazakAllah khairun to all those who made your dua for a good outcome.

Points to Note:

The debate title (obviously) wasn’t on any particular religion, nor any state system, but was rather on the principle of whether religion and state should be separate or not.

Although the debate was much shorter than previous ones I’ve participated in, alhamdulillah we had enough time to convince people to see that if Separation of Religion is taken to its logical conclusion, peoples rights will not be safe, nor would religious minorities ever be protected from the Secular nationalism/culture of the majority (e.g. India, France etc.

I was able to briefly mention that the Islamic system guaranteed the best rights to minorities that even the modern day West – since Islam allows non-Muslims to their own legal system, even police force (e.g. the Orthodox Christian Patriarch of Istanbul, ruled Ottoman Christians and even had his own jail for criminals in the Christian community[!]

However, while the audience were almost all non-Muslim (maybe two Muslims maximum), they were able to see that the State and Religion must have connection, as to have a state without connection to religion is extremism.

Lastly, in case many of you watching don’t know the situation with U.K. My Secular debate opponent DOESN’T consider the UK a Secular country (because the Church of England is established by the state, Church of England Ecclesiastical courts have a jurisdiction recognised by English law, and 33 Anglican Bishops have guaranteed seats in the UK legislative branch). The Queen is also head of the Church, and head of the State.

That’s why UK Secularists have a problem with the UK (incase many of you were wondering why they criticise the ?UK).

The audience came round, I believe, when they realised that even in the (most of the) West, religion and state are not entirely separate – as the consequences would be serious against people’s religious rights.