Rasheed

Right-Minded

If our minds are all to the Right
Are we Right Minded?
Or perhaps we should lean to the Left?
Is a Muslim to be a Democrat, or a Republican?
A Whig or a Tory?
Socialist, Capitalist, Communist?

Follow the Shari'ah, you say.
I ask,
And just whose Shari'ah is that?
Yours or Mine?
His, you say.
But your understanding of His
And my understanding of His
Are not the same.
How can you make a government based on religion
That does not force compulsion in religion?
That does not discriminate
Against those who understand that religion differently?
Against those who do not follow that religion?
Is neglecting prayers a punishable offense?
Or eating pork?
And drinking wine?
Secular laws can be Divine, too.
Theft, by any reasoning, is a crime.
Do we proclaim the Divine Decree
Or the Humanist Logic
Behind our prosecution of the Thief?

Morality cannot be mandated
Only its manifestations enforced
And manifestations of its absence repressed.