MANCHESTER: The British Chief Rabbi, Lord Sacks, has called on Muslims to accept being a minority in Britain and to learn to separate religion from power. Lord Sacks added that neither Muslims nor Christians had the benefit of learning this lesson, but that the Jewish people had, because of their Babylonian exile. The Chief Rabbi also stressed the responsibility of Muslims, stating that “only Muslims can do it. Nobody can tell them from the outside. That would be taken as an affront and I would regard it as morally unacceptable. I do see some wonderful Muslims in this country and elsewhere, in Iraq and even in Iran, going through that process.†Lord Sacks also expressed his admiration for the accomplishments of the Muslim community, stating that “I think some of the Muslim thinkers today are some of the most courageous thinkers I have come across and it is very striking how many of them are women. It is very interesting. So Islam will get there. But I would hope that one of the ways they would get there is just coming to understand how things work in Britain.†The Chief Rabbi was delivering an annual talk to the think-tank Theos in London. He highlighted the progression of Christianity in its adoption of a more tolerant outlook, but only after 100 years of “knocking the hell out of each other all over Europe.†He added: “So Christianity went through its experience, Judaism has been through it a long, long time ago and Islam has not yet had that experience.†Lord Sacks affirmed his belief that Islam will follow in the footsteps of Judaism and Christianity in separating religion and power. “I have no doubt that Islam will work its way through to the essential situation that Judaism arrived at and Christianity, namely the substantive separation of religion from power. But there’s no quick way of getting there. It is quite a difficult and painful process within religion,†he said. However, many Muslims argue that Islam, by nature, is inseparable from religion and that following the secularist footsteps of Judaism and Christianity as the Chief Rabbi suggests would “pollute” the essence of Islam . Despite this, many Muslim majority countries such as Turkey, Senegal and Azerbaijan continue to be secular states. Lord Sacks also pinned the population decline in Britain down to neo-Darwinian attacks on religion, such as is seen in Richard Dawkins’ book, The God Delusion, stating that “wherever you turn today — Jewish, Christian or Muslim — the more religious the community, the larger on average are their families.†He also argued that society needed religion in order to uphold the moral principles on which western freedom is based. BM
