“Islamic Protestantism” as a conspiracy against Islam

By: Ayatullah Professor Muhammad Taqi Misbah Yazdi
Some expect that there shall also be freedom for the religion in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Thus, for a long time they have suggested the emergence of “Islamic Protestantism”. As far as I know, it was Fath-‘Ali Akhundzadeh (Akhundof) who first proposed that there should be a “protestant sect” in Islam. After him, other “intellectuals” promoted this in their speeches and books, suggesting that “Islamic Protestantism” should come into being in Iran.
Today, in America, it is propagated that there should also be a new “Martin Luther” in Iran, a new “protestant religion” and a “modern Islam” which is consistent with modern conditions, insisting that the Islam which came into being 1,400 years ago is of no use in life today!
One should not be surprised if America makes such a suggestion because their goal is to obliterate Islam. They themselves have said that for this task they have a particular program and allotted a specific budget. They have confessed repeatedly that their Archenemy at this stage is Islam.
But what is surprising is that gradually this propaganda is gaining ground in our country, and there are those who explicitly question the essential and fixed laws of Islam in newspapers and magazines. For instance, they question the injustice between man and woman in laws of inheritance, woman given no right to have many husbands, or the like, and sometimes, they ridicule the essential laws of Islam.
As you may recall, during the initial years after the victory of the Islamic Revolution, when the bill regarding the law of retaliation [qisas] was passed, they said, “The bill regarding qisas is inhuman,” and the Imam (q) said that if they had made this utterance consciously, their Muslim spouses would be haram for them and the right of ownership for their property would be transferred to their Muslim inheritors and their lives would no more be held in honor. Of course, laws pertaining to apostasy [irtidad] are not only confined to the person who denies qisas and its laws.
Denial of any essential law is tantamount to apostasy. But we can observe today, that without any shame and hesitation, individuals explicitly reject the essential laws of Islam in newspapers and magazines of the Islamic Republic, and sometimes in newspapers founded through grants from the Muslims’ public treasury. Some people should remind them that the decree of the Imam pertaining to the deniers of qisas is not only confined to the issue of qisas.
It can sometimes be observed that laws unanimously accepted by the Shi‘ah and Sunni fuqaha and are not opposed even by the Sunnis are questioned and mocked! Should the concerned authorities not address these problems?
Should they not be reminded that such dangers pose threats to our young generation? Those who have neither heard the speeches of the Imam nor studied his lectures can be influenced by the questions raised in newspapers published in the Islamic Republic and think that the Islamic political system and the Islamic state also agree with these ideas and that the same are Islamic ideas! There should at least be a venue to announce that these ideas have nothing to do with Islam.
The notion that religion is a matter of taste and that man can choose whatever religion he likes and then change it once he no longer likes it, is dangerous. In Western countries, sometimes a teenager goes to the church with his friend who says, “I like so-and-so church more,” and thus changes his religion. The said teenager will also be influenced and in following his friend, he will also change his religion. They think that religion is like a garment which a person can wear today and change tomorrow. Islam does not endorse the view. “Choose whichever you accept for the state guarantees this freedom as a natural right of the people.” Islam regards religion as the most important matter in the life of man and that felicity and perdition in this world and the hereafter depends on ‘choosing the right religion.’
So, the reason behind these discussions is the existence of such dangers which we can feel, discern and even witness sometimes, and by struggling against them discharge our duty.