What Does Your Ṣalāh Have to Do With Business?

The second thing that they stated — they said: what does your ṣalāh have to do with business? What does your ṣalāh have to do with business? And what do we call this today? What do we call this concept today? Secularism. This is secularism: separation between the religion and the aspects of life.

They said: your ṣalāh — this is a ritual, this is an ʿibādah — what does it have to do with business? This is a worship between you and your God; but this business is something that has to do with this dunyā and this world. We should separate between the two things. Leave what is for God for God, and what is for Caesar for Caesar.

So the concept of secularism is not new. The people of Shuʿayb knew it a long time ago. And the jāhiliyyah of today, the ignorance of today, is not any different than the ignorance of Shuʿayb's people a few thousand years ago. This is the same thing. So they said that your ṣalāh shouldn't tell us what to do in our business; this is up to us.

And that is the problem with mankind when they don't want to follow the law of Allah (swt). The law of Allah (swt) is not something that you keep in the masjid, or you keep as an individual. The law of Allah (swt) applies to every aspect of our life. All our life should fall within the ḥukm of Allah (swt). The religion of Allah (swt) controls everything in our livelihood, in the day and in the night. Whether it is politics, or it is economics, or trade, or banking — these other aspects of economics — whether it is the civil law, whether it is the social relations, whether it is international law and the relations between nations: the religion of Allah (swt) controls all of this.

Now we are living in a time when there is an attempt to separate between the religion of Allah (swt) and all of these aspects, and to turn it into an issue of individual application inside, that has no presentation on the outside — that has no manifestation in our actual life. So if you want to keep your religion between you and yourself, that's fine. But if you want to apply the religion, and it's going to affect the people around you, and affect your family, and affect the society — no, that's unacceptable. And that is secularism. And that is what Sayyidunā Shuʿayb tried to fight.