While some groups such as PAS push for Malaysia to be established as an Islamic state, Islamic Renaissance Front director Ahmad Farouk Musa argued that such a goal is unattainable.

Farouk told a forum last night that since such a state is modelled after the city-state of Medina that was ruled by Prophet Muhammad in the 9th century, replicating it now would be impossible because there are no prophets today.

“It cannot be replicated because there is no prophet who lives among us today. At that time, revelations were still being made to Prophet Muhammad. At this time, there are no more revelations, and there is no prophet among us.

“So this idea of replicating a Medina state, to me, is basically a dream,” Farouk ( photo ) said at the Peace Symposium 2015 in Kuala Lumpur yesterday.

Because of this, and because Muslims do not accept the possibility of another prophet after Muhammad, no one can claim to be enacting syariah law that is equivalent to those implemented by the Prophet Muhammad, he said.

'Idea of Islamic state not even in the Quran'

At best, successive Muslim governors can only implement a system run by fallible human beings, he said.

Farouk also pointed out that the idea of an Islamic state is not contained anywhere in the Quran nor the Hadith.

Instead, the idea originated in the early 20th century, after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, from thinkers such as Muhammad Rashid Redha, who proposed the Islamic state as an alternative to setting up a caliphate in place of the empire.

At the forum last night, which was organised by the United Kingdom-based NGO International Human Rights Committee and the local movement Projek Dialog, Farouk also argued that Islam can only be practised in a secular state.

This is because the religious obligations of Islam should be professed and practised willingly by its adherents, out of conviction rather than from fear of punishment by the state.

By being neutral on matters of religion, Farouk said, a secular state imposes the least possible moral burdens on its denizens, and reduces friction among groups of different ethnicities, beliefs, and ideologies.

“I mean that if you live in a secular state, if you are a Muslim, for example and if you want to go and observe Friday prayers, you will do so because you believe that it is your duty as a Muslim to observe Friday prayers.

“You do not go to the National Mosque to observe Friday prayers just because you are scared that the Department of Islamic Development Malaysia (Jakim) might be knocking on your door, asking you why didn’t you go for Friday prayers,” he said.