Lebanese Shiite Scholar Muhammad Hassan Al-Amin Calls for Separation of Religion and State and Criticizes the Concept of "the Rule of the Jurisprudent"

Following are excerpts from an interview with Lebanese Shiite scholar Muhammad Hassan Al-Amin, which aired on Murr TV on June 29, 2009:

Muhammad Hassan Al-Amin: Lebanon is at a crossroads. Either it will opt for a modern civil state, or else it will move towards further disintegration and collapse, as long it adheres to such an extent to the sectarian regime.

Interviewer: How can we achieve such a civil state? You talked about a civil state, and about the need to move on from a political sectarian regime. Are you referring to the separation of religion and state?

Muhammad Hassan Al-Amin: Of course. The separation of religion and state goes without saying.

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Religion and state are two different things. There cannot be such a thing as a religious state. A state is civil in essence, and therefore, a religious state is used by one group to facilitate [the establishment of] dictatorship and despotism. Religion must be separated from the state, and all the things that are presented as the absolute truth – that Islam constitutes both religion and state – have no foundation in Islamic thought or law. Islam is a religion. That's it. No more and no less. And the state is a state. A state is a man-made entity, which is chosen by the people and represents them, whereas religion is sacred. How can you incorporate the sacred into a worldly matter, about which people have different opinions?

[...]

A religious scholar who heads a political party is biased toward that party. When we have disagreements with him about this political party, we should be able to debate and disagree with him... With regard to political issues.

Interviewer: Yes.

Muhammad Hassan Al-Amin: I hope that none of these people are tempted to shield themselves with religion, just because they can, because it is easy to distinguish between religion and politics.

[...]

Nobody can claim that the concept of the Rule of the Jurisprudent is sacred, because it is not a religious tenet. Among the tenets of the Shiites, there is no such thing as the Rule of the Jurisprudent.

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Any one of us – whether a Muslim, a Christian, or even a non-believer – is allowed to criticize the formula of [the Rule of the Jurisprudent], because it is a man-made formula, and not one of the tenets of Islam or of the Twelver Shia.