Civil society in Islam and the west

Civil society has various meanings. And in every period, its interpretation is provided. Today, the situation is the same. Anyway, we are pointing to three regular and modern meanings of civil society, so under its shadow, we try to find out the desired response.
A – Civil society opposite primitive community and uncivilized: the term civil society refers to a society in which the law and rules are governing the behavior of the citizens, and no one has right to condemn or punish others by his own criteria and preferences. Perhaps, it can be said that, those who are proposing the legitimacy beside the civil society, are considering such meaning about the civil society.
B- Civil society means, people are voluntary accepting the maximum of civil society by themselves. And by this way are reducing the load of the government. This meaning of civil society is compatible with Islam. And existence of public educational institutions, hospitals and other public services and especially endowments, clearly indicate that, Islamic society is civil.
C- Civil society (in its modern sense): is a part of general life of human beings, which is separated from the government. And flows in the frame of associations, guilds, parties, groups, cultural organizations and ….and acts the role of middle one, between individual and the government.
The civil society which exists in today`s west, has specific culture, which is not compatible with Islamic culture, because, it is based on principles which includes:
1-Secularism (separating the religion from all social fields): is considered to be the first intellectual base of civil society in the west, because we can say there is civil society, if we construct fundamental legislation. That means, regarding the life fundamentals, from individual field up to all social fields, we have to make the rules. The first step is, we have to be free from all problems of the life, even the religious duties.
2-human axial (humanism), human and his interests in all fields is the axis, and this is another basic thought of civil society and upon this, everything is at the service of the human. Even religion, if it provides the mental relax of the man. And religion should not be in opposite direction of his thoughts. And basically, value of everything will be determined by its profit for the human.
3-relativity of values and knowledge: according to this view, there is no recognition and there is no fixed or absolute value. In term of knowledge, no one can introduce his own idea as absolute right, even that idea comes from final mental judgment or exact and not distorted texts of religion.
In dimension of value, there is no fixed or absolute value. And values will change by select and want of the people and of course, majority of the people. Therefore, the values which were accepted by the brain, during the life of man or the values which were accepted by the revelation and introduces them as unchangeable, as long as majority of the people accept them are worthy, otherwise they will be separated and thrown away.
4-Pro-nature (in law section), pro-profit (in ethics section) and mentality are the other tools for this type of thinking.
As we have discussed already, pre-assumptions of western civil society is, the government must be secular. Therefore, government should not interfere the religion, values and religious laws in any matter of community management and has no right to support any religion. And should not pay attention to them.
And also in countries with multiple religions, president has no right to support any specific religion (and this is in contrast with our constitution which says, the true religion is Islam and we have to act according to Shia laws). And religion has no right to appear in any governmental departments and organizations and related offices. And government should avoid any interference of religion in different issues which are related to the government. This case was observed in some countries such as America, England and even Turkey.
Individuals and private institution can use from the religion in their own controlled offices. But this issue is not related to the government. Therefore religious foundations and non-governmental religious schools can be active in this field.
Anyway, orientation of the western civil society is based on lack of reliability of religion in social affairs. And the law is what people vote and religion has no right to interfere in their political destiny.