MDI’s Abdullah al Andalusi presents a thought-provoking lecture at the University of Cardiff, Wales, UK on the topic ‘Is the Sharia Timeless?’.

Many people in the West question how Sharia can be relevant or able to deal with modern day problems. Few of them realise how the very systems of Western government and society are even older than the coming of the Prophet Muhammed (saaw) (e.g. Ancient Greek idea of Democracy, Roman Republicanism)!

The lecture breaks down what ‘law’ means, what kind of changes human society undergoes – and particularly, how the human equation always remains the same throughout time. I then demonstrate how any law can always be current, and how technology brings nothing new that law can not deal with.

However in the Western context, implicit in this question of the lecture, is the belief that current status quo of the world, which is dominated by Secular Liberal states, is somehow a utopian ideal created by Western political philosophies.

In this lecture, I discuss the current problems of the world, where these problems originate from, and how Islam, not just being ‘relevant’ to it, but a fundamentally necessity to solve these problems and lead the world forward into a brighter future and a realisation back to human purpose.