THE QUR’ANIC VIEW OF THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE SOCIETY

  Quranic Foundations And Structure Of Muslim Society

 

THE QUR’ANIC VIEW OF THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE SOCIETY

 The mission of the Qur’an in respect of both the Individual and the Society is vehemently Integralistic—the principle of Integralism being grounded in the concept of Unity (tawheed), and expressing itself in the balanced and harmonious realization of the basic values of Piety, Truth, Justice, Wisdom, Love, Beauty and Selflessness.

 The Ideational religious approach to human life may either be: (1) ritualistic, or (2) mystical. The ritualistic approach leads to barren Formalism, or Externalism, which brings into play juristic hairsplitting and bigotry even in purely devotional matters. Often falling victim to the cruel disease of ‘piety-complex’, the adherents of this approach present the picture of a soldier who has acquired only a uniform but no soldierly training. The mystical approach leads to inertia, or to superstitions, or both. As opposed to both of those approaches, the Qur’anic approach is Integralistic, i.e., directed to the build-up of an integrated life, which is fundamentally ethico-religious in character. ‘Fundamentally ethico-religious’ means that the Qur’an has emphasized the simultaneous pursuit of both Religion and Morality. Indeed, religiosity without regard for the moral refinement and development emerges in the Qur’anic view as nothing less than an opiate, because the very concept of ‘godliness’ loses all meaning without the active pursuit of the highest Morality.

 The mission of a Muslim is: To build up his own personality, his social environment, and the world in general, as good; and, for that purpose, to equip himself to possible heights of perfection in respect of, and to cooperate with others in the pursuit of, all healthy and constructive human activities.

 The external make-up of an Islamic personality is fundamentally grounded in natural grace, because the Qur’an has ordained no sophistications.

 Religious persons of a particular type feel that they should attach practically all importance to the Law of Grace, and much less or no importance to the Natural Law. No doubt, both of those Laws are operative, under the Divine Plan, in the universe and in the lives of human beings. But, the Holy Qur’an demands that a Muslim should function in life with as much regard for the Natural Law as the wisest Materialist, because God Himself has made the function of the Natural Law as fundamental, and that of the Law of Grace as supererogatory.

 The adoption of the atheistic mechanistic view of the universe and Man is advocated by its adherents as the only and necessary condition for Scientific progress. That is, however, fallacious; because the Qur’anic concept of the ‘Reign of Law’ also ensures it in the same measure, and without damage to the spiritual and moral values.

 The Qur’an rules out the exploitation of man by man in all forms, whether in the social sphere in respect of the economic and the political matters, or in the sphere of Religion in respect of certain so-called religious practices whereby superstitions are traded in as a commodity. Similarly, it is firmly opposed to all forms of  tyranny.

 Wealthy-ness has been very often wedded to wickedness, and the Holy Qur’an has condemned it in that perspective time and again.

 Hence, while Islam permits private enterprise in business and industry, its permission is not unqualified. Because, it permits only controlled freedom in respect of both earning and spending one’s wealth, whereby the emergence of both Monopoly Capitalism and its child, the luxurious and aristocratic living, are ruled out, and the possessors of surplus wealth are stopped from adopting the cult of indulgence in ‘wealth, wine, and woman’, while the Islamic society as a whole shoulders the responsibility of the provision of basic needs of life to all with dignity.

 We may sum up the Qur’anic standpoint in respect of Muslim society by saying in negative terms that, with all the practice of religious rituals, the Muslim society loses a vital part of its Islamic character if;

1.       any form of exploitation and tyranny is practised, and economic and political justice is not comprehensively enforced; 

2.       the highest moral Idealism is not made the very lifeblood of the social order and the basic pursuit of the individuals; 

3.       the mission of the conquest of Nature is forsaken,—a mission that necessitates the pursuit of Empirical Knowledge and Technology at the highest level. 

Source

to be continued . . . . .

Quranic Foundation & Structure Of Muslim Society In The End Times

 

THE HOLY PROPHET’S SUNNAH

  Quranic Foundations And Structure Of Muslim Society

 

THE HOLY PROPHET’S SUNNAH: 

Role, Difinition and certain Facets thereof

 The Qur’an has laid fundamental emphasis on the importance of imitation of the Holy Prophet’s Sunnah as a vital factor in the practice of Islam, because it begins in accepting him as the sole human Guide, in the post-Qur’anic period, in respect of Divine Guidance, and it develops in imitating him more and more as the Perfect Practical Model thereof. The question, therefore, emerges: What does the Sunnah stand for? We may concisely answer this question by saying that the Holy Prophet’s Sunnah stands for the dynamic manifestations of the ethico-religious dimensions of his personality. Or: Looking at it in the perspective of the Qur’an, we may define it by saying that it is the realization by him of the Qur’anic value-system in the different dimensions of his personality;

 If the implications of the Sunnah are understood properly by a Muslim, it saves him from indulgence in bid‘ah, on the one hand, and inspires him with intense fervour for realizing in his personality, to his utmost capacity, the ethico-religious Idealism projected by the Qur’an.

 The present is not the occasion to project the Holy Prophet’s Sunnah in detail, because it relates to a personality that has been the richest, the most profound, and the most perfect in history. We may, however, mention here just a few facets selected off-hand,—only  to provide a basic idea. They are:

1.       Utmost devotion to God; 

2.       Spending every moment of life productively, and with planning and grace, and not wasting it in frivolities— and doing all that without the harshness and rigors of Asceticism, but with positive consciousness of maintaining life in God-boundness;

3.       Maintaining highest fortitude, with a cheerful countenance and a never-failing smile, even in the most trying and terrifying circumstances; 

4.       Gentleness and considerateness in dealing with others; 

5.       Forgiveness—and love—for the worst enemies; 

6.       Practice of Mercy in all situations,—the conquest of Makka demonstrating it at its climax; 

7.       Utmost generosity;

8.       Utmost sacrifice for the welfare of others: feeding others, while himself remaining hungry, clothing others, while himself wearing coarse garments patched time and again; not keeping any wealth with him, in cash or kind, but distributing it to the needy before sunset every day;

9.       Extreme humility together with full dignity;

10.   Highest rational tolerance;

11.   Good-will for all and ill-will towards none;

12.   Eating less; sleeping less; talking less;

13.   Total abstinence from quarrelsomeness;

14.   Immaculate cleanliness in respect of the body, the dress and the environment; and

15.   Practice of truthfulness, honesty, fidelity and selfcontrol at their highest. 

 It is heart-rending to observe that the very notion of the obligatoriness of imitating the real Sunnah—which has been fundamentally projected above—has progressively departed from the Muslims; while love for externalistic formalities in the name of the Sunnah, and that too with much fuss as to Juristic hairsplitting, has increasingly taken its place among the so-called orthodox pursuers of religiosity;—all that resulting in the creation of large numbers of Islamically unbalanced religious personalities. 

Source

to be continued . . . . .

Quranic Foundation & Structure Of Muslim Society In The End Times

 

ROLE OF THE QUR'AN AS THE BOOK OF GUIDANCE

  Quranic Foundations And Structure Of Muslim Society

 

ROLE OF THE QUR'AN AS THE BOOK OF GUIDANCE  

The QUR'AN came:

 to obliterate all anthropomorphic notions about God and to establish perfect Monotheism—not merely as a theological concept but as a full-fledged philosophy of life;

 to inculcate the establishment and maintenance of a living and dynamic relation with God in order that human beings may attain the highest spiritual and moral refinement and greatness;

 to teach the truth that human beings are basically theomorphic beings—emphasizing the ‘ascent of Man to God’ as opposed to the ‘descent of God in Man’,—and that the goal of every human being is the actualization of his or her potential vicegerency of God through the imitation of Divine Attributes;  

 to give to Woman her rightful place in Society, as basically the equal of Man;

 to resolve the dichotomy; of Faith and Reason;  of Religion and Science;  of Love and Law'  of Beauty and Simplicity; of Participation in godliness and Participation in worldly life;

 to establish in the domain of the philosophy of Religion, the positive concept of Fulfillment in place of the universally prevalent negative concept of Salvation;

 to extricate Religion from superstitions;

 to distinguish Spirituality from Mysticism and Psychicism; 

 to give a comprehensive Philosophy of Integration, based on the teaching of Unity-ism, thereby providing sure basis for the integration of the life of the Individual as well as of Society; and, beyond that, of Humanity at large; 

  to create an Integralistic Culture and an Integralistic Civilisation;  

 to make Morality the basis for Spiritual Development, on the one hand, and for Social Evolution, on the other;

 to inaugurate the era of Scientific Advancement by means of teaching the requisite fundamental principles;

 to highlight the role of Inductive Reasoning as the proper instrument for the pursuit of Knowledge;

 to emphasize the quest for Empirical Knowledge, as well as the resultant Technological Advancement and Conquest of Nature, as Exercise in the Worship of God;  

 to bestow on Religion the role of functioning as Social Alchemy for the establishment of a Total Welfare Society; 

  to harmonize Truth and Justice with Love and Mercy; 

  to make Social Justice the very foundation for healthy collective life;

 to establish the concept of Wealth for Welfare; 

 to eradicate Poverty, Disease and human Suffering in general;  

 to crown Labour with Dignity;

 to proclaim the principle that value lies in Labour, Productivity and Achievement; 

 to provide the Golden Mean between the extremist philosophies of Monopoly Capitalism and Communism;

 to open the avenues and provide Guidance for human progress in all healthy directions in general; 

 to close the doors on all those perversions in religious and non-religious thought which go to make Religion an opiate and the Secularistic Philosophies atheistic and immoral; 

and  to confer on Humanity many other Blessings, besides.

For that, the Qur’ân gave :

 a well-co ordinated System of Belief,               

 a fully-integrated Philosophy, and  

  a comprehensive Code of Practice.          

Source

to be continued . . . . .

Quranic Foundation & Structure Of Muslim Society In The End Times

 

WHY THE QUR’AN ALONE

  Quranic Foundations And Structure Of Muslim Society

 

WHY THE QUR’AN ALONE?

The enquiry in the present dissertation has been confined strictly to the Holy Qur’an, not because the present writer does not give to the Hadith literature its rightful place, but on the following grounds:

Firstly, it alone enjoys the status of being the Scripture of Islam.

Secondly, every word of its text is absolutely authentic as having been preserved to the very letter in the very words in which it was delivered by the Holy Prophet Muhammad pbuh.

Thirdly, its authority as the basic source-book of Islam has been universally accepted by all sections of Muslims in all ages.

Fourthly, it is the Book which should form the basis of struggle for the reform of human society, even as the Holy Prophet  has been commanded therein: “… and strive against them (i.e., the opponents of the Islamic Way of Life) therewith (i.e., with the Guidance of the Qur’an) with utmost strenuousness” (25:52).

Fifthly, it claims about itself that it is: “… an exposition (explicit and implicit) of everything …” (16:89). Namely: It imparts complete and eternal guidance concerning all aspects of human life.

Sixthly, it is the only Book of Guidance compiled under the instruction of the Holy Prophet pbuh, authorised by him, and delivered by him to the Muslims as the abiding, the infallible and the unchallengeable document of his Teaching for all time,—with no compeer and no substitute. As such, it is the basic instrument of the unity of thought and action in respect of the Islamic Way of Life, — standing in all its uniqueness as totally immune from contradictions and variations.

 

This characteristic of the Qur’an is of tremendous importance in respect of the Islamic System of Belief, on which rests primarily and basically the consolidation of Religious Unity and Uniformity among Muslims, —a fundamental virtue the violation of which has been equated by the Holy Qur’an with nothing less than the greatest sin, i.e., Shirk. 

 

Viewing the Hadith literature in the above perspective: All students of Islam are aware of the sectarian mischief raked up, purely in the name of Prophetic Traditions (Hadith), by certain groups in Muslim history, through the projection of certain allegedly divinely inspired and divinely-sanctioned offices like those of an infallible Imam, a Mujaddid, a Mahdi, a Promised Messiah, or a Mahdi cum Messiah, without the slightest regard for the infallible principles:

1.    that any doctrine which is included in the Belief System is ipso facto an inalienable part of the Islamic Creed; 

2.    that it is not the function of the Hadith literature—however valuable its role otherwise, but only of the Qur’an, to lay down the constitutive factors of the Islamic Creed; and 

3.    that making belief in the claimants to such offices a part of the Islamic Creed constitutes nothing less than a cruel attack on the very foundation of Iman, being directed to the destruction of the absoluteness and the indivisibility of a Muslim’s allegiance and loyalty to the Holy Prophet Muhammad pbuh as Guide, Teacher and Leader.

 

If the Traditions concerning such a personality as that of the Mahdi, for instance, are accepted as authentic, that does not make, and cannot make, the belief in the emergence of a great leader (Mahdi) at some period of Muslim history a guiding principle of Iman. It remains only a prophecy about a distinguished follower of the Holy Prophet pbuh. 

 

Similarly, if the Traditions concerning the Second Advent of Jesus  are accepted as correct,  they relate only to a prophecy about an event of future history, and have nothing to do with the Islamic Creed,—and, as such, have nothing to do with the Iman of a Muslim: neither in its affirmation nor in its denial. Moreover, to project the concept of a ‘Promised Messiah’ in the person of some x, y, z and to substitute it for the person of Jesus —although it is his personality that has been projected unambiguously in the prophecy—, and to build a sect on that basis, is to indulge in double violation of the Divine Guidance given in the Qur’an. 

 

All in all, accepting the Qur’an alone as the fundamental basis for the knowledge of Islamic Guidance is not only the requirement of reason but also the only road to the salvation of Muslims. 

 

Seventhly, the text of the Qur’an is grounded in a System of Meaning, through which it is possible to understand Islam fundamentally as a system of Philosophy and a Code of Practice, keeping the exercise of understanding confined to the Qur’an itself; and the present book is a plain demonstration of this fact. Of course, there are certain aspects of the Qur’anic Guidance where the projection is of an implicit nature. And it is there that recourse to the Hadith literature becomes necessary,—but only for further clarification and not for adding further dimensions to the basic structure of Islam. Also, it is necessary to know as to how the Qur’anic Guidance was put into practice by the Holy Prophet Muhammad pbuh himself . In other words, it is necessary to know not only the Qur’an as a Book of Guidance but also the ‘Qur’an in Action’, viz., the Holy Prophet’s Sunnah. For that, evidently the Hadith literature is the most indispensable instrument.

But here two important facts have to be kept in view:

1.    The Qur’an is the basic instrument for understanding Islam. Hence, for the value-system of Islam and its entire fundamental structure, it is necessary to concentrate on the Qur’an alone. 

2.    The knowledge thus obtained forms the fundamental instrument for obtaining further guidance on Islam from the Hadith literature.

 

It should be so, because: 

1.    it is the Qur’an which forms the Criterion of Judgment in respect of Islam—a status explicitly given to it by itself—and not the Hadith literature; and 

2.    the Qur’an is absolutely authentic, while even the best Hadith literature is only relatively authentic—namely, authentic only in a qualified manner. And, of course, every student of Islam knows all the mischief in the field of Hadith perpetrated by the forces of counter-revolution in the very early period of Muslim history,—a mischief which emerged in the form of sects and schisms, and which forged the Traditions relating to certain aspects of Islamic life and history to an extent that the confusion created thereby has continued to plague the Muslim society up to the present day.

 

In fine, it is the function of the Qur’an to sit in judgment on the Hadith, and not vice versa; and, thus, a basic study of Islam in the perspective of the Qur’an emerges as the fundamental necessity.

Source

to be continued . . . . .

Quranic Foundation & Structure Of Muslim Society In The End Times