Quranic Foundations And Structure Of Muslim Society
(6) Fundamental Ethical Guide-Lights for Religious Quest:
Besides the practice of the entire Qur’anic ethico-religious system to the best of opportunity and ability, the pursuer of Religious Quest has to fix up some fundamental ethical guide-lights on his spiritual Path. These lights are enshrined in the concepts of:
- Piety,
- Love,
- Truth,
- Justice,
- Beauty,
- Wisdom, and
- Selflessness.
- Piety:
Religious Quest is the quest focused in the direction of the All-Holy. This fact bestows extra-ordinary importance on Piety (taqwa). But Piety has been conceived in the religious practice of mankind in two ways, viz., as formal piety and as practical piety. The Holy Qur’an rejects the former and prescribes the latter (2:177;[1] etc.).
Practical Piety originates in the consciousness of the tremendous seriousness of human life and brings forth unflagging moral earnestness; and it reflects itself in three dimensions, namely:
1. An ever-deepening Awareness of the Perpetual Presence of God (57:4), Who, besides His other Attributes, is the ‘Lord of the worlds’ (1:1) and the Judge to Whom account will have to be rendered on the Day of Judgment (1:3),—an awareness which is cultivated through constant and meaningful rememberance of God (3:190-192; etc.) and which compels the pursuer of Religious Quest to act as if he is under constant judgment of the Divine Judge, Whom he can neither evade nor deceive.
The motto that emerges in this respect is: “Act always as if you are standing before the Divine Judge and witnessing Him; or, at least, that He is witnessing you.” (Cf. Bukhari: Sahih, vol. 1, p. l2—Kitab-al-Iman).
2. Unswerving attitute of Goodwill towards all Fellow-beings, because the Holy Will of God is in harmony only with the good will (2:195; 3:76; etc.).
The motto that emerges in this respect is: “Always so act that your action is guided only by good-will.” In other words, the guiding-light is: “Goodwill towards all and ill-will towards none.”
3. Constant vigilance in respect of making and maintaining one’s self immune from spiritual and moral evil (59:18); because then alone the human ‘self’ can function as a receptacle for the Blessings coming from the All-Holy.(Cf. “… and He loves those who practise purity.” 2:222).
The motto that emerges in this respect is: “Always act with the consciousness that your goal is God.” (53:42; etc). That, it may be emphasised, demands utmost spiritual and moral refinement.
- Love:
Love is basically directed to God (2:165), Who is the Absolute Good. On the moral plane, it manifests itself in love for the moral good, which projects itself in two dimensions: (a) love for fellow beings; (b) love for personal goodness, implying that goodness alone should be permitted to reside in the human self. Love for the good leads to its appreciation wherever found, even in one’s enemy. Thus the motto emerges here: “Appreciate the good wherever found, without any extraneous consideration.” (Cf. 5:8).
Love for the good also leads to the consciousness of the ugliness of evil, which is the opposite of good. That, in its turn, brings forth hatred for evil.There, the motto emerges: “Hate evil to the extent of fighting against it.” (35:6).
But, ‘hate for evil’ viewed in the perspective of ‘love for fellow beings’ leads to the outlook: “Hate evil, but not the evildoer.”[2] In this outlook, the evil-doer becomes the deserver of sympathy in terms of the spiritual and moral damage that he does to himself. This aspect of the problem of evil evokes in the pursuer of Religious Quest the inspiration and the effort for the spiritual and moral emancipation of the evil-doer,[3] as opposed to the spirit of hatred. This outlook found its highest expression in the life of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (Peace be on him!), to which the Holy Qur’an bears witness thus: “Haply you (O Muhammad!) are going to kill yourself with grief, sorrowing after them, if they believe not in this Message (thereby depriving themselves of its blessings)” (17:6).
It is active sympathy that assumes the form of forgiveness—even when dealing with an enemy, and of mercy, which both ought to be practised as the basic principles of conduct (24:22; 41:34-35; 90:17).
- Truth:
Truth [4] implies adherence to Reality. As such, it is the very salt of life, being the constitutive quality of godliness (3:17; etc.). It is the light which runs through the cosmos (6:73; etc.). It is the most basic merit with which God has crowned the Holy Qur’an, the Holy Prophet—in fact, all Divine Messengers—, and the religion of Islam (2:119; 2:176; 7:43; 48:28; etc.). It is the Attribute of the Divine Being (31:30; etc.). Hence, Truth should be adhered to and pursued without mixing it with falsehood in the least (2:42).[5] From the practical point of view, it should manifest itself in human life in two dimensions, namely: (a) personal truthfulness in thought, word and deed; (b) appreciation of truth wherever found.
The motto that emerges here is: “Maintain always the attitude of such strict devotion to Truth and Reality that nothing, not even the fear of death, may have any chance of success in enticing you into falsehood and un-reality.”
- Justice:
Justice may be defined as ‘giving to everyone his due on the basis of equity’. The Holy Qur’an views it in terms of absoluteness, namely, as an imperative which is unconditionally, universally and absolutely binding—binding on everyone, under all circumstances, and in all situations; the binding without considerations of sex, caste, tribe, or race; binding without regard to the distinction of Muslim and non-Muslim, or of the ruler and the ruled, or of the rich and the poor; binding even if it hurts one’s personal interests (4:135; 5:9; 6:152; etc.). It is the virtue nearest to the virtue of Piety (5:9), which is basic to Religious Quest.
In its widest sense, the pursuit of Justice relates to two levels, viz., individualistic and collective.
The individualistic level has two dimensions, viz., justice to one’s self and justice to other individuals. Then, there are two aspects of the pursuit in each case, viz., positive and negative. Thus, at the individualistic level, four basic rules of justice emerge in the Qur’anic ethics:
(a) establish positive devotion to the harmonious development of your personality;
(b) remain constantly on guard against all negative factors in respect of every aspect of your personality;
(c) give unstintedly to others what is due to them;
(d) refrain absolutely from defrauding others in what belongs to them.
At the collective level, justice takes the following four forms, which have been projected by the Holy Qur’an:[6]
(a) justice in social relations;
(b) justice in respect of the process and enforcement of Law;
(c) economic justice; and
(d) political justice.
The healthy growth of society, which influences the growth of the individual seriously, demands the enforcement of all these forms of justice.
Accordingly, the Qur’anic motto emerges: “Always adhere to justice in respect of yourself as well as in the interest of others with absolute sincerity and in all comprehensiveness.”
- Beauty:
The pursuit of spiritual, moral, or any other, Good is good in itself. It is good intrinsically. But the perfection of form is achieved only when it is grounded in the simultaneous pursuit of Beauty, which stands for grace, balance and refinement in conduct. Thus, Beauty forms the structural component in the Qur’anic term for virtue itself, i.e., al-hasanah (the Good),[7] and of course it runs through the entire structure of the Qur’anic View of Life.[8]
In the Islamic Religious Quest, the primary emphasis emerges naturally in respect of adherence to Beauty in the spiritual, moral and mental spheres. But, what is most remarkable, the physical dimension of life also gets its due to the full—of course, controlled by spiritual and moral values [9] and with the emphasis on natural grace as opposed to unbalanced artificiality and sophistication and vulgar ostentation,—in sharp contrast with the view of contempt for the physical in the ideal of ‘saintliness’ in other spiritually-orientated religions, on the one hand, and with the ‘worship’ of the physical dimension of life in the modern Sensate Culture, on the other.
Here, the motto emerges: “Always and in all things adopt Beauty as the garb of your behaviour.”
- Wisdom:
A human being cannot move forward one step consequentially without knowledge. Hence, acquisition of knowledge to the maximum of one’s ability and availability of opportunity, stands forth as the fundamental human obligation, and this is what the Holy Qur’an has taught.[10] But, formal knowledge is only information, and does not assist much beyond the minimum level of human aspirations. Rising higher in terms of Values and Ideals necessitates the struggle of diving deeper and with intellectual honesty and sharpness of vision into the System of Meaning which runs through the Reality. According to the Holy Qur’an, this struggle should be undertaken in terms of ‘Religion’ and ‘Science’ both; and having been undertaken in that comprehensive manner, it transforms ‘information’ into ‘experience’, and the stage is set for the pursuit of Wisdom, which progressively discovers unity in diversity and enables the possessor to distinguish between appearance and reality until he arrives at the Fundamental Unity pervading the cosmos, which, in its turn, leads him to the experience of Ultimate Reality (3:190-191). This is the height of wisdom, about which it has been proclaimed: “… whosoever is vouchsafed Wisdom he of a surety receives abundant good; and none will (truly) grasp the Truth (contained in the Divine Message) save the possessors of Wisdom.”
Here, the motto emerges: “Strive for the acquisition of Wisdom, so that you are able to comprehend the Truth at a level where all doubt ceases.”
- Selflessness:
The concept of Selflessness is thoroughly projected in the very term employed by the Holy Qur’an for him who accepts its guidance, i.e., ‘Muslim’, which means: ‘the human being who:
(a) accepts the ideal of total surrender to God; and
(b) pursues that ideal actively’.
He remains a formal Muslim so long as he does not cross from (a) to (b) (49:14). He starts on the road to be Muslim in the proper sense when he crosses into (b). He becomes a genuine Muslim only when he undertakes comprehensively the active pursuit of the ideal of total surrender to God, which, though it proceeds gradually, definitely implies the practical affirmation of Faith (Iman) through its translation into requisite Action (al-‘Amal al-salih), elevating him finally to the rank of the Mu’min (i.e., the Faithful, or, the Believer in the true sense) (49:15; etc.).
It implies that the commitment of the ‘genuine Muslim’ is total, expressed thus in the Qur’anic Covenant of Faith: “Allaah has purchased from the Believers their persons and in their wealth …” (9:111). This Covenant enshrines total selflessness for the Believer, which is basically not negative but positive in as much as it means, in the final analysis, ‘affirmation of the self’ in God—in Divine Pleasure.
Selflessness being thus a positive state in Islam, adherence to it even at the basic minimum establishes in the personality of its possessor humility, sweetness, gentleness, large-heartedness, active sympathy for all fellow-beings, simplicity in life, unstinted devotion to labour, fortitude, sincerity and many other virtues.
From the point of view of Religious Quest, selflessness is the very starting point, being the very basis of Islamic life, subjectively considered.
Hence, the motto emerges: “Always so behave that not the pleasure of your self but the ‘Pleasure of God’ is the motivating force for your action.”
(7) Ultimate Goal of Religious Quest:
Islam is opposed to the doctrine of the Descent of God in Man. It regards the belief in Incarnation as both irrational and blasphemous,— irrational, because it projects the incarnation of the Infinite into the finite, and blasphemous because it involves an attack on the transcendent Majesty and Uniqueness of God. The theory of Incarnation finds its rationale actually in two related dogmas, namely, the dogma of ‘original sin’, which degrades humanity to the utmost, and the dogma of the physical reality being evil, which renders the human effort for spiritual evolution in the earthly environment illusory. Both of these dogmas are very damaging to the ideal of the spiritual and the moral progress of humanity. They only create despair and skepticism, except for the unverifiable hope in respect of the next life, and there also only for those who may develop faith in Irrationalism and compel themselves to believe in the mysteries of vicarious atonement, or of salvation through transmigration of souls, etc.
Rejecting the above-mentioned beliefs, the Holy Qur’an affirms the sinless birth of the human beings and the essential goodness of the world. Going beyond that, it emphasises the ‘vicegerency of God’ as the status of humanity, and invites human beings to undertake the pilgrimage of eternity [11] in terms of dynamic movement towards God (5:35; etc.). Thus it lays down the doctrine of the ‘Ascent of Man to God’.
The ‘Ascent of Man to God’ consists in a spiritual journey, or, the Religious Quest. We learn the following from the Holy Qur’an in respect of its progress and achievement.
The spiritually un-regenerate person stays in a state of spiritual inertia (6:122). When his heart is opened to the understanding and appreciation of the ideal of ‘Surrender to God’ (39:22), and he undertakes the Religion Quest, he is revived spiritually (6:122) and his spiritual nearness to God increases (96:19); and as it increases, the harmony with the Divine Life increases; and as that harmony increases, God’s Grace bestows upon him ‘a Light with which he walks among human beings’ (6:122). Then he continues his spiritual pilgrimage with the help of that Light, acquiring more and more holiness in terms of harmony between himself and God (89:28), maturing more and more in terms of the direct experience of Reality, and acquiring deeper and deeper Conviction about God (15:99). In this, the pursuer of Religious Quest attains the realisation of God, on the one hand, and realizes himself in terms of the vicegerency of God, on the other; whereby he attains the fulfilment of the highest and the most ultimate yearning of his soul—which constitutes his essential personality—in the state of Beatitude and Felicity. That is the highest possible achievement for the human personality, because of the realisation in it of the ideals of all forms of human consciousness at their highest.[12]
[1] About this verse a hostile critic of Islam. Rev. E.M. Wherry, is compelled to remark thus in his Commentary on the Koran: “This is one of the noblest verses in the Kuran. It clearly distinguishes between formal and practical piety. Faith in God and benevolence towards men is clearly set forth as the essence of religion.”
[2] Hating other persons creates spiritual darkness in the moral agent’s consciousness.
[3] He alone who, among other qualities, personifies this outlook in himself, is entitled to act as a preacher and missionary of religion. according to the Qur’an.
[4] The Qur’an projects the concept of Truth comprehensively, employing the term al-sidq (truthfulness, veracity) for the subjective aspect, and the term al-haqq (reality) for the objective aspect.
[5] When this adherence is perfect and Truth captures the sub-conscious state of mind thoroughly, the adherer begins to see true dreams (al-Ru’ya al-Sadiqa) as a manifestation of al-Bushra (Glad Tidings) promised by God “in the life of the Present and in the Hereafter” (10:64). It would be a grave mistake to believe that such a state can be induced merely through ‘spiritual recitations’, which are consequential in respect of that purpose only when undertaken in conjunction with moral and spiritual purification and integration of the self.
[6] See vol. 2: “The Structure of Islamic Society” for details and references.
[7] Ref: “The Critique and Dynamics of Morals” (Book 2, Part 1).
[8] See vol. 2: “The Structure of Islamic Society”.
[9] Ref. vol. 1: “Art and Morality”, and vol. 2: “Duties as Aesthetical Being”.
[10] See vol. 2: “Duties as Rational Being”.
[11] Cf. The concept of ‘journey to God’ in 37:99.
[12] Ref: vol. 1: “The Qur’anic Conception of Heaven and Hell”.
to be continued . . . . .
Quranic Foundation & Structure Of Muslim Society In The End Times
