Quranic Foundations And Structure Of Muslim Society
Chapter 4
Structure of religious creed and
concept of religious leadership
A. STRUCTURE OF RELIGIOUS CREED
It is a basic requirement of religion, whether primitive or civilised, and whether ‘revealed’ or ‘unrevealed’, to embody its fundamental beliefs in a ‘creed’; and the creeds of different religions are naturally different. Besides the differences relating to terminologies and historical perspectives, they also differ in respect of their basic approach to human personality and its relationship with what each religion regards as the ultimate Reality. Among the spiritually-orientated religions—and we are concerned basically with them here—that approach may be fundamentally mythological, or mystical, or ethico-religious. It is degrading if it is mythological. It is ennervating if it is mystical. It is dynamic if it is ethico-religious.
The Islamic creed is genuinely, consistently and purely ethico-religious —covering ‘this-worldly’ as well as the ‘other-worldly’ Good. It is built up, in the form of Articles of Faith, on belief in seven Qur’anic verities, namely: (1) Allaah (God); (2) the Angels; (3) the Prophets (or, human Messengers of Divine Guidance); (4) Divine Scriptures; (5) al-Qadr (or, the ‘Law of Measure’ ); (6) Resurrection; and (7) the Life ‘Hereafter’.
Its rationale is grounded in both of its structural components, i.e.,
(1) the ethical and (2) the religious.
I. Viewed in the basically-Ethical Perspective:
1. Allaah is the Supra-Cosmic Ideal of Supreme Good, as the Possessor of Absolute Harmony in all Dimensions of Perfection.
2. The Angels are the Cosmic Ideal of Supreme Good, as possessors of perfect harmony with the Divine Being.
3. The Prophets—all the Prophets of humanity—are the Human Ideal of Supreme Good, as possessors and demonstrators of humanly-perfect harmony between the human will and the Divine Will.
4. The Scriptures—all the Books of Guidance which came from God to humanity—represent Divine Guidance in respect of the pursuit of harmony between the human will and the Divine Will for the attainment of Supreme Good by the human beings.
5. Al-Qadr forms the basic Norm for the technique of pursuing the Supreme Good.
6. The Resurrection—Revival after death with the self-same Identity—enshrines the assurance of the attainment of Supreme Good by the human beings.
7. The ‘Hereafter’—its concept enshrines the fulfilment of human destiny in terms of the acquisition of Supreme Good.
II. Viewed in the basically-Religious Perspective:
1. Allaah is the Fountainhead of Guidance as well as of Power, and His personality forms the Monistic Principle of Evaluation, in respect of the pursuit by humanity of the fulfillment of its Destiny.
2. Angels (who are neither sub-deities nor ‘sons’ or daughters’ of God), are the executors of Divine Will, and as such the carriers of Divine Guidance for the entire Cosmos. Their presence demonstrates the fact that the Cosmos is pervaded with Intelligence and Purpose and that its control by God is perpetual. This view is in contrast to the Newtonian view of the ‘Indifferent God’, the recent view projected in Christendom of the ‘Dead God’, and the Nihilistic view of a
‘Blind Cosmos’.
3. Prophets are the human transmitters to, and exemplifiers of, Divine Guidance for humanity.
Here it should be noted that the unique Qur’anic doctrine concerning ‘Belief in all the Prophets of Humanity’ is related to the Qur’anic teaching that: (1) God being one, and mankind being one, the Guidance from God has come to all the human communities since the time of Adam (Peace be on him!) through the Prophets of God that came to them (13:7; etc.),—and it has not been confined to any ‘chosen people’; (2) it has been—as it ought to have been in the very nature of the case—fundamentally the same, i.e., Islam, or, the Philosophy and the Way of Submission to the One God (3:19); and (3) wherever there are resemblances in the teachings of the different religions, they are the remnants of the original Truth revealed by God.
In these Qur’anic doctrines of Universal Divine Guidance and the Unity of Religious Truth emerges a noble and unique dimension in the religious attitude of a Muslim, which is of tremendous importance for him as well as for humanity. It is the triune dimension of large heartedness, good-will and wisdom. Because:
(1) These doctrines establish in him a rational attitude towards other religions, whereby he tries to view the original reality beneath the crusts of mythology and human interpolations; and possessing, as he does, the Divine Guidance in its pure and authentic revelation, he can undertake a most rational and meaningful probe and research in the field of Comparative Religion, can reconstruct the original religion for the different communities, and can invite them to the same.
(2) Knowing, as he does, through his own religion and through history, the in-authenticity of the records of all the pre-Qur’anic religions, he is duty-bound to refrain, on principle and not just for expediency, from insulting those personalities of other religions who are considered to be their founders,—which lays the foundation of international goodwill on the basis of Religion from his side. He can criticise, without ill-will and only for upholding & distinguishing the truth, the wrong teachings of different religions and the wrongs committed by different religious communities, but he is not permitted by Islam to indulge in insult and abuse of the supreme heads of other religions.
The final part of ‘Belief in all Prophets’ is the affirmation of belief in the Holy Prophet Muhammad (Peace be on him!) not only as one of the Prophets but as the last Messenger of God, who came to seal the Age of Prophethood and Prophetic Revelation in the history of mankind (33:40) and to be the Guide for entire humanity in its Age of Maturity [1] for all time (34:28).
It is essential to note here that the Qur’an does not speak, even indirectly, of the appointment after the Holy Prophet Muhammad (Peace be on him!) of anyone, from within the ranks of its followers or from without, as Prophet of any calibre and in any sense. Also, it does not even hint at the emergence from among its followers, at any period of history, of any divinely-appointed Imam (Religious Leader), or Mujaddid (Religious Reviver), or Mahdi (the ‘Rightly Guided’ Leader who, according to the Hadith literature, will, in his own lifetime and through his personal achievement, totally annihilate the Jewish Power in Palestine and establish Islam as the Supreme World Force after the political decline of the Muslims), or Mahdi-cum-Messiah (which is a recent innovation)—thus blocking the way to the creation, with its sanction, of sects and sectarian Movements around the personalities of claimants to religious Reformership for the Muslim community.
4. Belief in all the Scriptures ever revealed to humanity by God fulfils the same function, in terms of ‘code of guidance’, as ‘Belief in the Prophets’. Namely: All the Divine Guidance communicated by God to the Prophets of the world, for the guidance of human communities, in the form of Scriptures, since the earliest times—as a result of which Muslims have existed in all periods of human history—has been directed to final human success in the Life Hereafter on the basis of ethico-religious fulfilment during the life lived on earth.
As regards the Holy Qur’an, it is the last, the final, and the comprehensive revelation of Divine Guidance. Consequently, it performs three functions: (1) it restates the Divine Guidance that had come before its revelation to the different human communities but had subsequently suffered perversion through the vicissitudes of history and human interpolation. Thus, its Guidance is fundamentally the same [2] as that contained originally in the previous Scriptures (87:18,19); (2) it corrects [3] all the wrong notions found in the different religions, as they came to exist after the introduction of changes; (3) it projects the Divine Guidance in the dimensions that bear reference to the ‘era of maturity’ in the history of human civilisation, imparting comprehensive guidance as a result.
As to the ‘era of maturity’: Taking humanity as a whole, the history of civilisation presents a picture of definite stages in respect of its evolution, and this evolution has been in the form of the progressive actualisation of human potentialities in terms of creativity. In this perspective, the present Scientific Era, which the Holy Qur’an initiated, forms definitely the ‘era of maturity’ of human civilisation because of the emergence of, so to say, limitless possibilities of human thrust into the empirical aspect of Reality, which clearly stands out as the ‘maturity’-dimension of human civilisation, providing an ever-widening vision for understanding the Reality,—ever wider than possessed by humanity in any pre-Qur’anic period of human history, and, consequently, necessitating Divine Guidance in comprehensive measure and directly grounded in the new situation. The same has been provided in the Qur’an in terms of the comprehensive projection and correlation of all the dimensions of life (16: 89).
Then, as the emergence of the new dimension of human quest in terms of the conquest of Nature beyond the earth constitutes the completion of the dimensions of civilisation,[4] with variations seemingly possible only in correlations within the structure of the quest, the Qur’anic comprehensive guidance has also been made by God as the last and the final revealed guidance from Him.
It should be clearly noted that the Qur’an has explicitly qualified the Muslims as those “who believe in that which has been revealed to you (Muhammad) and that which was revealed before you” (2:4), and does not even indirectly hint at belief in any future Prophetic Revelation (wahy al-nubuwah).
5. The concept of al-Qadr implies that: (a) the Cosmos as a whole, as also the tiny universe of human personality, is a ‘Reign of Law’ and not a ‘Reign of Magic’ (54:49); (b) hence, the religious approach should not be ‘magical’ but in terms of pursuit of the ‘law of measure’ (65:3) which has been revealed in the hudūd-Allaah, i.e., the limits prescribed by God (9:112; etc.); (c) as a result, the ethico-religious good—as also other forms of good—consists in conformity to measure, or, maintaining the balance (55:7-8),—deviation from the measure towards any extreme being evil, the commission of which is ‘sin’ in Islamic terminology. Thus emerges in the belief in al-Qadr the basic technique of pursuing the ethico-religious struggle.
6. Belief in Resurrection after death: (a) lifts up the human vision beyond earthly existence and thus crushes the attitude of earth-rootedness which is the mother of all moral ills; (b) bestows on human values absoluteness, as opposed to expediency, and renders the moral struggle worth-while, meaningful, and genuinely consequential; (c) hence, provides the enthusiasm for moral struggle, in the face of all obstructions and frustrating situations; (d) supplies the basis for the consummation of the reward of moral struggle; (e) establishes the rational ground for the highest sacrifice in the service of all that is good,—including the sacrifice of life, which for a genuine believer in God and the Resurrection is an aspiration of life.
7. Belief in the ‘Hereafter’ relates to the following basic Qur’anic concepts: (a) God is the Moral Sovereign of the Cosmos; (b) the Cosmos is a Moral Order; (c) Man has to function on the earth as a moral being with a spiritual base; (d) he has to submit his credentials to the Moral Sovereign, Who is actually the Over-All Sovereign, in order to pass to higher level of existence; (e) hence, he has to face Final Accountability on the Day of Judgment, which will occur when the ‘heavens and the earth’ have passed through the portals of ‘death’ into new dimensions of existence (14:48).
Finally, it should be noticed that the Islamic Creed is through and through universal, and not sectarian, because it demands belief not only in the Holy Prophet Muhammad (Peace be on him!) and the Holy Qur’an but in all the Prophets of God and in all the revealed Scriptures that came before in any part of the world.
Closely related to this universalism is the Islamic theo-centric Humanism, which has found its expression, in the sphere of inter-religious fellowship, in the following Qur’anic proclamation “Say (O Muhammad!): O People of the Book! come to common terms as between us and you: That we shall worship none but the One True God; that we shall associate no equals with Him; that we shall take not, from among ourselves, lords and patrons other than God …” (3:64). The formula of cooperation and fellowship for the promotion of good and the eradication of evil that is contained in this verse is: Commitment of absolute and undivided loyalty and devotion to God and the acceptance of the principle of total elimination of exploitation of man by man.
[1] Ref: Discussion on ‘era of maturity’ under the next article of faith.
[2] This is the claim of the Qur’an, in harmony with its distinctive doctrine of universal Divine Guidance. But, instead of: (a) appreciating the rationale of certain points of resemblance of the Qur’anic teachings with the remnants of the original revealed teachings, or with certain parts of historical facts found in the Bible, and (b) evaluating that resemblance in the perspective of the radical differences that explicitly exist between the Qur’an and the existing Bible in respect of the basic aspects of their teachings, the orientalists are at pains to name Islam as the ‘bastard child’ of Judaism and Christianity.
(Refer, among others, to Prof. Snouck Hurgronje’s Mohammedanism).
[3] This is a great service which the Holy Qur’an has rendered to the cause of Religion. But, instead of examining the Qur’anic contribution dispassionately, the Jewish and the Christian controversialists, in spite of the absolute inauthenticity of Judaism and Christianity and the indefensible faults and errors from which they admittedly suffer, name the rational and consistent stand of the Qur’an as “corruption”.
Readers of the present book can very well assess as to how absurd and malicious are the allegations mentioned in footnotes above. For further edification, they may refer to the Author’s: Islam and Christianity in the Modern World, published by the World Federation of Islamic Missions, Karachi, Pakistan.
[4] Cf. The ‘Programme’, according to Islam (p. 111).
to be continued . . . . .
Quranic Foundation & Structure Of Muslim Society In The End Times
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