Quranic Foundations And Structure Of Muslim Society
Chapter 10
INTEGRALISTIC CULTURE AND
INTEGRALISTIC CIVILISATION
A. CULTURE
Because of its comprehensive and integralistic approach—which is the demand of its unique Philosophy of Unity, the Holy Qur’an reconciles the elements of value in Rationalism and Empiricism,[1] affirms the reality of both the rational and the empirical (22:62; 6:73; etc.)—of course, in accordance with the status of each, demands belief in the Unseen (2:3) as well as in the Seen (2:190; etc.), i.e., in the supra-sensible as well as in the sensible, and synthesises the Ideational and the Sensate, projecting thereby a perfect and sound Integralistic or Idealistic Culture.
B. CIVILISATION
As already pointed out, the Holy Qur’an came not to add one more to the list of the world’s religions, or to merely correct certain notions taught by the different religions in respect of the religious aspect of human life; but—and that is extremely important for our notice—it came to impart a correct philosophy of Culture and, beyond that, to lay the foundations of a new Civilisation. The existence of socio-political dimension in the Holy Prophet Muhammad’s spiritual struggle, in contrast to the other-worldly character of the spiritual struggle said to have been waged by Holy Prophet Jesus (Peace be on him!), was in response to the demands of the former’s all comprehending Message and Mission, whose range covered the entire area of human thought and behaviour: from the problems of the individual to the problems of the healthy growth of human civilisation.
And a new civilisation did come into existence—a balanced civilisation conceived in terms of the realization of Piety, Truth, Justice, Love, Beauty, Wisdom and Service to Humanity, and based on the concept of integralistic or idealistic culture, as distinct from the pre-Qur’anic ideational and the modern sensate cultures, of the East and the West respectively—as already noticed.
Just to give an idea of what type of civilization emerged in history under the impact of Islam, we may give here only its briefest account, and that too qualified by the following considerations:
1. Because of what we shall emphasize later about the intimate relation between the Islamic and the modern Western civilisation, we shall confine ourselves to that period wherein the Islamic civilisation matured in its different dimensions and we shall lay greater emphasis on its, what might be called, sensate aspects.[2] Of course, their Islamic ethico-religious foundations as well as the concomitant high spiritual and moral tone of the Muslims in general—in spite of the deviations of certain members of the aristocracy—are unchallengeable.
2. We shall state the facts on the authority of a non-Muslim historian, Will Durant, who is one of the most recent writers on the subject, as also a devout Christian and fanatically anti-Islam,—the latter qualification standing guarantee against any misgiving as to the authenticity of the account in respect of the merits of Islamic civilisation.
3. It is impossible to make the account in any degree comprehensive because of the extreme dearth of source materials, as Will Durant himself admits:
“It is a pity that we know these three centuries (750-1050) of Arabic efflorescence so imperfectly. Thousands of Arabic manuscripts in science, literature, and philosophy, lie hidden in the libraries of the Moslem world; in Constantinople alone there are thirty mosque libraries whose wealth has been merely scratched; in Cairo, Damascus, Mosul, Baghdad, Delhi are great collections not even catalogued; an immense library in the Escorial near Madrid has hardly completed the listing of its Islamic manuscripts in science, literature, jurisprudence, and philosophy. What we know of Moslem thought in those centuries is a fragment of what survives; what survives is a fragment of what was produced; what appears in these pages is a morsel of a fraction of a fragment.” (The Age of Faith, p. 257).
to be continued . . . . .
Quranic Foundation & Structure Of Muslim Society In The End Times
