Post by Islamic Revival on Jan 16, 2006 1:31:25 GMT -5
Allah (swt) created the human being with a tendency towards certain values and morals, such as honesty, generosity, and kindness and respect to others. Many of these values and morals are but a manifestation of the human nature that Allah (swt) endowed the human being with. For example, the quality of human beings to show concern and compassion for others is inherent in every human being and stems from the basic instincts that the human being possesses. Values such as generosity, kindness, respect for others, willingness to help and assist others, and caring for other human beings emanate from these instincts.
Because these morals and values are intrinsic to the human being, then it follows naturally that such values and morals will be encouraged by the bulk of humanity. However, many societies are established upon man-made thoughts and ideas that fail to correctly define the human being and contradict the human nature. For this reason, in much of the world at large, there seems to be a clash between what human beings will naturally incline towards and between the values and norms that societies around the world promote. Values and morals such as decency, respect, kindness, and honesty - which are manifestations of the innate human nature that Allah (swt) created - are continuously in clash with the indecency, lack of respect, ruthlessness, dishonesty, cheating, and deception that is produced by contemporary societies. The societies nowadays are established upon such ideals as materialism, ruthless competition, and gratification of desires, which in turn gives rise to the ''might is right - me, myself, and I - getting ahead no matter what it takes - ends justify means'' outlook. As a result, it is only natural for such an outlook to produce a personality that will cherish values such as dishonesty, ruthlessness, double standard, cheating others, and lack of concern for anybody but oneself. Furthermore, the systems that are applied tend to favor those with such qualities and suppress those with the qualities of high moral excellence. As a result, such values become institutionalized norms that are promoted by the society, and most of the people absorb such qualities to varying degrees, willingly or unwillingly.
Islam solves the issue of morals in a manner that is both unparalleled and decisive. Because Allah (swt) created the human being with the innate capacity to manifest such qualities, then the Islamic system revealed by the same Creator codified such morals and values as legislation. In Islam, morals and values such as honesty, respect and concern for others, generosity, fairness, and kindness, are linked to obedience to Allah (swt), and hence, the Islamic system links the expression of such morals and values with the reward and punishment in the Hereafter. As a result, Islam institutionalizes such morals and values to where they manifest in all layers of society and become established norms, thereby raising the society to the highest degree of moral excellence. And the system will work to enhance the correct morals and values while eliminating the incorrect values in the society. In such an atmosphere, the human being will be able to express such morals and values to the utmost, while qualities such as dishonesty, lack of respect, indecency, and others will be suppressed. In addition, Islam places very high regard for those who express such morals and values, which will motivate the Muslims to express such morals and values to the extreme.
Nowadays, the societies around the world are suffering from a crisis in morality. However, the root of this crisis is not the human being per se, but rather the incorrect systems that promote and encourage the incorrect morals and values. Therefore, the solution to this crisis is to establish the Islamic system. Because Islam is the system and way of life from Allah (swt) the Creator, then the Islamic system will correctly define the human being and will promote the correct thoughts in the society, which will give rise to the correct morals and values. In addition, the Islamic system will implement legislation that will safeguard and promote the correct morals in the society while eliminating the incorrect values, as well as to establish these morals as norms in the society that will shape the individuals in a positive manner.
Unfortunately, many people incorrectly look to the moral problem in society as a product of the individual and not of the system. Muslims have succumbed to this view, and as a result, many Muslims and Muslim organizations have called for reviving the Muslim Ummah and changing the status quo by calling for morals on an individualistic level, isolated from the context of the entire Islamic system (from which the morals emanate). Such an effort, while sincere in its intentions, is disastrous in its outcome because, at best, it will produce individuals with the correct morals but do nothing to address the cause of immorality in the society, which is the incorrect systems that are applied and the incorrect thoughts and ideas they are established upon. Therefore, the Muslims should avoid such a call to morality in isolation of its context. Rather, the call to revive the morals in the society should include a call to establish the source of the correct morals in the society - the correct Islamic thoughts, from which will emanate the correct Islamic system and legislation, which will in turn produce the correct morals and uplift humanity from the degraded state that it exists today.
The way we can defeat this individualistic mentality is when we realize that our loyalty is to Islam alone, and this idea become accepted among the masses of the Muslim Ummah. What this means is that we refer to Islam alone as our sole source of concepts, values, laws, and legislation, that we measure things based on the halal and haram, and we refer solely to Islam for answers to our problems in life.
Secondly, we must restore within us the confidence that Islam is the correct system of life that is capable of resolving our problems, as well as the notion that applying Islam comprehensively is not an idealistic, fanciful dream but a very realistic and practical objective. Just by virtue of being Muslims, we should believe that Islam is the only correct system of life and that Islam can and must be applied in its totality, and hence, our confidence in Islam should come as a natural byproduct of our belief that Islam is from Allah (swt), Who is the One who created us and therefore knows how to design a system to correctly address the human being. Unfortunately, there have been many attempts to undermine this confidence, and as a result, the Muslims, for the most part, have lost that confidence and trust in Islam's ability to address the problems and issues in the life affairs, even though they refer to Islam in some aspects such as individual worships and morals. Thus, you will find Muslims who will pray with full sincerity and obey all the rules related to the prayer, yet they will refer to the Capitalist economic system as a reference for economic issues or to the UN and the current system of international law as a reference for resolving political issues.
The reason for such a lack of confidence and trust are many, but a few that come to mind are the way in which we view politics and how we are taught history. It is the belief among Muslims that politics is an institution characterized by corruption, treachery, deceit, and double-standards, and because we love Islam so much, many Muslims do not want to taint something as dear to us as Islam with something as filthy as politics. As a result, many Muslims separate politics from Islam, and by doing so, we inadvertently kill Islam as a practical way of life because politics is the very mechanism by which any system of life is transferred from ideas to reality and practical solutions. Politics is a process, and no process can be labeled as ''good'' or ''evil.'' It depends upon which context the process is used. In the context of Western culture and civilization, politics is the dirty, Machiavellian institution characterized by the axiom ''ends justify means,'' and the ideal politician is the one who is able to achieve his ends by whatever means necessary and at any cost. However, within the context of Islamic culture, politics assumes an entirely different meaning, which is to take care of the affairs of the people. In this context, the best politicians were the prophets and messengers. Unfortunately, the model of politics that exists today and for most of recent history has been dirty Western politics, and this has caused most of the people of the world, Muslims and non-Muslims, to have a disdain towards politics. For Muslims, this bleak image is further exasperated because many Muslim politicians themselves, including those who claim to be working for Islam, practice the Western-style politics and engage in the same tactics of corruption, deceit, and back-stabbing that is characteristic of Western Machiavellian politics. Thus, many Muslims quickly rush to conclude that something as clean as Islam should not mingle with something as dirty as politics. What Muslims mean is the Western style politics, but unfortunately, this is generalized in the minds of many to include any attempt to bring Islam in the sphere of application. However, without politics, how can we hope to take any practical steps towards applying Islam, unifying the Muslims and eradicating the defeatist mentality that is poisoning our Ummah?
This bleak picture of Islam in application is further darkened by the way we are taught our history. Most of the history that Muslims are subjected to, either in academia or elsewhere, portrays the application of Islam as a bloody, tumultuous period characterized by womanizing, tyrannical rulers who committed every atrocity from A to Z. It should be realized that most, if not all, of these accounts, are stories that were either fabricated or have no credible source, and unfortunately, these stories were magnified by the Orientalists and engraved into our minds through the educational systems. Furthermore, many of these stories defy common sense. For instance, it is commonly taught that the Ummayyad rulers were a bunch of bloodthirsty gangsters who indulged in all sorts of vices, yet the Ummayyad Era was considered the Golden Age of Islam, and most of the nations who embraced Islam did so during this period. I do not think that tyranny, bloodshed, and iron-fisted despotic rule are characteristics of a civilization that is progressing in all aspects of life, propelling humanity to unparalleled heights in scientific and technological advancement, and would be so attractive that entire nations embraced its way of life and culture in a remarkably short time span.
Aside from the outright lies and twisted facts that we are presented, even the way we look at history itself has been distorted. We are taught that the Islamic history is a measure of the validity of Islam itself, which is wrong. Islam's correctness is because it is the system and way of life from Allah (swt). History is merely an account of what people did, the issues they faced, and how they resolved them according to the system that they applied. Thus, while Islam is the correct system, its application may not have been perfect, and it will never be perfect because Islam was revealed by Allah but it was designed to be applied by human beings, who are not angels. Human beings will make mistakes, and the fact that Islam was applied for so many centuries and achieved so much success in spite of the occasional pitfalls shows that Islam is not a utopian system but a practical system that can be applied by imperfect human beings and still achieve dramatic results.
The end result of all of this collective culturing is a specific mindset that will look to Islam as a ''beautiful religion'', but is a dismal failure when it comes to application in the life affairs. Whenever the thought of bringing back Islam into the sphere of application is mentioned, images of despotic rule, bloodthirsty tyrants, and constant fighting will begin to flare up. This bleak picture is given further ammunition by so-called Islamic regimes today that claim they are implementing Islam. All of this serves one purpose -- to shatter any confidence in us that Islam can be applied. And if we do not have the confidence to apply Islam, no one else will, and the status quo will remain unchanged. Thus, any serious attempt to change the status quo must begin with a massive overhaul of our attitude towards Islam.
Comments
The purpose of this article is not encourage Muslims to join the dirty democratic political games. In the absence of the Islamic system, the Muslims have no choice, but to work ''outside'' the current status quo to build the correct thinking among the masses and expose the invalidity of the status quo (democracy). Also, there is no valid Islamic rule which permits participating in kufr politics or calling for ''reforms''.