Towards Islamic Revival - Part 1

 

It has been shown in previous articles that the purpose of Islam (a name for genuine religion in general) is to enable human beings to adjust themselves to reality, for their own welfare and development. As long as Muslims clung to their religion they prospered and created a high Civilisation. But as they departed from it, they degenerated owing to erosion of standards, scattering of psychological energy, purposelessness, unawareness, stagnation, conditioning, enslavement to habits of action and thought, automatism, and unobtrusive introduction of foreign corrupting influences. These also caused them to fall into sectarian conflicts that weakened them. They fell asleep, the spirit drained out of them and only a dead shell remained. Concerted and organised action has given way to ineffective and counterproductive mindless mob demonstrations and hysteric. Knowledge, power and prosperity passed into the hands of other peoples. This was predicted in the Quran itself:-

"Systems have passed away before you. Do but travel in the land and see the nature of the consequences for those who did deny the messengers." 3:37

"We are able to replace them by others better than them. And We are not to be outrun." 70:41

"Such is the guidance of Allah wherewith He guides whom He will of His servants. But if they had set up for worship anything besides Him, then all that they did would have been in vain. Those are they unto whom We gave the Scripture and command and prophethood. But if these disbelieve therein then indeed We shall entrust it to a people who will not be disbelievers therein." 6:89-90

"O you who believe! Those of you who become renegades from your religion, know that instead of them Allah will bring a people whom He loves and who love Him, humble towards believers, stern towards disbelievers, striving in the way of Allah, and fearing not the blame of any blamer." 5:54

There is little doubt that Islam, in common with all other religions, has degenerated as predicted by the Prophet (saw) himself. As the Quran tells us throughout the Quran, religion tends to degenerates and is renewed by the coming of new Prophets who reformulate the message for the new age and the new conditions of life. There is a Day of Judgement and a destruction of the degenerate communities that do not reform.

"Say: He is able to send calamities on you from above you and from beneath your feet, and to confuse you with dissenting sects, and to make you taste the violence of each other. See how We explain the Signs, in various ways that haply they may understand. Thy people called it a lie, and yet it is the truth. Say: I have not been put in charge over you. For every Announcement (Message, prophecy) there is a set term, and ye will soon know it." 6:65-67

But there are no further Prophets to come. Man is to be left to his own devices and it is up to him to reformulate the message.

 

Many Muslims, specially the militant types who look back on past worldly glories and want political action, put the blame for the state of the Muslim world on other nations, usually the Western World, not on themselves. It is easier to find scapegoats than to look into oneself, reform and make intelligent efforts. But the Quran tells us:-

"Whatever calamity and misfortune befalls you, it is because of what your own hands have earned" 42:30

Learning and development always require conscious efforts. But having learnt something such as walking or cycling, it becomes automatic and unconscious, a habit. Learning stops. Though the habit is efficient in deal with a particular set of conditions, when those conditions change as the accumulation of the results of human activities itself makes inevitable, then maladaptation and suffering results. This suffering continues until it either destroys or re-awakens.

The domination and even the persecution by other peoples and nations, and even by tyrants of their own, and the fights between their sects, and the suffering caused by all this may be regarded as divine punishment. It has also led to a new awakening. But this has caused bewilderment because the world has changed while they were asleep and is quite different from what it was since Islam was first propagated. Advances in Science, Technology and Organisation have changed the conditions of life, behaviour, thinking and motivation. The world has shrunk, people have become more inter-dependent, all kinds of alien ideas compete for attention and acceptance - it has become much more complex. This leads to three alternative attitudes: - To abandon religion altogether, to divide life into two separate compartments, a secular and a religious one, or to rediscover religion. The first leaves people without values and goals; the second produces inner conflicts and militates against psychological integration; the last requires that a higher understanding of religion should be achieved than that which satisfied people in the past.

The secular system of life has brought with it a great amount of psychological, social and environmental malfunctions. These produce much suffering and are threatening to destroy civilisations, and indeed, the planet itself. This in itself also shows that the compartmentalisation of life does not work. Nor is it an intelligent thing to do, to allow one part of life to be governed by faith without a system of facts and the other by facts without a system of values. Human beings are a wholeness in which each part affects the others, at least at the unconscious level. If consciously they create such a division then they must also suffer from self-contradiction. Where this is attempted, schizophrenia results, people become unbalanced and full of inner conflicts. Most people still retain some inkling of the fundamental underlying Unity, not only within themselves but also in the Cosmos. Owing to this more and more people are returning to religion, or they are creating new cults. The Revival of Islam has become essential because it is the last of the genuine religions, one that is universal in its teachings, has been completed, and is much nearer to the modern world. In fact, as shown in a previous article, it was a major factor in the arising of the Modern World. The purpose of this series of articles, entitles "Views of Islam" has been to show that Islam is indeed fully comprehensive and relevant to present and future times. Since technology has given man the possibility of supplying all his physical needs, the focus of attention in the future must shift to his social, and then to his psychological needs, welfare and development.

In the past when Religion had been corrupted and the quality of life was deteriorating throughout the world, Islam came in order to reverse the trend and bring about regeneration. This was the task of Prophets. But man has matured, the guidance is complete, and it is now up to him to learn from observation, study, thinking, and his own mistakes. But there are several problems connected with the revival of Islam.

It is necessary to (a) identify what the problems are (b) design a plan of action and (c) implement it.

 

The main problems appear to be as follows:-

(1) Religions, like man, have three layers - (a) the spiritual which refers to the distinctively human characteristics of consciousness, conscience and will and it is the central purpose of religion to stimulate and facilitate human development in this area; (b) a mental and social level where intellect, feelings and voluntary actions prevail and allows adaptability; (c) a physical or mechanical level at which we find instincts, automatism, habits, institutions, formalisms, rigid laws, and these are required in our interactions with the physical world. We share this level with animals.

Intelligence demands that the first should be the goal of, and control, the second level, and the second should be the goal of, and control conditions at the third level. Degeneration means that human beings have stopped functioning at the spiritual level altogether and even at the second, but have become wholly subject to habit, tradition, mental conditioning, dogmatism, Ritualism and institutionalisation. When Islam came into the world, it came as a revolution in attitudes and ideas and liberation from the habits of thought, motives and actions that had trapped consciousness. But, though Islam is incorporated in the Quran which remains fully in tact, it gradually became corrupted by:-

(a) Reduction and sloganisation to a narrow set of practices and ideas - the minimum requirements of the Pillars are still ritually practised widely but the inner ethical teachings of the Quran regarding justice, love, and truth are ignored.

(b) Increasing rigidity and superficiality through formalisation and legalism,

(c) Islam has been conventionalised, made tradition bound and unadaptable owing to adherence to the interpretations of past scholars whose writings had been made sacrosanct , though their ideas relate to the conditions of their times.

(d) Adulteration and distortion by alien ideas and practices of the people they came in contact with, specially Greek and Christian ones.

(e) The Quran has been made into a kind of fetish so that instead of a source of guidance, it has become an object of worship. They recite it without pondering and meditating on its meaning, understanding or applying it.

(f) Whereas Muslims are required to judge by the Quran, they have allowed other even contradictory ideas to take precedence over it and tended to judge the Quran by extraneous values.

(g) The Hadith which contain reports of what the Prophet and some of his companions said and did should have been a secondary guidance, but have more often been allowed to take the primary role even though it is known that their genuineness and reliability varies. Apart from the existence of spurious Hadith, the circumstances, mood, and purpose of what the Prophet said is not always known, nor whether they were meant for one person, some people in particular situations or for all always.

(2) Connected with the above is a narrowing of horizons and a low sense of values which shows itself in occupation with trivialities and lack of goals. There are a great number of psychological, social and environmental problems that are threatening mankind in general and Muslim nations in particular, but most Muslims appear to be oblivious to these. Instead they grow hot about the details of ritual ablutions or the like. It is also the non-existence of goals that leads to the disintegration of the person and the society into parts which drift according to every accidental impulse, scattering psychological energy uselessly or wasting it in mutual contradiction and conflict.

Continued in Part 2

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Islamic Revival - Part 2..........Content