A fundamental
Law of the Universe is that all things continue to stay in the same state. When
something changes then a cause for it is sought, and the change must be
proportional to the cause. No explanation is required for the state of
uniformity, homogeneity or unity. In fact, this state defines God, the
self-existent. And a cause is needed to explain away the change and so to
restore the homogeneity or unity. A Principle of Conservation underlying things
is assumed. There is a state X. Any change from this must have an equal and
opposite factor, and the two neutralize each other leaving X in tact.
Basically, therefore, we have three inexplicable things:- The original X, the
arising of the pair of opposites A+ and A-, and the cause A* which brought the
pair into existence and is now trying to recombine them. A* must be something
inherent in X. X produces A* which produces A+, A-.
Although Newton regarded Action and
Reaction as a physical Law, it is, in fact, connected with the way the mind
works. We are not normally aware of that which is uniform and homogenous. We
need a contrast or change in order to become aware. This is known as a stimulus
and it activates us. To some extent we provide our own stimulus in that our
attention restlessly moves from point to point searching for the contrast. This
is mentioned here at the outset in order to establish that how we perceive the
world depends to an extent on the nature of the mind. This is why Islam is
concerned with the creation of a state of mind that will perceive things in a
manner that is conducive to human welfare and development. We can call this the
Islamic Anthropic Principle or the Islamic Principle of Objectivity. It is
implied in the notion of Vicegerency and in the following verses.
"Deemed you then that We had created you
for naught, and that you would not be returned to Us?" 23:115
"Who created death and life that He may
try you as to which of you is best in conduct; and He is the Mighty, the
Forgiving, Who created the seven heavens one above the other in harmony."
67:2-3
"And He it is Who created the heavens and
the earth in six periods - and His Throne was upon the water - that He might
try you as to which of you is best in conduct..." 11:7
Here the seventh
period is that of evolution on earth. A stage of this is Human evolution, and
we are now living in a stage of this.
The Renaissance
in Europe and the Reformation of Christianity
as well as the Enlightenment are thought to be caused by the impact of Islam on
the West, an effect of the Crusades of the Christian Church against Islam.
According to some scholars the cause was not so much Islam itself but the ideas
and learning which the Muslims had gathered from the Greeks and other parts of
the world, and the commentaries and elaboration of these works. But ever since
the Crusades Christians have tended to be reluctant to attribute any good
influences to Islam. They suppose instead that the European culture and
civilization is entirely due to the influence of the Greek and Roman heritage,
though this was pagan. Other scholars find that this influence is a blending
between two distinct and often incompatible streams - the religious or
revelatory, which flows from ancient Egypt
through Hebrewism, Zarathustraism, Christianity and Islam into the West, and
the secular stream which also flows from ancient Egypt
through Babylon, Greece,
via Islam and Rome
into the West. But here we will deal with a view based on Islam.
There are, in
fact three streams:- (1) The spiritual, conscious or revelatory stream S, which
can be represented by a vertical line since it descends into the world from
heaven or through a higher consciousness. (2) The worldly stream W, which
concerns activities, impulses and ideas arising from the physiology which human
beings share with animals, the nature of the physical environment and
interactions with it owing to the need to make a living, and the resulting
social interactions such as the competitions, ambitions and rivalries. This is
represented by a horizontal line. (3) The interaction between these two streams
produces a third but distinct cultural or mental stream M, which includes the
philosophies, arts, sciences, technologies and institutions by which a
civilization is known. Man represents this stream. These three streams interact
but nevertheless have their own history of development.
The first two
streams form a cross, and man formed of both clay and spirit (himself a cross)
is represented, in some esoteric teachings, as nailed to this cross. Note
carefully that it is not God but man who is nailed to the cross. The
implication is that it is man in whom the conflict between these two opposite
forces is taking place. This has a Cosmic significance in that development or
evolution in the world can only take place through man when he transmits the
spiritual force into it. This is his function as Vicegerent, the cross he has
to bear. Those who know the dance of the Whirling Dervishes founded by Rumi,
will recognize that this dance represents the Cosmos and the arms of the
dancers are outstretched as if one was receiving something from heaven and the
other was pouring it into the earth after it had passed through his body. The
man is the transformer.
If a particular
state or level of humanity consists of all three streams, then we can have the
following combinations:-
X1, WMS, WSM, MWS, MSW, SWM, SMW, X2
Here X stands
for a unity from which things start and in which they end. The left-most
position implies dominance, the right most implies passivity and the middle
implies mediation. Thus, the series from left to right represents development –
the spiritual factor S starts in the passive position in the first triad and
ends up in the dominant position in the sixth triad. But the worldly factor W
starts in the dominant position and ends in the passive position. The series
from right to left represents degeneration. We have 7 stages, excluding X2
which is the beginning of another series.
"And We have created above you seven
paths; and We are never heedless of creation." 23:17
"Ye shall surely travel from stage to
stage!" 84:19
"Say: Travel ye in the earth, and behold
how Allah originated creation; so will He produce a later creation. Verily,
Allah has power over all things." 29:20
There is no
indication in the Quran that these verses should be interpreted and applied in
a particular way. This indicates that they have a general meaning and, as the
Quran tells us, we must examine nature and human history to find the
application. Two ways of applying these ideas have been given in previous
articles. Here still another view is given.
"Dost not thou see that Allah created the
heavens and the earth in Truth? If He please He can remove you and replace you
with a new creation." 14:19
"But nay! I call to witness the Lord of
all points of the rising and setting places that We are certainly Able to
replace them with others better than them, and We shall not be overcome."
70:40-41 See also 11:56-57
Thus, though
development is guaranteed, it is not guaranteed for any particular people.
Those who fail are replaced by others. There are always revolutionary
geophysical, social and psychological changes between one stage and another.
Originally,
before known civilization began, man was a Unity where no distinction between
the spiritual, mental and physical or between thought, feeling and action had
been made. But gradually, as life became more complex due to the accumulation
of the products of human activity, specialization began and these aspects of
man separated. Primitive man appears to have lived in tribes in which all
things were shared. If our reading is correct there are 7 stages in the
development of man (and there are 7 corresponding earths - 65:12), each leading
to the next. This may well be followed by the arising of a higher species of
being. Not much is known about the first three stages, which we might call the
Fruit Gathering, the Hunting and the Nomadic stages. When population expands
and forests contract due to climatic changes, then humanity adapts to hunting
animals. Next they learn to domesticate some of these animals and must wander
with them from pasture to pasture. There appears to have been cooperation in
gathering food. During the hunting era tribes may have quarrelled over
territory and also raided one another for women and in the Nomadic period they
may also have raided cattle.
The fourth stage
begins with the discovery of agriculture. People then settled down in fertile
river valleys. Here the notions of property came into existence. The surplus of
food allowed the increase of population in small areas thus creating cities.
Animals which were formerly herded were now employed to work the fields. This
allowed the ownership and cultivation of larger areas. The increase in food
supply left leisure time that also diverted efforts into the crafts,
administration and intellectual occupations. This led to exchange and trade and
the development of writing, mathematics and the sciences. The desire for
consumer goods beyond needs, greed, began to develop. The congestion of cities
brought together people who were no longer closely related to each other or
intimately known. Fellow feeling declined and was replaced by formal
relationships. The tribe broke down, a class of rulers arose and the society
became stratified. These prosperous cities were often raided by envious or
hungry tribes and had to create their own armies for self-defence. It was soon
discovered that greed could be satisfied best not by personal work or the use
of animals but by coercing other people to do the work. Thus slavery came into
existence and continued until the invention of machines made it redundant.
Ancient Babylon
may have been one of the first cities that became enormously wealthy because
these trends developed there to a high degree. Indeed, Babylon represents and is a symbol for these
trends and the resulting depravities. It is also the source of the Greek and
Roman Civilisations. These civilisations were based on slavery.
Slavery divided
the society into two camps masters and slaves. Since the slaves did all the
physical work, it caused the division of activity into work and pleasure,
production and consumption without a coordination or balance between them. Human
beings were divided into those who mainly consumed and those who mainly
produced and the unity of life was split into manual work and intellectual
work. And the unity of existence was split into matter and mind.
The slaves were too busy working to have any
leisure for thought and the finer things of life, while the masters had all the
leisure for cultural activities. Since the contact with reality was mainly made
by the slave, the masters engaged in games. This is what created the Olympics.
They engaged their intellect in speculation and fantasy, known as Philosophy.
This was a kind of game, quite different from science which requires
investigation and experiment - contact with reality. Because the masters were
free of work they needed to create no machinery. They used their creativity in
creating useless works of arts.
But though the
society was split into master and slave, but human beings are still human, then
this distinction could only be sustained by an atrophication of fellow feeling
and the mind had to invent artificial distinctions. Egotism, repression,
self-deception and rationalization of self-interest replaced impartial
thinking. It became irrational and full of contradictions and fantasies - the
intellect became perverted. The atrophication of ordinary human feelings led to
the development of sensuality and perversions of motives. Since the normal
needs of the rich were satisfied, boredom led to invention of new activities
and the need for excitement and all kinds of excesses. Without action and
interaction with the world there is no need for self-discipline. Therefore,
attachments and addictions led to over-indulgence and its physical, social and
psychological diseases. There was a reduction to lower levels of unintelligent
and non-purposive behaviour, even lower than animals (7:179) which at least are
driven by instincts usefully built into them by nature. This allowed the
development also of homosexuality, bestiality and other perversions and
depravities, and their art displays this.
Under normal
circumstances the feelings form a link between physical action and intellect,
producing a unified integrated individual and society. But the atrophication
and perversion of feelings caused the disintegration of the mind and the
society so that unity could only be obtained by imposed coercive and formal
methods as the Romans did. People were able to think one thing, intend another
and do still something else. Inner conflicts causing guilt-feelings, hypocrisy
and self-deception became the common lot of man. The Romans added orgies,
extreme cruelty and formal Legal systems designed to control slaves or
conflicts between owners, and bureaucracy.
Greeks are said
to have stated and discussed the basic intellectual problems and laid down many
of the foundational ideas. But they did not do so in a vacuum. They obtained
and built on ideas received from surrounding and more ancient civilisations.
Pythagoras was a mystic who had been influenced by Hebrew, Egyptian and
Zarathustrian ideas and founded a school. Isaac Newton and other later
scientists claim to have been followers of his. Socrates, the teacher of Plato
and Aristotle, had been taught by Egyptian Priests and could have been a
Prophet in his own right. Plato and his pupils also founded an influential
school of mystics and some of his ideas influenced the Christian Gospels. Greek
thoughts were also transmitted to Europe via the Muslims who controlled the
areas in the Middle East where the ancient
civilisations had flourished. They had undertaken to gather and study all the
available knowledge and thoughts even from as far as China. Some of these scholars had
adapted Greek methods to create a Theology based on the Quran and this later
influenced Christian Theology such as that of Thomas Aquinas. But it is
doubtful if much progress could have been made had not the hold of the Catholic
Church over minds and affairs been broken by the Reformation. This was
certainly the result of the new ideas arising through contact with Islam.
Thus we see that
Greek civilization not only contributed some cultural elements to the West, but
also spiritual ones and certain destructive and degenerative tendencies. These
last, it appears, took an upper hand in the Roman Empire.
Christianity
tried to restore conscience, compassion and love, but was soon overwhelmed by
the Babylonian, Greek and Roman tendencies. Nevertheless, the spiritual
teachings did affect some people, many of whom tended to confine themselves to
monasteries. These became centres of Learning, arts and charitable works and
affected the surrounding culture but not to a great degree. Not until Islam
came with an emphasis on truth, could these Babylonian tendencies be reversed.
But the spirit was not enough, an appropriate physical condition was also
required. It required the discovery of a New World where these ideas could
flourish away from the influences of the Old World.
But unfortunately, the Muslims themselves fell victim to the Babylonian, Greek,
Roman influences.
The New World was discovered as a result of the Age of
Exploration, itself an indirect consequence of Islam. Muhammad (saw) was
himself a merchant among a mercantile people and encouraged trade not only
because it distributed goods where needed but also because it brought exchanges
of ideas and culture and broadened the mind. Arab and other Muslim merchants
brought spices, silks and porcelain from the East to Europe
and created an enthusiasm for trade there. But the overland route to the East
was closed in 1453 by the capture of Constantinople
by the Muslims. This led to the search for a sea route to the East both
southwards and westwards, the knowledge about the spherical nature of the world
and the compass having also been passed on to Europe.
The search for
the East led to the discovery of Africa, Australia
and the Americas.
The New World had a great amount of land and
natural resources, but a relatively small and backward population. The settling
of these lands became inevitable and so did trade between the Old and New
Worlds. Though the need to exploit these resources for trade caused them to
import slaves from Africa, it also led to the
invention of machines. The Old World, especially Britain, was congested with an
impoverished population and burdened with tradition that left little room for manoeuvre.
This congestion was relieved partly by the migration of people to the new
worlds for religious, political and economic reasons, and partly by the
banishment of dissenters and criminals often for minor misdeeds which some were
forced into by poverty. The desire for the wealth of the New
World led to the need for mass production that caused the
Industrial Revolution. This brought mankind into the fifth or Industrial Age,
which transformed the world, man and his social system.
Here Capitalism
and Profit motive become dominant and encourages scientific research, invention
of machines, techniques, instruments and new ways of doing things. Methods of
transport and communication developed rapidly which allowed better large-scale
organization and centralization. All these changes required a universal
educational system facilitated also by the invention of printing and other
recording and reproducing devices. Knowledge increased and was made more
generally available. The irksomeness and monotony of work divided work from
leisure and caused the development of the fantasy and entertainment industries.
A vicious circle ensued in which the need to spend for relaxation makes it
necessary to earn money from the work which makes relaxation necessary.
The whole earth
was transformed by the removal of forests, diversion of rivers, mining,
construction of large cities, farms, parks, dams, irrigation and sewage works,
road, rail and communication networks, water and electricity supplies. Slaves
were replaced with employees who can be dismissed when no longer required or
profitable to the factory owner. Workers, raw materials and goods could be
transported from distant places to the factory and out from the factory to
distant places. This led to centralization and huge cities sprang up where
people become anonymous. The use of machines required that things should be
standardized and people be regimented. Mechanization put the emphasis on energy
sources and allowed an ever smaller work force to produce an ever increasing
number of goods, thereby increasing prosperity but causing wastage of
resources, pollution, ecological imbalance, and threats of unemployment.
Since the
distinction between owners and workers was retained, and the owners reap
profits while workers reap wages, there is a tendency towards increasing
differences in wealth and power. An ever increasing number of aspects of life
became industrialized - housing, clothing, agriculture, food processing and
manufacture, catering, entertainment, health, knowledge, education, sex,
child-birth, and funerals. Competition caused firms to amalgamate and become
larger and larger and more tightly controlled. This is because the need to
reduce costs or increase profit requires that fewer people should take smaller
cuts from the work of a greater number of people. Since the goods wanted and
produced were now no longer the basic necessities, this resulted in an
uncertainty about demand which is subject to fashions in taste, and other
unpredictable influences. There are cycles of booms and slumps, of over
production and underproduction relative to demand, of inflation and deflation
of prices, of prosperity and unemployment. Manufacture becomes easy, and since
profit depends on it, the emphasis is on selling and on consumption. Mass
production means increased efficiency in production, lower costs and this also
means pressure to sell. The aim of the system is, therefore, to increase
consumption and persuading people to buy things whether needed or not. When
this fails industry shuts down and the dispossessed are thrown out of work. It
is, therefore, in the interest of the employed that demand remains high
irrespective of whether the things demanded are useful or beneficial or not.
The Economic machine runs human lives and man is the slave but does not know
this.
Trade and
Communication shrink the world and make people ever more interdependent with
little freedom to manoeuvre. The Industrial system also disrupts the family and
social system, changes the environment and the interaction between people and
their life style. This brings stresses and anxiety, causing numerous physical,
social and psychological problems and diseases. The speed of life and of social
change increases, causing increasing superficiality owing to the lack of time
to absorb and consider, and adds often unbearable pressure on the ability to
adapt. It increases the power of organizations and reduces that of individuals
who become more or less cogs in the machine having little control over affairs.
The society disintegrates into nuclear families and these too disintegrate into
isolated self-centred lonely individuals. Unity must now be achieved by
imposing formal laws and even more organization that disempowers people even
more. Things become more and more complex and can no longer be understood or
controlled by any one. Things approach a crisis point and makes a major
transformation necessary and inevitable.
Though it is
claimed that the rise in education and science and the increase in materialism
has caused the decline in religion, a closer examination shows that this is not
the case. It has certainly removed many superstitions and malpractices that
could hardly be termed spiritual. It has led to a reassessment and a more
intelligent acceptance. Indeed, the very conditions created by the cultural and
industrial system have left a vacuum, dissatisfaction and a hunger for the
spiritual in many people. Thus, though the number of adherents has declined,
their quality in general has improved. But the Spirit is still trapped in a
great amount of ignorance, superstition, hypocrisy and bigotry, and this
threatens to create global conflicts and tear apart the veneer of civilization.
So what are the
sixth and seventh stages?
If the pattern
of events is read correctly then it is likely that the next stage must be one
of Communalization. The increasing social problems themselves drive attention
and effort to solve them. There is already an increasing amount of attention
and expenditure on various social services. But there is no coherent overall
self-consistent policy. They are meant to deal with symptoms and not the
causes, to patch up the cracks. Attempts were made by Communism to introduce a
new age, but it was too premature, read the problems and solutions incorrectly
and did not have sufficiently capable leaders. The next two stages ought,
according to the scheme mentioned above, be dominated by spiritual factor S
when properly understood. That is consciousness, conscience and will
(self-control) must be developed and exercised. It is possible that a study and
application of Islamic social, economic and political principles will become
more important in the future whether or not they are recognised as such.
The seventh
stage is usually considered as one of completion of a cycle or series. A
Theocratic System, or Kingdom
of God, Dar-al-Islam,
will be established. But this ought not to be understood in a narrow and naive
manner. It implies that human affairs will be run wholly on objective
principles for the development of man and his environment. The aim is to
produce what is known as Insan Kamil. Such a system would be run by true
Authorities, that is those who have developed in themselves awareness,
conscience, self-control, knowledge, wisdom, ability, virtue, a sense of social
responsibility, and devotion to truth - those who, in Islamic terms, are in a
state of Surrender.