|
ISLAM:
THE PRIMORDIAL RELIGION
At birth
man has no conscious knowledge about himself or about the
environment around him; nevertheless, he is not an alien but
fitted for the world into which he is born. To begin with, his
body is made up of the same elements as exist in nature: the
building blocks that make up the mineral, vegetable and animal
elements of the earth also constitute the sperm and the egg which,
when they are joined, marked the first moment of his earthly life.
And yet, how the inanimate matter is converted into living forms
defeats all our inquiries: it is a direct gift of the Creator. Man
is thus a ‘child of nature’ and aware of himself as a creature
of the Creator’s making. That awareness distinguishes the second
aspect, the ‘heavenly’ side of being human, beside the merely
‘natural’ aspect.
A human
child is, typically, born into a welcoming environment, and knows
the embrace of parents and a wider family of relatives. Moreover,
the baby is immediately provided with the most perfect
nourishment, exactly adapted to its needs in the form of the
mother’s milk. The world, as the child grows, will be
experienced as an environment fully ordered - with sight and
sounds, with heat and light and rainfall, with an infinitive
diversity of plants fruits and animals - to enable, exercise and
enlarge all the faculties of sense and feeling and intellect that
the Creator has created in the child. Likewise, the body in which
the child’s life is held functions without conscious effort or
decision - brain, heart, lungs, stomach, senses, limbs, and so on.
All this, minutely arranged and coordinated, is the gift of the
Creator, the apparatus that He gives when He gives life to a human
being, to support and mature that life. Very little of what man
has is his own doing - if he was left to manage only his own body,
unaided by the Creator, he could not do it and so could not
survive.
The One who
created the universe and subjected it to man’s stewardship is
also the One who created man. It behooves us, then, to consider
what our responsibility is, considering all that we have been
given, to reflect on how we will answer for ourselves and for what
we have in our care. Human responsibility before the Creator is
voluntary, whereas every other creature carries out its particular
duties without reflection but also without defect in its duties.
Relative
impotence and vulnerability of man
Because the
apparent efficiency of modern technology obscures it from us, we
need to remind ourselves of the relative impotence and
vulnerability of man. Man cannot create so much as a leaf or a
fly, though he is free to tamper with God’s creation to the
extent He wills. Man has no domain over even the operation of his
body, let alone over the world as a whole. He cannot prevent
himself from getting hungry and thirsty; he has no part in
determining his parents, or his time and place of birth, nor his
physique or physical structure, nor does he know when and where he
will die. We affirm that man needs to use the natural world to
sustain and enlarge his life. The One who subjected nature to man
has also created in man the necessary means to use nature, namely
his intellectual faculties. By exercising his intellect man
obtains some knowledge of the orderly operations of natural
phenomena; the uniformity and reliability of these phenomena
enable him to formulate ‘laws’. Such ‘laws’ are our
imperfect, human intimations of the supreme laws according to
which the Supreme Being has created what He has created.
Humanity,
that is the quality or the being fully identified as human, does
not come from man’s natural, material aspects but from the
immaterial and spiritual. His spirit and intellect do not
originate in his physical structure. When he dies or, in different
words, when the spiritual part of him leaves his body, he is
reduced to something that will decompose into the earth. He no
longer has senses, even though, for a short time, his body is
still there. This means that it is the spiritual part of him that
uses the body. It is life that gives the body meaning. The
relation between man’s body and spirit can be understood
somewhat by analogy with a factory and electrical power. It is of
no value how complex, sophisticated and excellent a factory is
unless there is electrical power to put it into operation, without
which it is no more than a piece of mechanical junk. We do not
therefore mean to imply that the spirit is everything by itself,
that the body is ‘junk’; on the contrary, spirit needs matter
or a corporeal form to express its powers and functions.
Just as the
future life of a fruit tree is encapsulated in its seed, and the
worth of the tree is in the worth of the fruit it yields, so too
the life-history of man is also recorded, and his life is
worthwhile in proportion to his good deeds and virtues. Again,
just as the tree increases by means of the seed in its fruit, so
too does man prosper by his good deeds, all of whose weight and
consequence will become known to him. This world is the field
where man scatters his deeds to be harvested in the next. So the
Majestic Creator, who brings man into existence from
non-existence, and who brings him to life by breathing the ‘spirit’
into the body that he fashioned from the clay of nature, will
quicken him again after his decomposition in the earth. This is as
easy for Him as bringing day after night, spring after winter, and
making what looks, at the end of autumn, like dry wood, yield
grapes the following summer.
Man has, in
addition to the faculties and means we have mentioned, three
principal drives or kinds of energy. These are the desires, anger
and intellect. He desires or lusts after the opposite sex, he
desires and loves his children, and worldly possessions such as
houses, money, and cars. His anger is directed at what opposes
him, and by means of it he also defends himself against all
antagonistic forces. His intellect enables him to make ‘right’
decisions. These powers in man are not restrained by the Creator;
rather, man is required to seek perfection by disciplining himself
against misuse of them. It is this struggle for discipline which
determines his ‘humanity’. Otherwise, there would be no
purpose for him in the universe, seeing that all other creatures
lead relatively untroubled lives without causing any organized
disorder in nature.
Man is
the creature who matures spiritually and intellectually
Man is the
creature who matures spiritually and intellectually; the other
creatures have no freedom of will and so do not evolve or mature
in this way, their whole lives being wholly determined within
nature. Only man has freedom of will which he must apply to his
energies in order to keep them within the correct limits. If he
does not recognize any limits to his desire he may, for instance,
usurp the property of others, seek illicit sexual relations, and
so on. If, again, he does not recognize limits to the use of
intellect, he may exploit it to deceive others. That is why man’s
powers must be held in check: his intellect must be exercised with
‘wisdom’, and his desire and anger restrained by lawfulness
and moderation. We should remember too that man is a social being:
if he does not restrain himself, certainly wrongdoing, injustice,
exploitation, disorder, and revolutions will occur in the society.
But what is
lawful and right; what is moderate and wise? Who will decide the
criteria, and how will these criteria be accepted by people?
Finally, who will give an answer to these questions of vital
importance for the earthly existence of man?
The
questions everybody asks himself
“Who am
I? Where do I come from and what is my final destination? What
does death demand from me? Who is my guide on this journey
beginning from clay and going on through the stages of a
sperm-drop, a blood-clot, and a lump of flesh, to another creation
where the spirit is breathed into my body, and finally reaching
the grave, and through which to the Hereafter?”
It is rare
for even two or three people to agree on the truth of even a
single subject. If the rich and powerful decide what the truth is
then their ‘truth’ will exclude or disadvantage the poor and
vice versa. Nor if the truth is truth can it be decided by
majority vote: for the truth as truth will be compelling no matter
how many or how few people vote for it. The truth is, and can only
be determined by Truth, that is, by God who has created man and
the universe. What falls to man to do is to discover that truth
and abide by it.
No one
doubts that there are some verities that are universally
recognized- such as honesty, generosity, altruism, truthfulness,
helpfulness, compassion, etc. These are essentially reflections of
man’s true nature. Created by the One, who is All Wise,
All-Generous, All-Compassionate, every man has an innate
inclination towards these virtues and it is the God-revealed
religion which confirms and establishes these truths, showing the
straight path out of man’s psychological and social problems.
This religion was revealed through God-chosen men revered as ‘prophets’.
Is
everything changeable or is there an unchangeable dimension of
man’s life?
While
constant change is observed in nature, there is an underlying
aspect of permanence in everything. For instance, a seed
germinates under the earth and grows into a tree, without the laws
of germination and growth changing. Likewise, human beings, no
matter the changes in clothes, houses, vehicles, etc., in the
material or form of their lives, have remained unchanged in
respect of the essential purposes they serve and their impact on
our lives and environment. We all share as human beings, certain
general conditions of life and value; we are all born, mature,
marry, have children and face death; we all possess some degree of
will and common desires; we share also certain values - we all
know the meaning of honesty, kindness, justice, courage, and so
on. All the prophets sent by God were therefore sent from first to
last, with the same message. This message, whether preached by the
Prophets Moses, Jesus or Muhammad (peace be upon them all) is
based upon the Absolute Oneness and Absolute Transcendence of God:
He does not beget, nor is begotten, being Eternally Self-Existent.
Each created being naturally depends on its Creator, only the
Creator Himself is Self-Existent, unique, single, nor composite,
not subject to change, not contained by time or space. Belief in
such a Divine Being constitutes the primary foundation of the
Divine Religion, as preached by all prophets. The other pillars of
Divine religion are belief in resurrection, in all the prophets
without distinction, in the angels, the Divine Scriptures, and the
Divine Destiny which embraces human free will. Through sincere
faith and worship and by adhering to the pristine teachings of the
prophets, mankind can obtain the highest degree of elevation, even
be worthy of heaven. Certainly there is no other escape from the
snares of the worldly life, nor from the oppressive ignorance of
false, man-made systems, or the tyranny of self-appointed priestly
authority.
Man, when
he does not employ his free will in the right way, to discipline
his energies, can be too obedient a slave to his passions. They
will incite him to wrong his fellow human beings in order to
satisfy his desires. Since the Divine religion does not allow such
wrong-doing, those whose desires lead them from the straight path
seek to corrupt the religion in order to shape it to their whims
and fancies. This results in disorder, oppression, unending
conflicts and destruction on the earth. God wills mercy for his
creation, not oppression or injustice. He wills that human beings
should live in peace and, accordingly, that justice should prevail
amongst them. It is a fact of history that the followers of
prophets who preceded the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him,
split into opposing factions, with the result that the religion
was corrupted to serve the local cultural preference (or the
interest) of one or another sect.
The
Israelites, the Jewish people, were divided into many factions. In
the course of time, some broke with the original Torah and gave in
to materialistic desires. When Jesus was sent to them to restore
the Divine religion, little of the pure teaching of Moses
remained. The followers of Jesus, after the first generation,
followed the footsteps of the earlier people. They split up into
many factions. There were at one time as many as three hundred
Gospels. One faction allied itself to the Roman Empire and so was
able to prevail, more or less, over the others. The Nicene Council
imposed the Christian creed throughout the Empire, and eventually
a ‘canon’ of accepted texts was established as a new ‘Scripture’.
Christianity deified Jesus and the Holy Spirit, thus introducing a
mysterious trinity into the pure teachings of Jesus. Having
deified Jesus, some of his followers found themselves obliged to
deify Mary, the mother of Jesus also. These dogmas were combined
with other beliefs such as blood atonement and original sin.
Islam
honors the religious experience of mankind before itself,
because Islam confirms and completes what is true in the
religions before it.
The reason
for sending all the previous prophets one after the other was that
the religion needed to be returned to its original purity after
the introduction of innovations and deviations by its adherents.
For this reason the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon
him, was sent and he came with the same pillars of faith. God
revealed to him the Quran which contains eternal principles for
man's individual and collective life. Because, by Divine Decree
the Quran is preserved absolutely and permanently, the Prophet
Muhammad is the Last of the Messengers. No other is needed by
mankind and, by God, no other will be sent. Unlike any other
religion Islam honors the religious experience of mankind before
itself, because Islam confirms and completes what is true in the
religions before it. This is expressed by Muslim's saying that,
for example, the Prophet Abraham was a Muslim. This is why Islamic
civilization was, from the outset, tolerant, plural,
inclusive-regarding the whole of mankind as its proper
constituency-and why, with the rarest exceptions has always
remained so. Western civilization, despite the self-delusion of
European assertions to the contrary, has typically been
intolerant, exclusive, and, often, explicitly racist. There is but
one religion which recognizes as a part of its own system of
beliefs that other religions exist; and this religion is capable
of guiding man and human civilization towards the higher levels of
humanity. Without a return of authority to Islamic principles, we
live in danger of increasing selfishness and destructiveness
whether as mutually hostile individuals or as mutually hostile
nation-states.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
-
Said Nursi,
Sozler, Istanbul, 1958 (The Words 1, The Words 2)
-
Isaratu’l-I’caz,
Istanbul, 1986
-
M.
Abdulfettah Sahin, Cag ve Nesil I, (‘The Age and New
Generation’) Izmir, 1985
-
Buhranlar
Anaforunda Insan, (‘Man in the Whirl of Depressions’),
Izmir, 199l
-
Elmalili
Hamdi Yazir, Hak Dini Kur’an Dili, (‘The The Language
of the Qur’an: The Language of the True Religion’), Istanbul,
1960
-
S, Hussain
Nasr, Sufi Essays, London
-
I. H.
Muhammad al-Ghazali, Ihya-i Ulumi’d-Din (‘Reviving the
Religious Sciences’), Istanbul, 1975
-
M. I. Abu
Dharr an-Naraqi, Cami’u-s-Sadat, Tehran
-
Ali
Shariati, Man and Islam, Mashhad, 1980
|
|
