|
The Spirit of Islamic Civilization
Dr. Mohammed Imara(*)
If Islam, as we have stated in previous papers,
urges the members of the Muslim society, whether they are Muslims or non-Muslims,
to co-exist in tolerance, it calls for seeking the path of peace with the
members of non-Muslim societies. As some biased parties well know, Islam raises
the banner of unity and monotheism, justice and equality, uprightness and good,
guidance and mercy, security, serenity and stability, coexistence and tolerance.
Hence, it is a religion of peace.(1)
The chief aim pursued by the Islamic message since
its early stages in Makkah was to contribute to the reshaping of the personality
of the adherents of Islam.
When the religion of Islam was still in its secret
phase, i.e. at the dawn of Islam, the house of A1 Arqam Ibn Abi Al Arqam served
as the first educational institution set up by the Messenger of Islam, peace and
prayers be upon him.
Before Islam could extend across to the uttermost
ends of the earth, and before the state of Islam emerged to change reality, set
the rule of law and develop international relations, Muslims won hearts and
minds with the guidance of the Holy Quran. The Quran established itself as both
a code of conduct and a way of life for Muslims. In fact, the first city
conquered by Muslims, prior to the Prophet's migration and the establishment of
the Islamic State, was A1 Madinah A1 Munawwarah, a city conquered by Muslims
with the Holy Quran only.
After the shaping of the Muslim persona through
education came the achievements and conquests that extended to all aspects of
civilization, science, culture and arts. These achievements came to represent in
practical terms the process that had been followed in shaping the soul of the
Muslim individual, in perfect agreement with the criteria set by Islam and first
resorted to in molding the souls, minds and hearts of those who submitted
themselves to Islam.
The message of Islam was not simply concerned with
the spiritual aspects of human religiosity, nor was it confined to few rituals
that have to be observed as a sign of man's relation with the Creator. The
message of Islam went beyond that, seeking to achieve the cohesion and harmony
of individuals within the Ummah and within society. In the heart of the Muslim
individual, the spiritual and the tangible worlds came together, as coalesced
within him the bonds he entertained with the community at the personal and
public levels. Life became religion while remaining worldly when Islam spread in
the hearts and souls of people in a way that brought together in perfect harmony
Allah's signs in matters of revelation and His signs in matters of creation and
extensive spread over large areas.
The religion of Islam is not merely idol worship
and personal pursuit of salvation. In order to flourish and thrive Islam needs a
nation, a homeland and a society . It needs collective duties where the Ummah is
addressed as one entity and where the responsibility lies with the Ummah as a
whole. These collective duties have greater importance and value in Islam than
the individual ones since failure to fulfill an individual duty is a sin carried
by the individual alone, while the default on a collective duty is shared by the
whole Ummah.
The migration of the Prophet in the way of Allah
is associated in Islam with the establishment of the state, the emergence of
society, the application of the law, and the weaving of brotherly relations
between the members of society, not only in the purely religious aspect, but
also in matters of worldly life. This network expanded thanks to the criteria
set for citizenship and to the guaranteed right to difference, even in religion.
In fact, this early social fabric encompassed Muslims as well as non-Muslims.
The journey to the house of Allah is not a
monastic one, nor does it mean that a Muslim individual should isolate himself
from life and people. For the Muslim Ummah, monasticism takes the shape of jihad
which is a collective duty that cannot be performed without nation, a homeland
and a society.
The Islamic religious message had an educational
impact on the shaping of the personality of the Muslim individual. It made
possible the cohesion of the various components of the Muslim society, bringing
together in one whole natural and legal matters, worldly and religious matters,
logical reasoning and reasoning by the Quran, as well as material and abstract
matters. The result of such cohesion was an Islamic civilization shaped by the
individual who is the produce of the Islamic message. This is one of the main
characteristics of the Islamic religion and the Islamic civilization. The other
faiths that preceded Islam either coincided with civilizations that were not
religious. They coexisted with them without affecting them or imparting to them
any of their own characteristics, the reason being that these messages were
either of a purely religious nature, or that the civilizations that preceded the
Islamic civilization prospered at stages in history where there were no
religious calls.
Islam is distinguished as a religion that gave
birth to a civilization and shaped a model of citizenship. It gave rise to human
cohesion and fostered in the individual's heart serenity and harmony that drove
him to fashion a civilization with religious contours. The Islamic religion
brought about cohesion, harmony, balance and serenity that unleashed the
creativity of the Muslim individual into producing a civilization that
concretized that which the religion of Islam had created in him. Several
centuries ago, this civilization and its culture drew away from this religion
and what ensued was the imbalance that we suffer from today and that many reform
movements in the Ummah of Islam have sought to redress.
Some of these reformers took the path of absolute
individualism, searching for the salvation of the soul and shying away from
society and civilization. Of such movements was Sufism which reached extremes in
negating the Sharia-imposed social limitations and criteria. Other reformers
such as Hujjat A1 Islam A1 Ghazali (450-505 a.h./1058-1111 a.d.) attributed the
flaw in civilization to thought. Reformers such as Sheikh A1 Islam Ibn Taymiyya
(661-728 a.h./1263-1328 a.d.) focused on purifying the faith from what had
tarnished it. Ash-Shatibi (790 a.h./1388 a.d.) chose to tackle the Sharia by
clarifying its principles and purposes, while others, such as Jamal Eddine A1
Afghani (1254-1314 a.h./ 1838 a.h./1987 a.d.), focused on the political aspect
of this flaw. Yet other reformers, including Imam Mohammed Abdu (1265-1323 a.h./1849-1905
a.d.) preferred to draw attention to the need for reforming thought and for
renewal.
Then came modern times, or the times of emulating
the West. Even though some positive results of the above reform movements were
reaped during these times, the imbalance persisted and the Ummah pursued its
quest for the key to reform and the way to salvation and progress.
If Islam was the reason behind the progress of
Muslims, their civilizational take-off and their cultural prosperity, what then
is the cause of the regression that has afflicted them while Islam remains
unchanged, indistinguishable from the state it was when it unleashed the engines
of development in Muslim life?
The reason lies in the absence of the “spirit”
-the spirit of the Islamic religion- from civilization -the Islamic
civilization-, and the rift that occurred between Islam and the civilization of
Muslims. This is the spirit that made civilization Islamic, that actually gave
birth to it and conferred on it its Islamic character.
Al Hassan A1 Basri (21-110 a.h./642-728 a.d.) sat
in the presence of a preacher but his heart was not touched by the preacher's
words. A1 Hassan asked the preacher: “My brother is there some sickness in your
heart or is it in mine?” This break in symbiosis is reflective of an absence of
spirituality, and that is the cause of the civilizational malaise and the
impasse for which all reform schools are trying to find a remedy.
What is then this spirit that made Islam, unlike
all other religions, create a civilization and a culture and not content itself
with religion?
Where lies the flaw that has paralyzed Islamic
action in civilization and culture, causing this civilization to regress and the
Islamic culture to shrink while Islam remained as it was and faith and
attachment thereto remained as strong?
Sheik Mohammed Al Fadel bin Achur(1) addressed
this issue when he spoke about the following:
1- Islam was marked by the creation of a
civilization and the edification of a culture. While Islam, as a religion,
shares with other religions many of the features that are common to religions in
general, this religion has certain aspects that are particular to it. It has
elements of interaction with other civilizations and cultures that other
religions did not have. This civilization known as the Islamic civilization, and
this culture we label as Islamic are the manifestation of a sequence of events,
situations, social styles and mindsets of which the starting point and raison
d'ętre was Islam. Islam did not stop at co-existence with science. Instead,
every scientific subject became imbued by and linked to the Islamic faith. The
relationship between religion and intellectual learning, or between natural
science and what lies beyond it became one of interaction and fusion. This
served as a starting point for life and a way of life where the religious factor
was brought into play in all matters and acted as one of its channels. The
religious motive became manifest in everything made by the scientist, written by
the author, and fashioned by the artist. Knowledge became the backbone on which
relied the scholastic theologian, the scholar and the Sufi, in the same way that
the components of knowledge became correlated. The books of Islamic faith were
compendiums where natural, mathematical and human sciences coexisted with
religious facts, where science mingled with religion, and where reason blended
with tradition. The Islamic society was given shape to under the influence of a
religious call. It was a particularly religious society where faith played the
leading and most direct part. Through the call to religion and through faith,
the people who had responded to this call and embraced this faith, acquired new
psychological qualities. These qualities did not benefit them in terms of
sciences, industry or material power, but instead gave them the tools that
allowed them to wield science, industry and material power. Religious
achievements were what paved the way for Muslims to ponder and draw lessons, to
acquire knowledge, and to have faith.
Belief in the divine truth is the cornerstone of
all the sensorial and moral edifices erected by the Islamic civilization. The
individual belonging to this civilization benefited from religion in shaping his
thought processes, in becoming civilized, and in producing the artifacts of this
civilization, and thanks to religion, he edified the state that was to preserve
society and civilization. For him, the components of civilization continued to
be linked to religion, and the element of religion continued to be an effective
component of this civilization”.
2- This explains how the Islamic civilization and
culture achieved distinction by their balance and harmony. This harmony was a
reflection of Man's own distinction in achieving the complementarity, symbiosis
and balance of the sources of human knowledge. “The facts pertaining to the
matter and to what lies beyond the matter were within reach of the human being.
He was able to grasp them through his diverse and multi-leveled senses which
rely on each other, free of any dissonance or discord. Behind the instinctive
senses stand sensorial capacities, and behind the sensorial ones lie mental or
intellectual capacities. The mental or intellectual faculties provide the
prelude to the premises that pave the way for understanding, believing in and
adhering to the extra-sensorial matters that occur through revelation. All these
capacities complement and bolster each other. None of these senses would
perceive something that would be a contradiction of that which is perceived
through another sense. However, if the two senses fail to grasp a given matter,
another process may come into play until the mind grasps and accepts the matters
that come through the extraordinary perceptual channel that is revelation. Man's
mind, faith, material sense and instinctive emotions are all intertwined and
supportive of each other. None of these elements fears the others, and none bars
the way before the other.
The Islamic civilization was the masterpiece of a
human being who had reached internal harmony and serenity. As such, he created a
civilization on which he conferred the same attributes as those he had
acquired, and bestowed on it from that which Allah bestowed on him, till it
surpassed all other civilizations in harmony...”
3- What happened then that caused the Islamic
civilization to regress and its culture to flounder while Islam, the religious
message that had fashioned them and stood behind their prosperity for centuries
during which they were the centre of radiance for the whole world, remained true
to its essence?
“The cherished part that was afflicted was not
Islam but the Islamic civilization and the Islamic culture. These two began to
look towards Islam and to pine and pray for their own recovery through this
religion. Each and everyone knew that what had afflicted the Islamic society in
its culture and civilization was but the result of deviation from the source, a
reversal of conditions, and straying from the original educational element that
came with the primary message and that regulated all matters. Civilization and
culture were affected by something that isolated them from the true inspiration
of Islam and stood in the way of their reliance on this religion, thus causing a
slant in their backbone and unsteadiness in their foundations...”
The flaw did not occur in Islam, but was the
result of the fact that Islam ceased to be the spirit of civilization, that the
constructive impact of the religious will power shrank, and from the rift that
occurred between what is civilization and what is religion, and the fact that
religion became estranged from life. “In the divorce between matter and religion
lie the causes that led to the weakness and floundering of civilization.”
What afflicted religious faith and brought about
the degeneration of civilization is that the latter slackened its resistance to
being stripped of the spirit of religion. Civilization thus became enfeebled,
stagnant and unable to progress. Such a state was the result of the weakness
that befell faith in its essence. The constructive religious will power had
waned and weakened. The social state and the manifestations of civilization
became motivated and triggered by factors other than the original ones and moved
in opposite directions from religious faith. The Muslim remained true to and
protective of his religion on the one hand, but also contented and serene in his
daily life. This reached such extent that theory and practice became so
disparate and the Muslim entrenched the concept of separating religion and life,
secure in the assumption that religion is an abstract goodness and that worldly
life is an unavoidable evil. He carries in his heart a religion that barely
affects this life, and lives in a world where everything he experiences draws
him away from religion.
Then the onslaught of foreign civilizations on
this life started. These civilizations brought science, industry, power and
wisdom but nowhere in his religious will power did he find anything to help him
tackle these civilizations as he did with the previous ones to which he was
exposed when his religious will power and convictions were strong and sound. He
stood motionless before such onslaughts and considered them images of the life
he was confident had nothing to do with religion...”
This is the flaw as Ibn Khaldun (732-808 a.h./1332-1406
a.d.) diagnosed and analyzed it. “With great accuracy, Ibn Khaldun analyzed the
problem by associating matters of policy, architecture, industry and sciences in
the Islamic state with religion. He concluded that the first truth of Islam,
namely individual faith, lies at the heart of everything. He began studying
issues such as state corruption, the sluggishness of building activities -in the
later historical eras of Islam-, the deterioration of crafts, the loss of
learning abilities and the disruption of educational and teaching methods in
Islamic countries at his time. He attributed them all to the corruption of the
first truth of religion, namely faith which is the foundation of any edification
and the backbone of any state founded on religion. He referred all this to the
religious molding of the individual, which education is linked on the one hand
to the religion of Islam, and from there impacts on everything that flows from
this faith in the form of architectural, industrial and intellectual
manifestations.”
“While people are contented with diagnosing the
flaws that appear in the life and civilization of the Islamic society, as
evident in the governing systems, state representations and the prevailing
immorality and deterioration of social ties, Ibn Khaldun finds causes for these
flaws and attributes them to other flaws that preceded them.”
“Ibn Khaldun referred the Islamic civilization to
its origin and foundation, or more aptly, to its spirit, namely that of
religious faith.”
4- If such is the problem, what is then its size
and how far back does it stretch?
The size of the problem is far from small and its
history is all but recent. “While we do not deny that the Islamic civilization
has regressed, weakened and become corrupt, and that culture has wilted and
shrunk and is on the verge of total destruction, such a state does not date back
to yesterday or the day before. However, the ailments have worsened over the
latter eras until they became terminal and extremely hard to cure. They continue
to spread and worsen and the pains and risks associated with them have
intensified till we reached a state about which all voices in the current
century are loudly complaining...”
5- Lastly, and after defining the spirit of
Islamic civilization and diagnosing the flaws that have affected our
civilization and culture, what is the true solution and the way out of the
impasse that is stifling the Ummah?
The solution is a return to the spirit that
created the flourishing and prosperous civilization and the radiant culture.
This is a return to the religious spirit in order to give rise to an outstanding
and independent civilizational renaissance. What is the true meaning of the
saying: nothing will reform the end of this Ummah but that which reformed its
beginning. “If it were not for the individual Mekkan-time molding and the social
civic shaping, the civilization that is visible in the capitals of Islam today
would not have existed. If people still hold in great reverence the golden ages
that flourished in these capitals and are burning with desire to revive them and
relive them, they have no alternative but to go back to the original factor
behind the birth of those golden ages and without which the prosperity and
flourish of those ages would be impossible to revive. That is the Islamic
educational factor which molded the individual before he became part of a
society, and which paved the way for culture before tackling the elements of
knowledge that made up its edifice.”
But if we limit ourselves to the independence of a
flag and a national anthem, without achieving the civilizational independence
which is the fruit of the distinguished Islamic cachet, we will never leave the
impasse where we are currently stranded. “The Islamic world has freed itself
from the rule of the others and regained its sovereignty. However, is it capable
of recovering its civilization, of carrying the burdens and tasks inherent to
this civilization, and of presenting a new face of culture and civilization to
the world, a face which carries the imprint of the Islamic personality, that is
born from the beliefs that served in the past in shaping the image that history
recorded of the culture and civilization of Islam?”
The renaissance of Japan is not Buddhist, that of
China is not Confucianist, nor is the Greek renaissance Byzantine or related to
Plato or Aristotle. In fact, it is not even Greek for that matter.
Will the fate of Islam be restrained to this? Or
will an Islamic civilization and an intrinsically Islamic culture see the light
from the common destiny that brings together the independent and emerging
countries of the Islamic world? “It is the spirit of civilization that is the
core of the problem.”(2)
These are some of the issues, ideas and axes of
the dilemma that exhausted and continues to exhaust reformers, namely the spirit
of Islamic civilization that created and marked civilization and culture in the
eras of emergence and prosperity, and the flaws that have caused this
civilization to regress and that culture to flounder.
In that spirit also lie the solution and the way
out of the civilizational impasse where the Ummah of Islam finds itself today.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(*) Member of the Supreme Council of Islamic
Affairs, and member of the Al Azhar Al Sharif Islamic Research Academy, Cairo.
(1) Bin Achur, Sheikh Mohammed Al Fadel, “The
Spirit of the Islamic Civilization”, published under the supervision of Dr.
Mohammed Imara by Dar Nahdat Misr, Silsilat al-Tanweer al-Islami, Cairo.
(2) Ibid.
|
