{"id":20720,"date":"2014-01-28T00:42:54","date_gmt":"2014-01-28T00:42:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/new-wp\/?p=20720"},"modified":"2014-01-28T00:42:54","modified_gmt":"2014-01-28T00:42:54","slug":"on-a-wasted-empty-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/on-a-wasted-empty-life\/","title":{"rendered":"On a Wasted, Empty Life"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Prophet Muhammad once said, \u201cA person is not written as one of those who submit to God\u2019s will and obey His law (<\/span>or muslims<\/em>) until people are safe from [the evil of] his hand and tongue. A person will not obtain the rank of those who have faith in God (or\u00a0<\/span>mu\u2019mins<\/em>) until his neighbours are safe from his mischief.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Islam is based upon the advancement of well-being or \u201csalam\u201d.<\/p>\n

Indeed, the specific term \u201csalam\u201d occurs more than forty times in the Qur\u2019an and has become the standard form of Muslim greeting\u2014or\u00a0assalamu\u2018alaykum<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cSalam\u201d precisely means inner peace, tranquillity, dignity, and fulfilment.<\/p>\n

More than just \u201cpeace\u201d at the narrow personal level as commonly understood, \u201csalam\u201d comprises both external and internal security from all that is evil, both physical and spiritual evil. It is also comprehensive of individual and social security, as set forth in the above mentioned Prophetic Tradition.<\/p>\n

\u201cSalam\u201d means spiritual progress and real freedom \u2014 freedom from all moral conflict and anxiety, by means of acquiring true knowledge and beneficial sciences, doing truly good works, and being sincerely kind towards all living beings.<\/p>\n

\u201cSalam\u201d means peace with God, with one\u2019s natural environment, and within oneself.<\/p>\n

The enemy of such peace are secular ideologies, which believe that material \u201cprogress\u201d is the only thing that is important.<\/p>\n

The worldview of secularism promotes an obsessive striving exclusively for more and more comforts, more and more material goods and products, greater power over fellow-human beings, greater power over nature, and non-stop technological progress.<\/p>\n

Allah warns mankind that \u201cYou are obsessed by greed for more and more until you go down to your graves.\u201d (the Qur\u2019an,\u00a0surat al-Takathur<\/em>, 102:1-2).<\/p>\n

Revealed in early Meccan period of the Prophet\u2019s career, this surah is considered by modern commentators as one of the most powerful, prescient passages of the Qur\u2019an. According to Leopold Weiss a.k.a. Muhammad Asad, it explains \u201cman\u2019s unbounded greed in general, and, more particularly, the tendencies which have come to dominate all human societies in our technological age.\u201d<\/p>\n

Charles Van Doren, in his work\u00a0The Idea of\u00a0<\/em>Progress, points out that during the last five centuries, \u201cprogress\u201d has been the leading idea in the West. According to John Baillie, Carl Becker, and many other scholars, the faith of the West is then devoted to the idea of \u201cProgress\u201d, which becomes the heir of the passion that another age dedicated to Christianity as the forerunner leading idea. Most particularly, according to Baillie and Becker, the modern idea of \u201cProgress\u201d is the concrete secularisation of the Christian idea and virtue of \u201cHope to the fulfilment of Divine Promise\u201d; the conceptual idea of \u201cProgress\u201d now sets forth the highest \u201chope\u201d of the human race.<\/p>\n

In The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State, Friedrich Engels has this to say: \u201cFrom its first day to this, sheer greed was the driving spirit of civilization; wealth and again wealth and once more wealth, wealth, not of society, but of the single scurvy individual\u2014here was its one and final aim.\u201d<\/p>\n

A passionate pursuit for more and more comforts, more and more wealth, for greater power over fellow-human beings and conquest of nature, and non-stop technological amelioration\u2014to the exclusion of everything else\u2014bars man from all spiritual insight.<\/p>\n

Indeed, megalomania leaves neither time nor opportunity for man to pursue the serious issues of the higher life. It monopolises attention; it thwarts man from the acceptance of any moral restrictions and inhibitions of his so-called \u201cfreedom\u201d and \u201cacquisitiveness\u201d.<\/p>\n

That is why secularisation distrusts any religious statement, and refuses to submit to any absolute moral imperatives. To achieve more and more material success and power, such a mindset rejects all religious considerations and standards of morality.<\/p>\n

On the contrary, religion and ethics are considered obstacles in the path of unlimited \u201cdevelopment\u201d and \u201cprogress\u201d. Religion is deemed the opium of the people.<\/p>\n

The unlimited freedom and unprincipled development enable secularised societies to achieve outward comforts and positions of strength in the shortest possible time; their example and rivalry in such progress is depicted as the model of development. They focus solely on economic growth or Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to the neglect of GWB (General Well Being). But unless they return to the straight path, such societies are gradually losing all spiritual stability and all chance of happiness.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, unlimited freedom and non-sustainable development also damages global natural ecology. It corrupts international economics, politics, and culture.<\/p>\n

Because the present-day dominant culture is utterly materialistic, it is also self-destructive and suicidal. It threatens mankind with previously unimaginable ecological disasters.<\/p>\n

For example, there are a cross-boundary pollution of land, air and water through industrial and urban waste; a progressive poisoning of plant and marine life; genetic malformations in men\u2019s own bodies through an ever-widening use of drugs and chemicals; over-fishing of the oceans; and the gradual extinction of many species of flora and fauna essential to human well-being.<\/p>\n

To all this may be added the rapid deterioration of man\u2019s social and family life, the all-round increase in sexual perversion or LGBT, state terrorism, criminal violence, and war. All of this is an outcome of man\u2019s oblivion of God and of all absolute moral values.<\/p>\n

To quote Muhammad Asad: an out-and-out secularised and materialistic progress and mode of life will bring \u201cthe hell on earth\u201d.<\/p>\n

As opposed to secular model of development, all religious traditions demand that social life must be subordinated to definite ethical principles and restraints.<\/p>\n

Religious ethics is very much like a brake to check on man\u2019s selfishness and power-hunger. As such, it is these moral considerations and religious restraints that can free a community from self-destructions. It is these ethical considerations and spiritual restraints that can bring about sustainability and a more enduring socio-economic development.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Prophet Muhammad once said, \u201cA person is not written as one of those who submit to God\u2019s will and obey His law (or muslims) until people are safe from [the evil of] his hand and tongue. A person will not obtain the rank of those who have faith in God (or\u00a0mu\u2019mins) until his neighbours…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_analytify_skip_tracking":false,"_wpzoom_pinterest_image_url":"","_wpzoom_pinterest_hidden_image":"0","_wpzoom_pinterest_description":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[220],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-star","category-220","description-off"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20720\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}