THE predicament of the present civilisation is not a surprise for men who are critical and who believe in the existence of Divine Guidance. Indeed, to the believers there is no alternative but to subscribe to the divine formulation of social order.
Allah, through Islam, has provided guidelines for the formulation of man’s social order. These guidelines are never obsolete despite the change in time and space.
Unfortunately, humanity including Muslims, has been led astray from the path of Islam. The process of de-Islamisation through secularisation and the traditional approach of religious education have succeeded in taking the Muslims’ understanding away from the comprehensive and dynamic Islam.
Muslims nowadays are preoccupied with simplistic worldviews of Islam and have failed to relate to and elaborate on how the Islamic approach is comprehensive and relevant to the current world.
Muslims are pre-occupied in explaining what Islam is and the practices of the earlier Muslim communities.
These shortcomings are basically due to the absence of a comprehensive understanding of the Quranic and Hadith sciences among Muslim intellectuals and scholars. The Quranic and Hadith sciences touch on all aspects of knowledge.
In fact, in order to understand these sciences, one should be equipped with political, sociological, economical and scientific perspectives besides mastering the Arabic language and historical background of the Quranic revelations.
It is thus the task of serious and critical-minded Muslims to provide views on how Islam can offer on a theoretical plain, and ultimately in reality, the Islamic approach to man’s social order in the current complicated world situation.
The main subject that is deliberated on in the Quran is man and how man can achieve happiness. It records the stages through which he passes in his lifetime.
Islam holds man to be innocent, created in the best of forms, higher than the angels, and commissioned with a task of cosmic significance, namely to do Allah’s will on earth. From the Islamic viewpoint, all other creations are made subservient to man.
The sun, stars, moon, earth, clouds, air, plants and all the elements, are created for man for this purpose.
Man is capable of free action to utilise all resources that may help him achieve individual and collective perfection.
Towards this end, man has to utilise them properly and effectively to change the course of events and transform creation according to the pattern Allah has commanded and revealed.
This is the divine truth ( amanah ) entrusted upon man as vicegerent ( khalifah ) of Allah on earth.
Man’s special position on earth corresponds with the power of intelligence granted to him to reason and analyse.
Moreover, he received guidance from Allah through prophetic missions that showed him the right path.
Thus man is only Allah’s vicegerent on earth in as much as he is, at the same time, the slave of Allah ( al-‘abd ).
He rules over the earth not in his own right, rather as Allah’s vicegerent above all creatures.
He, therefore, bears responsibility for the created order before the Creator and is the channel of grace for Allah’s creatures.
Islam’s unitary view of life as an interconnected and homogenous whole clearly contradicts the secular view which sees life as an intricate mechanism of distinct fragments.
The Islamic worldview demands that man cultivate the moral and spiritual strengths given to him.
The spiritualisation of man aims to realise a development of character that is purposeful, courageous, just and benevolent.
The success of such a mission will require the creation of an environment in which Islam can be implemented in its totality.
Islam does not merely offer theoretical and moral guidelines according to which the system is to be established but also an adequate methodology for implementing those guidelines.
The Prophet put great emphasis on the moral education of human beings.The Islamic social system insists on the legitimacy of the means as well as the end.
Its foundation of distinctive ethical consideration can only have meaning within the overall framework of an Islamic social order.
The morality which is necessary in Islam presupposes freedom, the ability to choose, select, accept and reject.
Islam believes that where there is no freedom, there can be no morality.
Freedom for individuals is a condition required to do good.
Thus, the freedom of individuals to choose their representative government and to carry out their economic activities in the free market system has to be synthesised with ethical and moral guidelines. Failure to do so can lead to serious political disequilibrium and economic disparity.Devoid of moral practices, man can be very materialistic and individualistic.
When the acquisitive instincts become dominant in a man his whole energy will be directed to one end, that is the attainment of material comforts. His mind is preoccupied with economic power.
Day in and day out he is busy accumulating riches. To him morality is only an empty word having no use in practical life.
Renewed interest in the Islamic paradigm provides a great opportunity at the present time for serious and critical minds to sincerely ponder and, ultimately, change their secular modes of thought for the good of humanity.
Man cannot survive properly without a relationship with Allah, the Creator.
The rupturing of that relationship results in disaster for man. Past civilisation has proven and contemporary human would likewise testify to this truth.
Thus, the Islamic social order is a must for mankind. In order to realise this objective it is a paramount responsibility for all Muslim scholars to highlight Islam in the right perspective.