“What is justice? Giving water to trees. What is injustice? To give water to thorns. Justice is (consists in) bestowing a bounty in its proper place, not on every root that will absorb water. What is injustice? To bestow (it) in an improper place that can only be a source of calamity. Bestow the bounty of God on the spirit and reason, not on the (carnal) nature full of disease and complications.” – Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi (d. 1273)
The metaphor given by this great luminary can also be extended to the contemporary context in the following way: justice is giving due support, morally and financially, to those deeply rooted in knowledge and wisdom who aim to educate our spirit and reason; and injustice is giving support to those individuals and initiatives which perpetuates the bestial inclination of mankind – the root cause of our multifaceted challenges.
We are at the crossroads of history: either the Muslim world takes ownership of its civilizational trajectory, or we will allow myopic forces to continue to wreak havoc on the world, in addition to the myriad of forces who package for us a sentiment of the future we are to embrace – corporate interests or international bodies – influencing our policies, blueprints and development plans which neglects the more profound civilizational considerations such as the quality of our intellectual, spiritual, and cultural lives.
Furthermore, as the honourable custodian of the Muslim and Christian holy sites in occupied Jerusalem, His Majesty King Abdullah II of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan states in his last Op-Ed piece (28 April 2020 in Washington Post), “Many are optimistic we will simply rebuild after this pandemic. But rebuilding is not enough. We should focus instead on creating something new, something better.”
His Majesty King Abdullah II also mentioned in the same article that, “We need to reconfigure international institutions and build new ones where needed. We need to create and sustain new organizations that draw on the skills and resources of different sectors, across national boundaries… Threats do not come in silos, and the solutions cannot be in silos.”
In the West, it is worthwhile to observe that there are efforts that do not limit solutions to the grand challenges of our time only in the framework of UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, such as the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University, Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge, Future of Life Institute, Foundational Questions Institute, and others that look to develop long-term solutions to the grand challenges that is faced by human civilization.
The Muslim World must be mindful that millions of US dollars must have already been invested by certain parties to advance the outlook on life with an agenda of civilization that marginalizes or neglects the question of Divine order that pervades reality or the affirmation of spiritual realities in their considerations. Such entities assume their own point of view (albeit a reductionist one) in terms of reality of the universe (cosmology), of human nature (psychology), of knowledge (epistemology), and of existence (ontology) – which the Muslims have their own substantial understanding of.
The worrying thing is that, to this writer’s knowledge, no Muslim-majority countries have invested and concentrated energy on this long-term scenario. Will the Muslim world simply follow the desires and ways of thinking of Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Klaus Schwab or Yuval Harari when given the opportunity due to their wealth and influence in the world?
As Dr. Ingrid Mattson mentioned in her talk at the Hikma Forum 2020 event on 27 December 2020: “We can’t be naïve; there are economic and political bodies that have great influence and enforcing development models that are contrary to this [more holistic] approach [of the Muslims].”
Against this backdrop, Malaysia and the Muslim world is in dire need of an overarching direction, framework and vision to propel the Muslims to new heights and a new civilizational reality amidst the global disruption caused by the pandemic.
Failure to do so will continue to see the trend of uncritical imitation of the perspectives of Western civilisation and narrow outlook in framing our future, instead of the more discerning, farsighted, and universal outlook approach in charting our civilizational future – something that Professor Dr Syed Muhammad Naquib Al-Attas has called for since the 1970s.
It is encouraging indeed, to see His Majesty Sultan Nazrin Shah of Malaysia articulating a philosophy of economy and development more rooted in our worldview and civilization in his past speeches at the Khazanah Megatrends Forum, an approach which remains absent in the formulation of many of the Muslim world’s blueprints and development plans.
Thus, this is an opportune time for Muslim rulers, leaders, and scholars to jump on the bandwagon which seeks to move away from a fragmented and piecemeal approach in solving the grand challenges of our time towards a more integrated, systemic solutions informed by the Muslims’ real understanding of psychology, cosmology, and ontology.
The rulers and leaders of the Muslim world may want to consider establishing a special council for the future of Muslims led by individuals of foresight, intelligence and integrity like His Majesty King Abdullah II of Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, and a select group of thinkers young and old, which would strengthen the voices of the Muslim collective globally on the stance of the Muslim world to the question of civilizational trajectory, systemic solutions, and collective future.
With the establishment of such a council or platform, the Muslim monarchs, scholars, thinkers and leaders would be in a better position to make more informed opinions and judgements on long-term civilizational matters which certain forces are taking onto their own hands, influenced by either personal, political, or business interests.