Man Must Know Who He Is
MAN must understand properly and fully his own nature, his mission and ultimately his responsibility in this world, in order to continue to progress.
This is the basic understanding man must have for the betterment of his life and for the good of the entire society.
In the Quran, Allah says: “He began the creation of man with (nothing more than) clay, and made his progeny from a quintessence of the nature of a fluid despised: But He fashioned him in due proportion, and breathed into him something of His spirit. And He gave you (the faculties of) hearing and sight and feeling (and understanding): Little thanks do ye give.” (As-Sajdah 7-9).
In these verses Allah insisted that man contemplate his own humble beginning. Man’s material body (apart from life) is a piece of earth or clay, which is another term for primeval matter.
Matter is, therefore, the first stage. But even matter was not self-created. It was created by Allah.
The verses also explain human life and the reproduction of life. Human reproduction is through the sperm or semen, which is the quintessence of every part of the body of man.
After fertilisation of an ovum by the sperm, an individual life comes into existence and it is gradually fashioned into shape, its limbs are formed, its animal life begins to function, all the beautiful adaptations come into play and, finally, a distinctive man, into whom God’s spirit is breathed comes into being.
This allows man to rise higher than animals.
In verses 7-10 of Surah Shams, Allahsays: “By the soul and the proportion and order given to it, and its enlightment as to its wrong and its right; truly he succeeds that purifies it. And he fails that corrupts it.”
These verses explain that Allah makes the soul, and gives it order, proportion, and relative
perfection in order to adapt it for the particular circumstances in which it has to live its life.
He breathes into it an understanding of what is sin, impiety, wrong-doing and what is piety and right conduct, in the special circumstances in which it may be placed.
This is indeed the most precious gift of all to man by Allah.
Through this gift of Allah, man should learn that his success, his prosperity and his salvation depend on himself–on his keeping his soul pure as God made it; and his failure, his decline, his perdition depend on his soiling his soul by choosing evil.
This special nature of human creations goes with its mission and responsibilities–Allah tells the angels that He wants to create His representative on earth.
Allah says: “Behold, thy Lord said to the angels: I will create a vicegerent on earth.” (Quran 2:30).
At that moment, man’s mission began–the mission to be God’s representative.
Strangely enough, when Allah called on all the creatures and said: “I have something to present to all of you–the earth, sky, mountains, seas and animals–to hold as a trust” (Quran 33:72), everyone refused to accept his offer except man.
So it became evident that man was endowed with a higher quality. He accepted the role of being Allah’s trustee whereby he would care for what the Almighty presented to the whole world.
It is only man who can resist his wished and physiological needs, who can pursue the good or bad way, who can follow or disobey his wisdom and who can descend into mud or ascend towards God.
This mission of man entrusted by Allah is with full responsibility to initiate his own betterment and to contribute and play a positive role towards developing a stable and progressive society.
This initiative has to be taken by the individual man and by working together with the other members of the society.
This, in trun, makes him responsible for his fate and future–as an individual and member of society.
Allah says: “The fate of the old civilisation is what they themselves gained; your fate depends on what you gain.” (Quran 2:141).
The modern man has to understand his own nature and responsibility so that he will continuously have a sense of mission with full responsibility to undertake all positive steps in the spectrum of his life.
This responsibility, from the Islamic point of view, is the religious responsibility which will be accountable to Allah in the hereafter.
This Islamic way of looking at man in this life is relevant and dynamic. It motivates man to be more contributive and not to be a parasite of the society.
Along this line of thought, Islam explains very lucidly the nature and position of man in this world.
This Islamic view of man is opposed to the secular homoeconomicus (economic man) view which is not true and which creates problems for man to lead his individual and collective life.
By adopting this secular view, man is only considered a material being and his spiritual requirement is insignificant.
This contributes to man being very materialistic and arrogant. His life is always seen in the realm of his material need and development.
Surprisingly, this philosophy of looking at human nature cannot sustain man’s ability to progress economically in the long-run.
Failure to follow the spiritual content of human nature will only lead to man propagating the philosophy of individualism in organising human society.
