Faith beyond Political Correctness: Islam’s Commitment to Humanity

[Guest guest]

Faith beyond Political Correctness:

Islam's Commitment to Humanity

 

 

By Dr. S Parvez Manzoor , 04/08/2003

 

The ultimate vision of Islam is transcendent: it is a moral

doctrine, not a secular ideology. Islam takes the measure of the

human condition from the perspective of the eternal and fosters a

faith whose truth stretches beyond the realm of existence and time.

Only through a commitment to the ultimate transcendence does the

human world, the world of history and politics, acquire whatever

meaning that it seeks. For the human world can have no claim to

being sui generic (being an example of its type), whether

existentially or morally. Man's existence is a gift, and his/her

morality a commitment. Morality is an obligation, a contractual

agreement that has been freely negotiated by Man himself and not a

burden arbitrarily imposed upon him. Existence and morality are

therefore indissoluble in the Islamic perspective. Just as we cannot

will ourselves into existence, we cannot annul the moral contract

either. We may, of course, if we are foolish or haughty, disregard

the stipulations of our agreement, but dissolve it, we cannot. The

is of the Islamic condition, accordingly, is never bereft of the

ought of the transcendence. The world of politics and history,

whatever their legitimacy and import, can never be the be-all and

end-all of the Islamic commitment.

 

Unfortunately, this sterling truth of our faith, the rationale

behind Islam's trans-political stake in the politics of humanity,

is being eclipsed by the spread of a modern form of nihilism, both

indigenous and foreign, that accepts no calling higher than the self-

realization of the political will. According to its secular gospel,

there are no transcendent values: whatever cannot be measured by the

yardstick of politics has no validity, whatever cannot be poured

into the sacramental chalice of politics has no healing power. The

ultimate gift of this secular consciousness is the loss of the

transcendental vision. Either it afflicts us as a home-grown

messianic politics that is totally bereft of political reason or it

terrorizes us as the scourge of a ruthless Empire that only lives by

the logic of force. Gone not only is the erstwhile morality of faith

that never submitted to the amoral claims of state-sovereignty, but

also the hope of the enlightened for a unified humanity and eternal

peace. Because of the clash of the two secular fundamentalisms, an

indigenous one that abjures the promise of the here-after for the

rewards of the here-now and a foreign one that sees its own project

as the End, the measure of our humanity is again the grisly logic of

Realpolitik and its unedifying elevation of the law of the jungle.

Ours is the Hobesian nightmare of might triumphing over right.

 

Given the situation, when any commitment to staying within the

ideational ambit of Islam, simply cherishing it as personal faith,

has become a matter of considerable personal liability, it is

imperative that Muslim introspection and self-criticism refocuses on

the primordial covenant between Man and God, the raison d'être of

the humanity's mission in history and the fount of Islamic

humanism.

 

Though this reclaiming of our spiritual moorings may not convince

our extremists to renounce their parochial vision, nor may it cure

the powers-that-be of their hubris, but it may at least save us from

the misery of impotent rage, self-pity and breast-beating; it may

even persuade some of us to desist from the acts of senseless

violence and self-immolation. We may also realize that it is not our

faith that bears the responsibility for the spiritual callousness

and moral depravity of our times. For, cracking under the onslaught

of ungodly forces and confounded by the demons of nihilism, we

ourselves seem to be renouncing our primordial commitment to

humanity for a defeatist and suicidal politics of immediate return.

To speak of Man in the Islamic vein is not only to confront the

sanctimony of the secular will-to-power; it is also to realize the

poverty of modernity's image of man. For as soon as we envision

man in transcendental terms, we become conscious of the enormous

ideational gulf that separates traditional discourses from the

modern ones. For man, from the vantage point of any philosophical or

theological discourse, is a given, a precept rather than a concept;

it is through man that the world - cosmos, physis, nature - acquires

its meaning and form. The very raison d'être of modern science,

and the incontestable premise of its epistemology, on the other

hand, is the rejection of all anthropocentric visions and

principles. Needless to say that the Islamic perspective on politics

and culture, emanate as it does from the Islamic image of Man, is

irredeemably anthropocentric (based on human values and experience).

 

Islam's anthropological vision devolves from its belief about

`the ultimate scheme of things', about the totality of being

of which God, Allah in the language of the Qur'anic revelation, is

the creator. The `ultimate' in the Islamic worldview, thus, is

trans-cosmological; it stretches beyond the world of men and stars

(Al-Qur'an: 2:255). It also follows that the pre-eminence of the

political and the claim of its sovereignty, which is taken for

granted by every modern discourse, is found problematic when

examined from the Islam's trans-historical vantage-point.

 

Any discussion of Islamic humanism presupposes that we reach back to

the original message of the revelation, for the true image of homo

islamicus has become obscured as much by the heartless positivism of

modernity--as by the mindless literalism of the Islamic tradition

itself. We must start by reiterating the centrality of transcendence

in the Islamic scheme of things. Islam without a commitment to the

Ultimate beyond, affirmed in the testimony of faith as the Unique

God (Allah), would not be Islam at all. Thus, for all the sanctity

and existential necessity of the historical Muslim community, Islam

is not coterminous with it. Nor is the historical community, indeed

the world of history itself, the ultimate locus of the Muslim's

loyalty. There's no equivalent to the secular maxim, `My

country right or wrong', in Islamic ethics. The Muslim's

loyalty to any historical order, perforce political, is always

conditional: it is always deferential to the obligation

of `enjoining the right and forbidding the wrong' (3:103).

 

The very notion of faith, Islam (Surrender to God) presupposes a

trans-historical and transcendent disposition of man (fitra)

(30:30). Humanity and not nation or state is thus essential to the

Islamic vision. Whatever politics that emanates from the historical

existence of the Muslim community may therefore never renounce the

goal of human unity; it may never become an end in itself and fall

prey to the logic of self-deification that is the essence of secular

ideologies. Conscience (Din) and not Empire (Dawla) constitutes the

Muslim's primary pathway to humanity. It is in the delineation of

this ideal that the Qur'an categorically affirms the `unity

in diversity' of the human creature, and upholds the supremacy of

the moral over all other emblems of distinction or pride:

 

O mankind, We have created you male and female, and appointed you

races and tribes, that you may know one another. Surely, the noblest

among you in the sight of God is the most godfearing of you..'

(49:13)

 

As befits the transcendental worldview of the Qur'an, the

addressee of its discourse is a universal, archetypical and trans-

historical human being. Even the covenant that God has with man is

primordial and is contracted prior to the advent of the historical

time. Man enters his/her historical existence only after submitting

to the sovereignty of God:

 

And when thy Lord took from the Children of Adam, from their loins,

their seed, and made them testify touching themselves, `Am I not

your Lord?' They said: `yes, we testify…' (7:172).

 

The Qur'anic image of man, it must be underlined, is

transcendental without being anti-historical. Like every other being

and non-being, man is a creation of God. Yet, his status is special

on two accounts: ontologically, because he has been infused with

God's spirit (15:29; 38:72: 32:9), and morally, because he is

God's Deputy and the custodian of his creation on earth (2:30ff;

7:11ff; 20:116ff). It is through the story of the birth of Adam that

Qur'an alludes to, what may be regarded from our human point of

view, as the most significant act of creation. Adam, from the

Qur'anic account, may be envisaged in both transcendental and

immanentist terms; both as the primordial, eternal man and as the

individual, historical human being. The `transcendence' of

Adam, which is reflected in his intelligence (`aql) and which

endows him with rational faculty and moral judgment, must therefore

be seen in conjunction with his `immanence', his mission in

history. For Adam has on his own accord accepted the challenge of

creating a just moral order on earth, an enterprise described by the

Qur'an as `Trust' (Amana). (33:72)

 

Man acts thus as the intermediary between nature and morality,

between a blissful, albeit non-reflexive and amoral, existence and a

voluntary assent to the demands of a higher calling. For the Muslim

mind, further, the immensity of space and matter is a symbol of the

Transcendent reality: all this plenitude of being and immanence

points beyond itself. Significantly, then, it is the soul

(Intellect) of man which, as a repository of Divine signs, mediates

between the natural world and the transcendent truth beyond, and

assures man of his ultimate felicity:

 

We shall show them our signs in the horizons and in their souls,

till it becomes clear to them that it is the truth. (41:53)

 

One must not confound this transcendental perspective with the

biological one of modern science and construe Adam as an emblem of

Homo sapiens (in the manner of Lucy!), or reduce man's being to

atoms and genes. Of course, it is licit to speak of man in concrete

biological terms, as the Qur'an itself employs biological images

and metaphors (23:12-14; cf. also 32:8), but it is only within

the `grand paradigm' of transcendence that the

quintessentially spiritual and moral nature of Adam's mission can

be contemplated, and perhaps apprehended.

 

Adam, the first man, who stands for all humanity has also been

recognized in Islam as the first prophet, a fact which is construed

that mankind throughout its earthly sojourn has never been without

divine guidance. Significantly, when the Qur'an speaks of

historical men and women, especially former prophets, it does so

without the least regard to chronology and does not make any

distinction between former prophets. The unity and identity of

divine guidance, available to all prophets and preached by all of

them, renders all historical, ethnic and geographical distinctions

superfluous. Here again we encounter a transcendent vision that is

inimical to the politically sectarian views of humanity as

`sovereign states'. It demolishes all the idols of ethnic

pride, cultural hierarchy and religious exclusiveness.

 

Most significantly, the Qur'anic designation of Adam as the

Representative or Vicegerent (Khalifa) of God is pre-eminently moral

in scope and purpose. It presents a conceptual scheme that mediates

between transcendence and immanence, that bridges the gap between

the de facto and the de jure, the is and the ought, of the human

situation - without invoking the ontological language of

incarnation. Man is denied the attribute of `sovereignty' but

given all the freedom, royal power and `pontifical'

responsibility that are the privileges of the Viceroy. In moral

terms, it is tantamount to denying man the right to be `a norm

unto himself' and a source of his own values. The Qur'anic

view of Adam's khilafa is a supremely humanistic doctrine,

without the hubris and arrogance of errant humanism that according

to the critics of modernity is its bane and the source of its

nihilism.

 

Though there is no ontological relationship between God and Adam in

the manner of the Christian doctrine of Incarnation, the Qur'anic

Adam does appear to have some functional resemblance to Jesus in

being a bridge between transcendence and immanence; except that

Adam's role, as mentioned earlier, can only be conceived in moral

terms. (Cf.: 3:58). In Christian theology, Jesus is referred to as

the `Second Adam', redeeming mankind of the sin that the

first Adam had committed. Apparently, due to the absence of the

Original Sin in Islam, the first Adam retains the functions which in

Christianity are the preserve of the second. Little wonder, the

individual human being's relationship to Adam, not only the

biological fact of belonging to his progeny but also the moral

obligation devolving from Adam's covenant with God, his

assumption of the trust of moralizing nature, has become the emblem

of Islam's humanism.

 

Returning to our own times, we must not become too depressed by the

treason of our intellectuals! We do know that when, at the mock

tribunal of `civilization and human rights', the discourse of

Islamic raison d'état that is the pride of the guardians of the

sacred law (fiqh) is indicted for not possessing a moral vision

transcending the self-interests of a parochial political community

(the Ummah of in the eyes of our critics), all that we can do is to

recoil in horror at this unseemly spectacle of `victor's

justice'.

 

Very little in the way of an exposition of Islam's transcendent

– and ineluctably moral - vision is ever proffered by official

Islam. All that these beneficiaries of our historical order, whose

authority and power both have been crushed to naught by the

juggernaut of modernity, can conjure is a lame apology of the status

quo! Islam for them is nothing but a frozen moment in time, a

provincial culture rather than a universal faith. Any conscientious

believer may, however, notice that the legalistic discourse of the

tradition does not do justice to the moral vision of the Qur'an.

And neither does the parochial politics of `revivalism' which

lacks both the jurist's method of instrumental reasoning and his

concern for the common good (Maslaha)!

 

But, even more crucially, the Muslim has no reason to be impressed

by modernity's claims about the humanity of its order. Indeed,

for the Muslim, any vision of man, any semblance of a moral and

philosophical doctrine of humanism, remains specious so long as it

does not measure man against a reality that is greater than man

himself. It is here, in acknowledging man's subordination to a

moral law, infinitely more universal and legitimate than the ones

prevailing in our, perforce parochial, political constituencies,

that the incompatibility of Islamic khilafa and secular sovereignty

is fully revealed. Islamic conscience, a gift of theocentric faith,

is never hostage to the Muslim political order, or any political

order for that matter, in the manner of the secularist. For the

latter, the political order is the be-all and end-all of all

historical existence. In the final resort, the secular doctrine

of `state sovereignty' removes all distinction between

morality (universal, in the Kantian mode) and politics (parochial,

in the constrictive sense of political correctness!).

 

For all its sanctimony, modern civilization provides no evidence,

not even in theory, that it aspires to overarch the pernicious

divide of morality and politics, that it possesses a universal

vision which identifies the self-interest of its own political

community with the wellbeing of humanity. All that the theory and

practice of modern politics offers is a compelling vindication of

the creed of Realpolitik (which upholds that humanity has no claim

to any common good or universal morality). A modern pundit, for

instance, argues that `the challenge of the postmodern world is

to get used to the idea of double standards'. Among themselves,

the Europeans need `to operate on the basis of law and open

cooperative security.' But when dealing with the world outside

Europe, `we need to revert to the rougher methods of an earlier

era – force, preemptive attack, deception, whatever is

necessary.' (Robert Cooper, The Observer, April 7, 2002.)

 

To this the American strategic thinker, Robert Kagan, adds: `What

Cooper has described is not Europe future but America's

present…. The United States is already operating according to

Cooper's double standards..' (RobertKagan: Power and

Paradise. Atlantic Books, London, 2003. Pp 74-5.) Kagan's own

reading of the `long era of American hegemony', which we have

just entered also claims that `just as we Japanese attack on

Pearl Harbor, which led to an enduring American role in East Asia

and in Europe, so September 11, which future historians will no

doubt depict as the inevitable consequence of American involvement

in the Muslim world, will likely produce a lasting American presence

in the Persian Gulf and Central Asia, and perhaps a long-term

occupation of one of the Arab world's largest

countires.'(ibid. p.

96).

 

Despite the insufferable pain of this insight, our search for a

meaningful, moral existence must continue. It is the Muslim's

duty to delineate the Qur'anic vision of the Khilafa of Adam in

such a way that mankind's collective responsibility for the moral

ordering of the single human world becomes the paramount focus of

the socio-political discourse.

 

 

Dr. S Parvez Manzoor,

Faith beyond Political Correctness:Islam's Commitment to Humanity

 

http://www.islamonline.net/

[Guest guest]

shriadishakti , " jagbir singh "

<adishakti_org> wrote:

> Faith beyond Political Correctness:

> Islam's Commitment to Humanity

>

>

> Man acts thus as the intermediary between nature and morality,

> between a blissful, albeit non-reflexive and amoral, existence and

> a voluntary assent to the demands of a higher calling. For the

> Muslim mind, further, the immensity of space and matter is a

> symbol of the Transcendent reality: all this plenitude of being

> and immanence points beyond itself. Significantly, then, it is the

> soul (Intellect) of man which, as a repository of Divine signs,

> mediates between the natural world and the transcendent truth

> beyond, and assures man of his ultimate felicity:

>

> We shall show them our signs in the horizons and in their souls,

> till it becomes clear to them that it is the truth. (41:53)

>

> One must not confound this transcendental perspective with the

> biological one of modern science and construe Adam as an emblem of

> Homo sapiens (in the manner of Lucy!), or reduce man's being to

> atoms and genes. Of course, it is licit to speak of man in

> concrete biological terms, as the Qur'an itself employs biological

> images and metaphors (23:12-14; cf. also 32:8), but it is only

> within the `grand paradigm' of transcendence that the

> quintessentially spiritual and moral nature of Adam's mission can

> be contemplated, and perhaps apprehended.

>

 

 

" It is without any doubt that the inner vision is beyond all

arbitrariness; a divine being beyond the physical human eye is made

to appear in the inner field of vision — a super-human reality is

to be witnessed in the human consciousness. "

 

H. Zimmer, Kunstform and Yoga

 

 

 

" The universe has been compared, by a Persian poet, to a manuscript

of which the first and last pages are missing. The quest of these

pages has been the function of Gurus, philosophers and scientist.

The scientists perform experiments in the physical world and draw

their conclusions; the philosophers resort to speculations based on

reason and thinking. The Gurus see the universe through eyes other

then physical eyes, — the eyes of Light. With these they can see

through millions of years forward and backward and into eternity.

 

Ancient Hindu literature enumerates five kinds of eyes in

addition to physical eyes: eyes of Instinct, Celestial eyes, Truth

eyes, Divine eyes and eyes of Light.) "

 

Pritam Singh Gill, The Trinity of Sikhism