Relative Priority of Ethical and Political Principles

Relative Priority of Ethical and Political

Principles for Securing Integration and

Consolidation of Ummah lslamia

A. K. Brohi

The theme of the Seminar is teachings of the Prophet (ﷺ) of Islam with particular reference to Islamic Polity. We are expected to offer an analysis and exposition of the political process, structure and function of political institutions and procedures that go to define an Islamic State. This, as one can appreciate, is an important theme, particularly in our own time when western scholarship has attempted to look at Islam not so much as a supreme doctrine, Theology. Culture, Law, civilization or even as a faith by which nearly a thousand million dwellers of earth live their life, but essentially, as a political force. By many Islam is still being considered as a threat to western civilization. There are several western publicists who have come to regard Islam as a contender for western political ascendancy in the present day world order. Islam, in short, as presented by western writers, conjures up ideas of fanatical opposition essential revolution and of anti-modernism and as the citadel of reaction. backwardness and stagnation. How and why such an uncanny image of Islam has been called into being is a theme by itself but which the present writer has no intention of dealing with in this discourse. An effort, however would be made, in what follows, not so much to talk about political institutions and structures in terms of which what is called political process ‘of Islam is supposed to consummate itself as to talk about what are to be regarded as essential preconditions which make the ‘establishment of Islamic State possible. Considerable number of books have appeared in the recent past which throw good deal of light on the nature of Islamic State and numerous conferences are being held to collect knowledgeable persons to exchange opinions on various aspects of Islamic politics. It must be admitted in all sad sincerity that not all this activity has contributed to clarity – much less has it engendered enlightened approach to the problems posed by the 15^th Century predicament of Muslims who have to live in a world whe.re non-Islamic values are dominating and have gained upper hand, if not total triumph and ascendancy. The confusion has been worst confounded by all kinds of irresponsible utterances that have been voiced from numerous forums where theory and practice of Islamic politics have been debated with infinite variety of qualifying phrases, simply to make the point that Islam is primarily politics and pursuit of power somehow is one value that Islam stands for, regardless of the ethical character of the means to get it.

Now the teaching of Islam is that all power belongs to God and anyone who is vouchsafed the authority to manage the affairs of his people or community is not their ruler if only because the only ruler of mankind is God. What goes for an earthly concomitant in the name of a ruler is more appropriately in the perspective of Islam to be regarded in the role of a person who is entrusted with responsibility of serving as a managing director of public affairs, Quite apart from the authority of the law (the Shariat) this managing director has no authority of his own. The true Law-Giver. however, in the world of Islam is God Himself and such law-making activity as has been delegated to believers is to be exercised as a trust in accordance with what the Book of God has decreed and the practice of Prophet (ﷺ) has prescribed.

We can meaningfully talk about the theory of Islamic politics with reference to juridical, legal and political principles which are discernible in the Quran and are attested by the way in which the Prophet of Islam founded the first Madinian State and directed the management of its affairs. The actual practice of politics can rend only to reflect these principles and the way in which life or the community is actually organized politically is what is to be looked at in order to answer the question relating to the extent to which these principles are being followed or not followed. Indeed, endless complications turn up when, while studying the nature of Islamic political process, we fail to draw a distinction between the structure and the functions of the State. In my considered opinion, if a band of righteous persons were to come together and agree to establish conditions in terms of which the Muslim ideal of leading life at the individual and collective plane of human existence can be augmented and facilitated, such an arrangement would entitle the community to claim that they are conducting their affairs according to the teachings of Islam and the polity in question would be entitled to be called Islamic polity regardless of the mode in which the sovereign power within the slate is distributed. But if the function of such a coming together of believers is not in accord with the purpose for which Islamic governments are instituted to carry out the mandate of Shariat it would not be considered as Islamic State.

Islam gets drawn into discussions on politics because, unlike other historical religions it does not draw a distinction between things that are Caesar's and things that are God's, there being no demarcation to set off the dominion of God from that of the dominion of State. To that extent, concern with political matters is a religious duty of every believer. An attempt to exhibit a severe unconcern about political affairs so as not to participate meaningfully in the political process would not be acceptable to Islam But, rarely, a modern nation state, also, cannot be taken roe seriously as an Islamic institution considering that the principle of latter’s political organization in Islam has no reference to definitive coordinates like territory, race, language or an inter-mixture of all the three elements in varying proportions.

In Islam, the only decisive norm with reference to which political life of the community can be organized is to highlight commonality of the tie of faith being the nexus that constitutes the basis of its political integration, social solidarity, economic solvency as also its spiritual fraternity. This tie of faith operates in its own right as is evidenced by what happened in the early history of Islam when Prophet (ﷺ) of God played the historical role of bringing about the transformation of Arab pagan society. In this context it is essential to emphasize the significance of the Meccan period of his career as a Prophet. The success of the political institutions of the Madinien State was made possible thanks to the discipline to which the Muslim elements like the Mohajireen and Ansars entered into the Compact of Madinan State this discipline is another ward of their having witnessed within themselves a basic Inward change. a sort of Inner moral, mental and spiritual transformation. They found their interior consciousness canditianrd by a sort of Theo-Centric ethos that was the concomitant of their having assimilated the quintessence of the SIrahadah—“There is no god but Allah and Mohammad (ﷺ) is His Prophet".

It is of this cardinal principle of Islam that l shall speak to make the point that it lies at the distinctive contribution which Islam has made for securing the brotherhood of man, for having demolished age-old claims advanced by privileged classes in the name of racial superiority. Islam basically is the doctrine of Tawheed preached on the basis of revelation by the Prophet (ﷺ) of Islam and its politics are animated by the way it integrates people on the basis of faith in a larger of synthesis. It is my contention that in the total absence of a sort of discipline that believers underwent during the Meccan period, political arrangement, per se, cannot succeed in creating a Muslim society. Politics can be Islamized but for that we have to be Muslims in word, deed and thought. But what goes on in our own times is that we have been politicizing Islam i.e. imposing our personal cravings and quest for power upon the fair face of Islam. O’ no, We have not in our time as yet, taken even the first step towards Islamizing politics, I submit that Islam is essentially and fundamentally a brotherhood. The simple question is: do we believers really feel that we feel united in a feeling of oneness by ties of brother-hood? In Surah AI-Hujarat verse 10 issue is clinched when it is said that all the believers are brothers inter self that be so, it must follow that we must desire for our brothers all we desire for ourselves. Besides, the believers have been asked to have fear of God in them to an extent which is commensurate with God's claim that he should be feared (Surah Al-Imran. v. 102). In the possible event of someone‘s trespassing on your rights or subjecting you to indignity as a believer, you are asked to recognize that anyone who is patient and were to condone the faults of the others belongs to higher order of humanity – the company of elect that are called Azmal Umur (Surah Shaora, v. 43). Then, as believers, we are supposed to trust on one another, have confidence in one another and depend upon one another (See Surah Al-Imrmt, v. II). In the event of possible disputes the believers are asked to resolve their differences by referring them to God and to His Prophet (ﷺ), that is, to have them decided according to Sharia (See Surah Nisa, v.59). And the safe rule of conduct is that whatever the Prophet has given to you, take it, and what he has forbidden you from doing stay clear of it. (See Surah Hasr, v. 7). The believers are asked to cooperate with one another in advancing the cause of goodness and piety. (Bin wa mqwn) and to help one another and above all never to help one another in perpetrating sins and injustice for, after all, we must continue to be apprehensive of the undoubted tact that Gods punishment is severe (See Surah Malda, v. 2). There is obligation upon us to the elfect that we must return trusts to those who are claimants to those trusts (Surah Nrsa. v 58). Believers are warned to realize that wealth and children are only the adornment of the life of this world but the enduring surviving value is to be predicated of the good we do – for that is acceptable to our Sustainer and constitutes the best of our deeds (Surah Kahf. v. 46). Elsewhere, it has been put more strongly: life of this world is simply sport and play but the life to come is the real life, if only the people knew (Surah Ankabur, v. 64). The highest reward, viz the House of the Hereafter, according to the Quran, is a resort for those who do not intend to perpetrate Injustice and mischief, as after-all the final triumph is always for those who stay away from sin by practicing piety lsurah Al-Qasas. v. 83). The believers are admonished to control their anger, to forgive people's faults and God loves the doer of good deeds (Surah Al-Immn v.134). Prophet had been admonished to forgive and to direct the performance of good deeds and to avoid contact with the ignorant ones (Surah AI-A'araf. v. 195). A reading of Surah Al-Hujurat would familiarize the reader with that fascinating list of ethical admonitions such that if that were to become the decisive norms of human behaviour, in any society. there would be no need for highly complicated and sophisticated system of governance by police and intelligence.

In the foregoing enumeration of Qur’anic teachings touching end concerning the way in which believers are to behave towards one another, my chief purpose has been to show relative irrelevance of this undue preoccupation of ours with large-scale reforms for prevention of crime, disorder, anarchy and unrest, That we ought to have an ordered society and institutions of power to control it and prevent it from becoming violent and vagrant cannot be disputed. But then the extent to which we depend upon such a sophisticated and complicated apparatus of regulation and control is also symptomatic of the extent to which we fail to carry out those ethical imperatives, admonitions, advices and instructions of the Qur’an which alone create real basis of an ordered society. By resort 10 the one inviolable inner compulsion that comes to us as believers who have submitted to the law of inner restraint we can reduce the scope of government intervention in our daily live: to the barest minimum.

The study of the Qur’an shows that it is this type of inner transformation in the psyche of individual man and woman upon which it places a great deal of emphasis and the Significance of the Meccan period in the life of the Prophet (ﷺ) resides in this masterly strategy to reform the human race. Islam came to have an alchemic effect upon human nature of pagan times that had been corrupted by false beliefs and stereotyped responses to the challenges that were posed by pagan practice of the time. The seat of reform was the soul of man that was filled with fear of God in the event of violating his command and with hope of reward in the event of carrying it out. Negatively stated it did not reside so much in the persons of the policeman outside.

The Madinian State basically was founded because there were the Jewish elements in city, to lay nothing of other pagans who had to coexist with the Mohajireen and the Ansar. The nascent state of Muslim community had to be protected against their machination and subversive activities. Most of the western scholars, upon analysis, have argued that the charter of the first Madinian state makes that state appear as secular in character, if only because the Jews and the other pagans who came under the jurisdiction of the state of which Prophet (ﷺ) of God was the head did not owe allegiance to the God’s law as revealed to the Prophet (ﷺ) of Islam. Be that as it may, the fact remains that state had Its creative source of vitality and vigour in the tact that its undisputed leader was a Prophet of God who received revelations for his guidance throughout the remaining course of his earthly career as ahead of state. Now we have in his place Holy Duran, the body of revelations as received by him, as also his Sunnah to guide us on our path to God and teach us how to live this life well and prepare ourselves lot the real life to come.

The politics of our own time cannot afford to ignore the value of Madinian chapter of Prophet's life. But the life of our Prophet in Mecca before the Hijra to Madina is equally, if not more important it only because the triumph of Madinian State is not Unconnected with the moral and spiritual transformation that Islam had brought in the heart and soul of the believers who had accepted Islam in Mecca, and who when the call for migration was made, left their hearth and home, their kith and kin and renounced everything in order to be blessed in the company of Prophet of Islam at Medina.

Our path-way to Islamization, I submit, is cast in the image of the Madinian ethos of the early Muslims by doing jihad-binafs, by waging struggle with the forces of lower sell. We can succeed in reflecting the Muslim idea it is self-mastery that counts. It is to be mutaqi, to be salt-controlled—se that we are in a position to submit to God’s Law and carry the Prophet’s message to the rest of the world.

The political process is necessary, nay indispensable for securing the advancement of collective life of the Umma-i-lslamia. But all this must follow and is no substitute for that individual development of a believer as a muttaqi. This is so because every collectivity, in the last resort, is only an arithmetical sum total of the individuals who compose it and unless the individual is reclaimed, reformed and re-integrated within himself, he will not be able to play that serviceable role in the eager maintenance or those social conditions that make for progress and advancement of collective life of the community at all possible.

Discipline of the month of Ramadan, that is to say tasting, is designed to enable the believer to become Muttaqi —(la'alakum tattaqun). Alter the tasting, which everyone can do only for himself, we have id al-Fitr the day that symbolizes the consummation of ideal of individual perfection. Thereafter comes the Hajj with its ld al-Adha when the largest collection of believers meets in the plain of ‘Arafat’ and also to circumambulate the House of God, the Ka’aba. That day symbolizes the day of social perfection-after believer becomes muttaqi, he can mix with his fellowmen in a harmonious way in a larger social setting. In Islam these two days are important.

The strategy of Islam was to show historically that the Meccan period was a period where there was devaluation of the pagan tribal bonds and pro rata liberation of the individual for him to be able to think for himself end freely worship one true God and enlist himself on the side of the programme for the moral and spiritual awakening of mankind in the implementation of which Prophet himself was engaged. The preaching was restricted to the close friends and relations and even the prayer was not organized on a public scale Nevertheless Muslims became models of excellence and in those days when Islam had no regal support or even organized might of militarist or oligarchic kind, its message spread slowly but steadily and converts to Islam became ardent devotees of the Prophet and stood with him in all the trials and tribulations, sufferings and sorrows to which he was subjected. It is the education imparted in this school of suffering that fostered in them the disposition to cultivate that sense of exclusive dependence on the grace of God we call Tawwakul, it is this attitude that ultimately turned the tide in their favour alter the Hijra and gave to a band of saleheen the opportunity to organize themselves into a state and thus provide leadership to the small, fledgling but disciplined community into becoming one of the major forces of historical change.

All our blue-prints about Islamic state which we are drawing-up these days in the various conferences that are being held all over the world for the purpose make, I submit, certain erroneous assumptions which we believe are akin to the assumptions of the way earlier warriors of Islam went about doing their job—forgetting that we have Islam undisputably with us and in most Muslim countries we are a decisive majority and it is not anymore the question of facing persecution which is what is stultifying our endeavours to reflect Islam in our individual and collective lives. The problem with us, it historical images were correctly conjured up to make our situation somewhat concrete, in analogous to our finding ourselves in the Madinian period of the early history of Islam without our having gone through fire of Meccan period a fire that ripens and chastens, Perhaps the Indian Muslim, in some way, finds himself in the Meccan period of early history of Islam. But that is another question. The issue for us is: whether preponderating Muslim communities that have instituted organized national governments, will solve their problem simply by organizing political processes conformably to what is believed to be the demand of Islam? That by itself may be as good as one makes it but essentially, if the citizens of the Muslim realm do not have within them the disposition to abide by the principle: of ethical conduct sanctioned by Islam, mere veneer of external Islamization process will not be able In our day lo present real Islam in action.

There is no fixed form of government prescribed by Islam, nor again mere forms of government anywhere have mattered in history – for as the Good old Pope said many years ago: "Let forms of Government fools contend; that Government is best which works best”. All governments are there, after all, to deal with management of human affairs but the success of any government is directly and substantially connected not with organizational structure of its political power but with the quality of life that citizens lead—of honesty, truthfulness, justice, fairplay etc. The question is: Do they regard themselves as one another’s brothers? What are we doing to secure that inner belonging of one citizen to another and all of them inter se which is the life and soul of a community or nation.

The territorial state or racial state of our own times has no place in the scheme of things as Islam views them. It is the one sure way of dividing world again itself. l think it the matter were capable of being computerized it would be found out that 90 % of human labour in our own time is currently being expended on maintaining the conflict with neighbouring states and if the world is to be divided into I50 odd states each state, has on its nerves roughly 75 % others States. In this age of superpower rivalry, the fear of being destroyed by nuclear war is directly or indirectly impinging upon its sovereign initiative and economic independence.

The situation is more pathetic in Islamic polity where sovereignty is professedly made to belong to God, but the internal bickerings, strifes, conspiracies, intrigues and even wars between Muslim states tend to contradict even the lip-loyalty that we owe to God for His being the sovereign ruler of all the states, in our own time, strange kinds of images of politics of Islam are being conjured up. In a recent book called Islam in the Political Process published by Cambridge University Press in 1983 several studies about different Muslim states have been made under somewhat intriguing and attractive, captions Some of the samples are: (I) In the Pharaoh’s Shadow: Religion and Authority in Egypt. (2) Ideological Politics in Saudi Arabia. (3) The Islamic Factor in Syrian and Iraqi Politics, (4) Popular Puritanism versus State Reformism: Islam in Algeria. (5) Sufi Politics in Senegal. (6) Religion and Politics in Modem Turkey, (7) Iran: Khomeini’s Concept of the Guardianship of the Juris-consults. (8) The Politics of Islam and lslamization in Pakistan, (9) Faith as the Outsider: Islam in Indonesian Politics. (10) Islam and Politics in Sudan. In another study entitled “Faith and Power—Politics of Islam” by Edward Mortimer, the menu served is less delectable but perhaps more memorable: Turkey- Moelom Nation, ‘Secular State‘; Saudi Arabia The Koran as the Constitution; Pakistan—Islamic Nationality; Iran-Shia’ism and Revolution.

These variations on the themes of Islam that is otherwise supposed to be all comprehensive (which embraces politics within its bounds) tend to show that both Islam and Politics mean many things to many minds. The following instructive paragraphs give e pre-review of the thrust of the first mentioned of the two books and may be quoted with advantage for the benefit of those who have not seen them:

“There is no doubt that Islamic politics is an elusive and contentious subject to study. The usual starting-point of discussion is the unique inseparability of sacred and secular, of religion and politics. The reality is somewhat different: throughout Islamic history temporal authorities have wielded a weightier sword than that of the spiritual authorities; moreover, an examination of European history confirms that the lively interjection of religion into politics and of politics into religion is not an exclusively Islamic phenomenon. Nevertheless, the comprehensiveness and self-sufficiency that Islam proclaims for itself do set it apart, at least from Christianity, which encourages a distinction not only in theory but in practice between God’s and Caesar’s due. Unlike Christians, who are pilgrims enroute to the true world. Muslims do not have the luxury of presuming that the validity of their beliefs lies beyond practical—and political—demonstration.”

"Yet, the Muslims’ belief that their faith fully covers life here and now, gives rise to sharply different views as to Islam’s exact political relevance. The Iranian revolution has given new life, ironically, to two such competing views. Some observers speak with renewed respect of Islam as the guiding force of the revolution, as if it were somehow above the fray and giving concrete direction to political and cultural liberation. Others see in the dominance of the mullas further evidence that religious obscurantism is the servant of political and cultural tyranny.”

This is the performance of the unknown non-Muslims met together to discuss “Islam in the political process.” Very recently, however, there was another International Seminar on State and Politics in Islam organized by Muslim Institute for Research and Planning, London. U. K. The Seminar was sponsored and organized by Muslims and Iranian scholars from August 3-6, 1983 under the inspiration of institutes Director Dr. Kalim Siddiqi. The Seminar, at the find of its deliberations that were mostly in the nature of “closed door confabulations,” issued a Declaration in the following terms :

1. Basic Concepts

1.     All authority belongs to Allah and that any Muslim State that makes itself subservient to a power or ideology outside Islam is in effect in revolt against the rule of Allah;

2.     Din and politics form an indivisible unity and any formulation of Islam on the basis of separation of religion and politics is not acceptable to the Ummah;

3.     The political role of Islam and the political role of Kufr are two opposite trends in history and neither has anything in common with the other;

4.     The political party framework as found in western ‘democracies’ is divisive of the society and hence it don not suit the Ummah;

5.     Jihad is an essential obligation on every Muslim at all times and should become an essential part of the modern Islamic movement.

2. Political Objectives of the Ummah:

1.     To eliminate all authority in conflict with the authority of Allah and His Prophet (ﷺ);

2.     To eliminate nationalism in all its shapes and farms and, in particular, the ‘nation-states’;

3.     To unite all Islamic movements into a single global Islamic movement to establish the Islamic State;

4.     To reconstruct the World of Islam into a system of Islamic States linked together by such institutions as are necessary to express the unity of the Ummah;

5.     To eliminate all political, economic, social, cultural and philosophical influences of the Western civilization that have penetrated the World of Islam;

6.     To re-establish a dominant and global Islamic Civilization based on the concept of Tawheed;

7.     To create the necessary institution for the pursuit of al-amr bil mar’uf wa al-nahy’an al-munkar; and

8.     To establish ‘adl (justice) in all human relationships at all levels throughout the world.

Recommendations

1.     This Seminar recommends (a) the establishment of an independent forum of ulama and Muslim intellectuals to coordinate and guide the struggle of the Islamic movement in all puts of the World; (b) recommends the Muslim Institute to draw up a working paper to implement the first part of this recommendation and to circulate it for discussion; and (c) asks the Muslim Institute to examine the possibility of publishing a journal of Muslim political thought.

2.     Recommends that (a) all Islamic group: and movements should establish close relationship with the Islamic State of Iran and benefit from the experiences of the Islamic Revolution ; (b) this Seminar also recommends that the Islamic State of Iran should seek active collaboration with all Islamic groups and movements.

3.     This Seminar recommends that Islamic groups and movements should abandon the ‘constitutional reform‘ approach and end all contact and collaboration with the regimes in the Muslim World and work for their elimination and replacement by Islamic States.

4.     This Seminar asks the ulama and scholars of Islam to abandon their apologetic approach and calls upon them to develop a comprehensive system of Muslim political thought from the original sources of Islam.

5.     This Seminar takes the view that  the ulama of Islam are the only source of muttaqi leadership of Islamic movements, and calls upon them to lead the Ummah.

6.     The Seminar considers that the problem of Palestine is not limited to the Palestinians or Arabs; instead it is a global Islamic problem for which all the Ummah should be mobilized.

7.     The Seminar lauds the Jihad of the Muslim people struggling to free their countries; particularly it lauds the Jihad of Muslim Afghanistan, and asks Muslims all over the world to support these struggling peoples.

8.     The Seminar recommends to make Arabic the international Islamic language, and asks all Muslim people to learn it.

This is not the place, altar having reproduced the text of the declaration, to go over the ground covered by its authors who have somehow spoken in the name of whole Ummah. But the propositions therein in italics (emphasized by me) merit a second look. The role of overseership assigned to the ulama is alright it there was an agreed method of determining who an alim is. The Declaration is of no practical help in resolving the most essential issue viz., the contention that ulenra of Islam are the only source of muttaqi leadership of Islamic movement: and what is more they are called upon to lead Ummah. This is a highly dubious start if only because the meaning of ulama not being clear and the self-styled professors to that status not being unknown, the further complication that they alone are capable of “muttaqi” leadership is to confuse the two radically different terms Alim, one of learning and the other muttaqi, of integrity and piety of the individual. One cannot easily forget the fascinating references in the Quran: in Surah AI-Jummah, v 5 “The likeness of those who were charged with the Torah, then they observed it not. is as the likeness of the ass carrying books. Evil is the likeness of the people who reject messages of Allah and Allah guides not the iniquitous people”. The discord between burning and piety is too well known to be delineated in any specific detail and tor obvious reasons in the world of Islam it is difficult to establish objective standards by which the ulama and muttaqi could be objectively determined that truth as to this is known only to God — man can only guess and conjecture.

That Seminar should seek to confirm the relevance authenticity of Iranian revolution tends to show that at least it is as yet not sure of itself or else why invite the world of Islam to collaborate with it and be influenced by it. Why cannot this be said also about all the countries where people are striving to realize the Muslim ideal.

To say that we should eliminate nationalism in all its shapes and forms arid, in particular, scrap the nation-states is something for which I, for one, would whole-heartedly stand. But to leave the matter there and not to say what is to happen in the meanwhile is also to act imprudently — for in the absence of its working substitute world cannot go on. Dr. Allama Iqbal also had said, Ummah of Islam is not to be governed as a nation-state but thought that it is to become a common-wealth of Muslim nations. But till such time as we are able to reach that consummation which is devoutly to be wished for, no harm according to him is done if upon the breakdown of colonial rule of western powers, the emerging depending peoples of Asia and Africa constitute themselves into nation-states— as a sort of interim and half-way home measure for carrying on tasks in terms of which to organize the political life of the Muslim peoples. Similarly, to be called upon to renounce everything that West has made available to modern man and to reject even the “process of constitutional reform” for securing transformation of society by revolutionary means is to take a position which in my way of thinking is incapable of being defended in principle. These days all of us seem to be in the grip of revolutionary fever and everywhere everyone is talking of the revolutionary upsurge. But we forget that Islam itself came to verify pre-existing religious traditions of mankind and restore the age-old Truths of Din and the Prophet (ﷺ) of Islam did not reject all the pre-Islamic practices including the pagan customary law of the time. He did not start writing on a clean slate, rebuilding everything as it were, de nova. Per contra he allowed slams qua to be progressively refined and he progressively supplanted all unacceptable primitive practices and substituted them by those that were sanctioned by revelations he received and it took him over 23 years of his life, by resort to a process of deliberate gradualness, to steadily transform pagan society into becoming a Muslim society. Not all that West has attained is to be rejected; after all, its Course of history has also been influenced by Divine mandates, God is as much God of the East as of the West! But we somehow tend to over-simplify matters when we reject all western achievements and somehow think that all that is being done in the east is very wonderful. That mode of dealing with history is plainly opposed to the view that God is God both of east and of west and His law has prevailed sometimes by conscious acceptance of it by man but often enough by unconscious intrusion of His Will in the warp and woof of human society. While the declaration asks us to eliminate all political, economic, social, cultural end philosophical influence: of western civilization it has not told us what are we to do with its science, its technology, its medicine and such other elements of progress as have been established to enable man to acquire control over the forces of nature tor bringing relief and redemption to man. This wholesale condemnation in the Declaration of the west amounts to throwing baby with the bath tub and to be sure that is not exactly a productive exercise.

Upon that note let this address end-for the rest is silence: WalIah-u-a'aIam Bisawab.