The Message of Universality and Socialty

 

The Message of

Universality and Sociality

Dr. Basharat Ali

(An exponent of Islamic Sociology)

“And We have not sent thee but as a mercy unto nations”,

 

According to Sura Nahl the self does or think manifestations through its nature as recognizing what is other than itself. According to the Sura Ale-lmran on the one hand and the very term ‘Amran’, suggests that each person has associates within this realm of knowledge. If we study the Sura Nahl, it will give us an idea that self is at work, creating for itself, under cosmic influence, the world it apprehends; we see it as power to bring into being a social world of experiences. Whatever that comes to us from the dynamic order takes on meaning in so far as we fixate some form of response. Man, if rightly guided can see nature in accordance to the teachings of the Qur’an (Amran, verse 190) ‘Surely we give the thing world unity in variety and duration (cf. Yasin). It is wrong to say, as maintained by some of the thinkers of the West, that the human self attributes to the object the characteristic of his own. According to the Qur’an, man and nature are value-patterned-both uphold unity. Equally, the Qur’an rejects the modern theory of Pan- Psychic causality. It is not self alone which projects unity in the “thing” world. They are created meaningfully to testify the unity which forms the psychological involvement of man.

 

The distinction between the real in the phenomenal sense and the ontologically real is the deepest line of cleavage known to human intelligence. This is the point which led the Mushrikeen to go astray. To be aware of anything, stresses the Qur’an, is to sustain a social relation to it. The Prophet, on the basis of revelation, guided humanity—that the man, so long as he lives, continues to discover his own nature in the social environment (cf. Ale-Imran. Ahzab and Hujarat). Each new acquaintance is in a real sense a fresh objectification of the man’s personality. According to the Suras Rad and Nahl our social nature may seek higher levels also.

Whatever the self does is conditioned by the cosmic order. The self, therefore, leaves from its world something not only of its own nature, but also of the nature of the Cosmic Power. On the warrant of this experience, the religious consciousness may find what it takes to be the working of the All-Wise and All-Good expression of Divine Being (Rahman). By such projection the self realizes itself in its world (Rad. ruku 1). The influence of nature on man is just like a social circuit. All projection of the self (Nahl) into an objective world (Amran) sets up a counter movement back upon the self. What is called communion with nature is a social act. It is the Qur’an which calls this union as genuine, otherwise the modern philosophy will find mind and phenomenal nature standing to one another in terms of polemics. The Sura Nahl in correlating man and nature on the one hand and the unity and universality of mankind on the other stresses that any social relation is reciprocal. The Sura Amran in general and more specifically the terms ‘Ummah and Millat refer that there should be some form of meaningful activity toward the other, and some sort of equally meaningful response from that other before the social, cultural and spiritual life takes on significance and vitalistic meaningfulness.

 

In apprehending the physical, social, psychological and cultural world, we give them value. And all the values of life, according to Suras Nahl, Rad and others are objective. Existence is a general notion, but the value is always particular and has a reference to the human psychic and spiritual order. It is they which appropriate the object. According to the Nahl it is to be realized that the thing and the self must exist in togetherness. Both thing and self, according to the Sura Nahl are value oriented and value patterned (cf. 3:190). If the idea of value is relegated to the background, the cogent relationship between the self and the objective world becomes less evident. It is, according to the Qur’an, not possible to isolate the idea of existence from that of value. ‘Prima facie’ evidence is that the ‘thing world’ is the ‘self world’, and the expression of its social nature. The Sura Al-Mulk directs us to look about in our ordinary work-a-day world, we may see how the human element in the ‘thing’ world gives them depth and level meanings. There, meanings again, are couched in symbols and hence it is the Qur’an which has given origination to the Sociology of Symbols (Ayat). These symbols can be put to use for the better understanding of the phenomenal world of nature and psyche. as they are correlated and overlapping. It is the Qur’an that has diverted man to take nature into his social world as values. The Sura Rad (vs. 11) stresses that through the study of sense perception man will be capable to indicate the basis of social self-hood. The self interprets cosmic control into an objective world of values (cf. Yasin and Rahman) and it is thus essentially social in that its essential existential activity initiated through social contact, consists in creating and appreciating a world that is other than itself.

 

It is stressed again and again by the Qur’an that to have a world the self must be in social contact with the cosmic power. The Qur’an emphasises on knowledge and while naming and attributing Almighty Allah as “Aleem” and “Khabeer”, it is intended to show that every increment of knowledge, every new experience enlarges the scope of man’s selfhood. A man’s look is outward. His interests are in the world around him and largely in the future. Even when he turns his thought inward and becomes reflective, he continues the process of extemalization. He makes his aspirations, longings and ideals ai1d purposes his objects. They become to that extent his environing world. The self is extravert. The object whether in the form of a person or a thing or an ideal, must always be existential.

 

The Sura Amran and the terms ‘Millat’ and ‘Ummah’ and their interpretation by Ahadith are sufficient to show that sociality is decidedly dynamic. It may vary in scope and dimensionality. In relation to human fellows, the self is always alert and active all the way through. Sociality is dynamic, because life is dynamic and moving. In spite of these facts it is never segregated from unity. This in itself is a great proof of Divine Unity. The existential link of sociality is emotion and

fellow-feeling. All our emotional life issues from a social situation. The most effective way of losing the higher values of social life is to assume a passive attitude towards it. And, conversely, if we enjoy in full measure our social, cultural and spiritual privileges, we must have a part in their creation and maintenance.

 

The situation which is related to the space-time dimensions, has definite bearing to life; socio-cultural systems and the belief and action systems of Islam. Man had always been thinking about them, but he had no knowledge of their socio-cultural and practical bearings. Thus, all the thinking about them was abstract and entirely abstruse. He has philosophized a lot, but could not determine their value in the evolution, and meaningful, configurational growth of man, his personality, society and culture. Situations are multiple and multivariant. They change constantly, moment to moment, in all their spatiotemporal periodicities; in their frame work of reference of past, present and future. Situations in all their variety and apatiotemporal changes originate through events and occurrences. The greatest contribution made by the Holy Prophet (ﷺ) is the concept of situation as the integral part of space-time causality. Mankind was blessed by logico-meaningfulness of time through the revelation of Sura Asr. If the Qur’an had not been revealed in its entirety except the revelation of Sura Asr, it would have been sufficient to establish the truth of Islam and its Messenger. The Sura in its categorical orientation gives us an idea of situation in its operational procedure. The Sura leads man to visualize the situations and to mould day to day life in congenity with their requirements, maintaining the meanings assigned by the Sura. In the broader framework, the Sura suggests to understand life situations along with variant, immoderate situations. The idea behind situations is the best accumulation of predetermined meanings stored in the value-system of the Divine Book. A person’s life situation is the pattern orientation, the sum total of all the factors to which he must adjust at a given time.

Islam is the religion of affirmation, and the Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ) is the Messenger of Joy and Mercy. Islam teaches to enjoy in full measure our socio-cultural privileges. If man’s self is active socially, the accompanying emotions may be intense and at the same time unobtrusive. They pour themselves into the activities, make the task more absorbing and sustain the devotion to the cause, What is the cause ?— the establishment of Tauheed and the prevalence of Islam over other cultures. Thus the socio-cultural life of energetic struggle and achievement is made rich and glorious by the awakened emotions for the expansion and preservation of Islam. The men of non-Islamic cultures, not learned in the secret of joyousness in achievement often err by cultivating the emotions themselves in detachment from the great inspirations and ideals of socio-cultural and spiritual enterprises envisaged by the Qur’an and Sunnah. According to the Qur’an and elucidated by Hadith and Sunnah, a social life is an associational and co-operative life with the members of the ‘Millat’ for the attainment of the common objective, which, as stated above is nothing but the establishment of Tauheed. The reciprocity of socio-cultural life here becomes instrumental toward the realization of ends that are beyond the powers of the individual. The ‘Ummah’, in co-operating according to the laws and principles of Qui-‘an, organizes and directs the interests and energies of its members toward socio-cultural ends. The members must zealously compete with one another in contributing to the attainment of this goal. The example of this fact is to be found in the life of the four Caliphs and Ashab. In the absence of a dominant socio-cultural ideal and well organized co-operation, the derisive effect of individual striving for personal advancement leads to crisis, confusion and chaos. This is the actual situation today.

 

According to Suras Baqara and Amran cooperation in the accomplishment of a worthy purpose, determined by the Qur’an, is the highest expression of sociality, culturality and spirituality. It includes everyday linking of home and community, home and mosque, a larger connection of the entire Millat and in a very real sense, the relations of a human being to the source of life (Al Hacleed ruku 2—Light and Life given by the Prophet).

 

Sura Rad in its verse 11 lays stress that personal minds can arise only through social interaction“ The Ummah therefore is genetically prior to Personality; Social Unities, being integration of particular minds. The social unity in Islam has been achieved by the continuance of Salat, within the premises of the mosque, the highly inter-disciplinary institution. The above verse lays stress on the dynamic character of selfhood, tuned with consciousness, cognizance and connection. The individual minds should, according to the Sura, function collectively, the outcome of that functioning as indicating common interests of purposes.

 

The expressions Rahmat-ul-lil-Alameen, i.e., the Mercy of the World or Nations and Khatimun-Nabiyeen, the Seal of the Prophets or last of the series of the Prophets which were never used in relations to prophets coming from Adam to the last prophet. It is stated that Nuh (Noah) was the second Adam, who revived the divinely revealed religion of Islam after the Deluge, was never addressed as Mercy or last prophet. The Holy Prophet Abraham, from whom the newer form of religion of Islam and its major premise the radical monotheism—the Tawheed Kamil—has been traced, neither he nor the Qur’an Calls him either mercy or last prophet. On the contrary, he prayed for the advent of the Holy Prophet, who was destined to give rise and propagate the highly complete form of Islam on the foundation ofthe highly systematic orientation of all the integrated systems of Knowledge with super-system—the values and meanings as their axiological existential base referred to by the Qur’an in the verses 2:129, I51 and 3:l63. The components of these systems of knowledge are Kitab, Ayat, Hikmat and ilmul ghaib (unknown knowledge). The above ingredients which form the basis of the Dinul Qiyam, the divinely inspired systems of culture, beliefs and actions, all grounded in systems of knowledge, documentationalized (Kitab) symbolic-cum-predictive (Ayat) philosophic-scientifically oriented (Hikmat) and ever expanding, dynamic and evolutionary from time to time, space to space throughout entire future from the fountainhead of all knowledge–the God.

 

Thus with the advent of the Holy Prophet (ﷺ) the new era, variously named as the scientific age, renaissance, industrialism and age of reason, etc., was ushered in. It is wrong to say that the new age began with the industrial revolution or the Renaissance. All these movements came in the 18th century, as fallaciously with the rise of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ). Thus Islam emerged as a scientifico-philosophical movement, guided by the institutionalized framework, dynamic and evolutionary process. The Muslims were guided by this scientifico-philosophical movement, entirely institutionalized, from the 4th century Hijra, transmitting this legacy to the west, leaving it to boast pedantically to claim itself as the founder of the age of scientism and continued research into the realities of life and nature. Leaving room for the west, and transmitting their own legacy of knowledge, cognition and truth, the Muslims went into the subterranean world of lethargy, atrophy and decay, The contribution of Islam for the awakening and rise of a new age of scientism, though denied by the modern western scholars and orientalists, but previously the scholars of the west like Le Bon, Briffault, Irwin and a host of others openly admitted the immense contribution of the Muslims. Some of them have to admit that the modern age of science would not have come into being if Islam would not have come into being and becoming science, scientific attitude, scientific spirit and scientific research methods, some of the scholars admit are the greatest endowments and contribution of Islam, transmitted to and received by the West.

 

Not only in the cultural history of mankind of the past and the present, no culture Divinely or man-made can claim the idealistic integralism and totality like Islam. It is the only system which covers the multi-dimensional and multi-variant requirements of human life in its two polarities—the Sensate and Supra-sensate or Din and Dunya. The approach in these two polarities is systematic, methodically integral, scientific and axiological. In contrast to Islam the other cultures divinely inspired and man-made like the religious culture of the Ahlikitab and the sensate culture of the mushrikeen (polytheists) are dichotomous, contradictory, conflicting, arbitrary and one-sided and hence they are unsuited to guide humanity in all multi-dimensional facets and multivariant aspects of life for all time to come.

 

The nature of universality and through-going sociability of Islam as a total culture for all mankind throughout eternal future as made clear reiteratedly in the verses 9:33, 48:28, 61 :9 is to be seen in its demands of prevalence of Islam over other cultures, whatever their types may be. Secondly, all cultures which existed in the past or exist now were and are space-time bound. According to Sura Asr Islam as a total way of life is supra-tempocentric and supra-spatial; it is the universal system for the entire mankind for all times of today and tomorrow (30:30). It is  based on the Unity of Divine Being (Ikhlas), Unity of mankind (2 :2l3), Unity of the ideal typed nations (2:l43), Unity and finality of prophet-hood (Hadeed), totality and Unity of Kitab (Furqan) and finally the Unity, totality and integralism of all knowledge systems of sensate and supra-sensate kinds (Hikmat). According to Sura Alaq the above components of the cultural, action and faith systems of Islam entirely rest on scientifico-philosophically based systems of knowledge as referred to the above Kitab, the Ayat and the un-known knowledge systems, to be discovered and identified continuously by each generation of mankind. These systems form one entity and one totality. No religion, no socio-cultural system can come into being nor attain configurational growth with value orientation systems and value pattern systems. The value orientation system is the laws, principles, values, norms and meaning of the Qur’an, and the Name and Attributes of Allah, conglomerated into one categorical Einheit, i.e., the whole or unity–the Tawheed (16:51) etc. All variant patterns of life are unified into one all-embracing, categorical whole–the beautiful conduct of life of the Holy Prophet (ﷺ) (33:21).

 

There is correlation between selfhood and knowledge, among other things, in relation to this fact that both are dynamic; one more fact is to be noted that like nature, selfhood and knowledge and through-going sociality and morality form their bases. The moral is a social growth and is an abstract expression of communal wisdom. Thus the terms Ummat and Millat, among other things, are value-patterned and endowed with spiritual meaning referred to by the Qur’an as ‘Khaire Katlzeer’. The knowledge systems find enlargement and reinforcement from the study of the self. While referring to the fact that the Human mind revolts against polytheism, the Qur’an demands the critical study of Anfus in conjunction with nature and their correlating parts, the knowledge. If we translate action into their ultimate elements, they appear as contact between the self and dynamic order—the Anfus and Afaq. Reactions issue from the dynamic order, not only from the physical things, and we know from numberless experiences, how exacting this dynamic order has proved to be. Here we have the law of consequence, ruling with complete authority; and this forms the groundwork or what in human relations is justice–Adl. Nature in its entirety is the domain of the spiritual, moral and social order.