by Ali Shariati
Islam is not merely a set of definite ideas, inculcated affections, metaphysical relationships, sacred, hereditary traditions, customs, and rites, ancient culture, something that gives spiritual solace and advisable ethical criteria, acting as an inner policeman in our private lives. In short, it is not a religion akin to others like Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism, or Hinduism. For us, Islam is a full ideology by which we see and on the basis of which we determine our world view, view of the human being, and the relationship between the two, our philosophy of history, our essence of life, our social system, the foundation of individual and collective subsistence, mode of life, and the form and content of our social, human, and group relationships. It is a school through which we develop the ‘self and it is the foundation of our system of values. With this view in mind, we can meditate upon, get in touch with, choose and initiate our human, social, cultural, historic reconstruction of our beliefs in this world and this civilization when confronted by the ideologies which are prevalent today.
Reference has been made to the need for recognition and an authentic position-taking in this century vis-a-vis the West, a return to the East, being sympathetic with the downtrodden and deprived people of the world as well as the necessity for the reconstruction of our world view of Islam as a monotheistic ideology built upon its primary foundations: Wisdom, the Book, equity, the covenant, good deeds, salvation, the spirit, piety or guarding against evil,commanding to good and preventing what is not,duty, responsibility, balance, iron, representative of God upon the earth, perfection, the entrusting of the earth to God’s righteous people, the inheritance of the earth by the deprived, and their leadership over humanity.
Mention has been made of all of these yet nothing has been said of Iqbal. We have not made mention of him.Yea. But it was Iqbal who said:
It is the custom of clouds to take water from the sea
And again take the drops of rain back to the sea
These are the lessons which can be learned in his school. It is he who gave ideological consistency to Sayyid Jamal’s revolutionary uprising. He gave deep, intellectual roots to his fertile and sturdy tree.
Return to the East? After becoming familiar with our age, after moving through the highest horizons of Western thought, and after years of mixing and learning in schools of thought whose masters were wondrous genius’ of the new culture such as Hegel, Nietzsche, Kant, and Goethe, this invulnerable hero of European thought, philosophy, and culture, threw it all down at the feet of the Rustam of poetry—Rumi—to blind him with the dazzling light of the arrow of love.
Guided by this divinely-inspired saint, he abandoned the spiritless and lifeless tower of Paris and the blind-folded stone statue of justice, responded to the call of the minaret whose very being is but a throat to cry out and its entire life— one morning and one evening—the repetition of one invitation, one call, the invitation to the human being to rise above the murky waters and move towards God. He took a step towards the dawn, ascended to its summit, and, then, gave himself up to the ever moving waves of the ocean of mysticism. He returned to the East. When he raised his head from the shores of Islam, he found tranquility in the Holy Quran and said:
What a pity for those futile
And fruitless years wasted in Europe.
European philosophy, science, human values, way of life, and sentiments are all dry, spiritless, dishonored products of a machine called the ‘mind’, a ‘mind’, the most sensitive and truthful example of which is a camera which takes photographs of nature, life, motions, and people but is itself devoid of life, essence, and love. By life, essence, and love, I do not mean an ascetic, sophistic or idealistic sense but the life of nature, the essence of things, and the meaning of the human being.
The image-making, abstract, calculating, and rationalizing mind only recognizes phenomenon and regards the scientific analysis of a living object—in truth, a complex, significant, beautiful, and profound truth in which are hidden the essence of creation, the radiating light of existence and intoxicating love—raw materials and pre-fabricated mental patterns. Furthermore, this mind examines flowers by means of a lifeless, visible logic. It knows fire as only a chemical formula not by gazing at its light or through feeling its heat. This amounts to reasoning about an object, not understanding it or perceiving it.
The first consequence of this kind of attitude is to think about ways and means to use different objects to meet one’s requirements, to achieve power, and to extend one’s influence and domination. In this way, all of man’s divine aptitude for comprehending the truth and the universe, for consciousness and development of the self, for illuminating existence, for longing to unite with the Spirit within, for the establishment of a harmony with the pulse of life, for re-creation, for the revelation of nature concealed under facades, relationships, and patterns imposed upon us by history, the environment, and our heritage, and, finally, the human being’s divine aptitude for ascension, for the perfection of values, for a liberating movement as well as for individual and collective transformation are all summarized in mental reasoning about objects and in finding the instrumental talents of creatures. Hence, the human being’s only reaction is to employ them in order to extend the scope of his life and to allow body organs to continue functioning.
It is not a coincidence that we observe not only science but philosophy, the arts, and aesthetics, even revolutionary ideologies which help to develop the human being and which bring justice are ultimately leading to technology according to the world view of the West. Do they themselves not admit that ideology is being employed by technology? We know that their ideology has been and is subdued by technology, feeding on the breast of the bourgeoisie, and growing up in the arms of materialism.
It is a method that has produced many sick and corrupt children throughout history. Some examples are: Recklessness, licentiousness, injustice, bullying, the worship of carnal desires, immorality, ardent desires for worldly gain, quarrelsomeness as well as mental and behavioral attitudes of Yazid-like individuals who ridicule all principles, who feel free and disregard any limitation whatsoever on hoarding, amassing fortunes, passion, trampling on the rights of others, and discrediting all values.
Individuals of this type maintain that there is no God, no accounting to anybody, no limit to anything, ridiculing every principle. There is no tomorrow. Whatever there is, this is it. It is natural and a matter of common sense to declare that if truth does not exist, then, pleasure should rule. When there is no question of being called into account in this world, then any restrictions or obligations are fictitious. In a senseless, aimless world, values would be considered to be figments of the imagination or in Lenin’s words: Any principle of ethics is a lie. In such a world, even inculcated sentiments and unscientific tendencies that are cooked up by deceitful people are simply to lull the masses. Even when stressing realism and materialism, the Western world view is an idealistic world view which conceives of matter as a mental phenomenon and a rational, abstract form—in this world view, objectivity. As it finds this category materialistic, so it imagines the imposition of one’s rational subjectivity on external objects to be materialistic. We are now witnessing that the dictates of history, sociology, social revolution, and class dialectics are all inconsistent with and contradictory to dialectic materialism.
All socialist revolutions have taken place in non-industrial societies and among a people who are several centuries away from capitalism, machines, and the proletariat. Not even one can be found which took place in a capitalist society by an industrial, proletariat class. On the contrary, the more progress made by capitalism and industry, the farther away they have gone from class exploitation. Even European and American proletariats have lost that revolutionary zeal they experienced 100 years ago. Western communist countries are fast tending towards the right and they are living in peaceful co-existence with the political instruments of capitalism, that is, the governments of their countries.
It is very clear that r
evolutionary fervor and socialist motives are to be found in countries like Ethiopia and Yemen— which are typical held-back nations which have not as yet reached the stage of feudalism nor even taken the form of a society but not in countries of North America, northern Europe or Federal Germany which typify the industrial development, capitalist power, and growth of a proletariat class.
In recent years, we have everywhere been witness to outstanding examples of the human share, the factor of awareness, the will of the masses, the role of leadership in creating historic destiny, social changes in the infrastructure, denouncements of the exigencies of history,and the tools and methods of production vis-a-vis conscious, determined fighters. Those who do not impose their ‘mental realism’ on reality or their ‘rational materialism’ on matter through verbal sophisms or new scholastic prejudices or who do not, in the words of the Prophet—interpret verses of the Quran, this divinely revealed Book, this recitation of nature—based on their own opinion, would understand this sign as a divine tradition that ‘it is a revolution which creates a social structure and not a social structure which creates a revolution’.
But the mental principles of dialectic materialism pitifully strives, in the most imaginary use of verbal, fanatic idealism, to put material realities into materialistic patterns which they call material facts. In this way, they fail to perceive the reality of the human being, history, movement, and a proper interpretation of the events of our time in a reliable and direct way. Furthermore, they resort to misinterpretation and they misconstrue the objective facts of society as well as man’s authentic needs and propensities. Consequently, the most fundamental task of an ideology, that is, the recognition of the facts, the determination of man’s mission, and guiding on the correct path are all put into abeyance. If the lights of a car do not work and its steering wheel is locked, then the more powerful its motor, the more dangerous and disastrous it would be!
In the Eastern world view, not only human values, manifestations of spirit, beauty, and perfection, but also perceptible nature and material (in the Western sense) phenomena are seen as celestial signs and as spiritual reflections. In Platonic idealism and Greek metaphysical philosophy, even in the philosophical and verbal culture of Christianity and Islam, the universe is divided into the physical and the metaphysical. The earthly abode is despised, the world of generation and corruption is considered to be base and a hindrance to enlightenment. God, along with the angels, saints, and incorporeal beings are searched for in metaphysics and are regarded as inhabiting the higher world and heaven.
It is not accidental that, contrary to the above views, in the authentic and genuine Islamic world view of Islam, natural objects ‘are all regarded as being colored pieces of glass upon which the rays of existence (i.e., God) are shining.’ Unlike Aristotelian philosophizing, orators or Platonic sophists, the Quran, which is the language of revelation and the most authentic holy text, relies entirely on nature, history, life, and fixed, scientific rules in order to prove the existence of God. Not only does it seek God upon the earth, show His presence in natural, objective manifestations and in the law of motion but in that which materialists call materialistic determinism and material object, as well. The Quran calls them Signs of God and in order to prove the existence of God, regard His presence as the origin of Being, self-will, creative force, sensible movement, animated truth, science, order, reckoning, and accountability, aim, source of life, love, values, and, finally, as the brain, spirit, and heart of this universe which is a living body and which is the macrocosm to man’s microcosm.
It does not regard nature as being either a cruel, automatic-drive machine nor a false, confusing, and enchanting mirage-like dust particle at the mercy of the wind nor as a bubble on the surface of the water, but it considers nature to be ‘the world of witnessing’.
The Quran regards the establishment of scientific (or material, so to speak) laws in physics, physiology, and biology as revelation. It gives the name of Bee to a chapter in the Quran that deals with the Prophet’s mission in guiding mankind. Although it is a book of revelation, it does not call the chapters after angels, heavenly qualities, metaphysical, occult, or even after philosophical, spiritual, and artistic expressions or after sophistic, idealistic, subjective, and intellectual interpretations.
Rather, it chooses names that are objective, real, historic, humanistic, practical,natural,utilitarian,dynamic,and aware to show society as mobilization, responsibility, and good. Some examples are: Sun, Thunder, Light, Smoke, Mountain, Star, Moon, Iron, Cave, Towers, Dawn, Morning, Night, Earthquake. Or, names of animals: Cow, Bee, Ant, Spider, Elephant. Or, groups of human beings: Women, Believers, Poets, Mankind, Hypocrites, People Who Cover Over the Truth. Or, history: The Family of Imran, Bani Israel, Companions, Saba, Quraysh, Romans. Or, those charged with bringing a message or who had a mission: Abraham, Jonah, Hud, Joseph, Mary, Prophets, Noah. Or, human and social concerns: Ink, Pen, Sincerity, Help, Evening, Age, Ambition, Value, Panting Horses in a Battlefield, Victory, Consultation.
Do not be surprised. These are not low, mundane, worthless, and materialist, but rather, sacred things to which God has taken an oath. Look at the things to which the language of revelation has sworn by:
“By the Age! Surely the human being is in the way of loss, save those who believe and do righteous deeds and counsel each other unto the truth and counsel each other to be steadfast.” (103:1-5)
“Nun. By the Pen and what they inscribe. Thou art not, by the blessing of thy Lord, a man possessed.” (68:1)
“No! I swear by the Day of Resurrection. No! I swear by the reproachful soul.” (75:1)
“By those that pluck out vehemently and those that draw out violently, by those that swim serenely and those that outstrip suddenly, by those that direct an affair!” (79:1)
“By the loosed ones successively storming tempestuously by the scatters scattering and the severally severing and those hurling a reminder, excusing or warning, surely that which you are promised is about to fall.” (77:1)
“By the heaven of the constellations, by the promised day, by the witness and the witnessed.” (85:1)
“By heaven and the night-star! And what shall teach thee what is the night-star? The piercing star! Over every soul there is a watcher.” (86:1)
“By the dawn and ten nights, by the even and the odd, by the night when it journeys on!” (89:1)]
“No. I swear by this land and thou art a lodger in this land; by the begotten and that he begot.” (90:1)
“By the sun and his morning brightness and by the moon when she follows him and by the day when it displays him and by the night when it enshrouds him! By the heaven and that which built it and by the earth and that which extended it! By the soul and that which shaped it and inspired it to lewdness and Godfearing!” (101:1-5)
“By the night enshrouding and the day in splendor and that which created the male and the female, surely your striving is to diverse ends.” (92:1-5)
“By the white forenoon and the brooding night!” (103:1)
“By the fig and the olive and Mt. Sinai.” (95:1)
“By the snorting chargers, by the strikers of fire, by the dawn-raiders blazing a trail of dust.” (100:1)
Do these words have the effect of opium on the masses? Is it like reciting incantations or lullabies to listen to such fiery legends? Feuerbach says: God derives His wealth and His power from the poverty and weakness of His worshippers. When worshipping and obeying God, one loses himself, suffers from the paralysis of his will and from alienation. Marx remarks: Oh this religious misery! It is a powerless creature, the heart of the heartless world, the spirit of a spiritless entity, and opium for the public.
Before making such conclusive statements, why did they not take the time to read a few short sentences from the Book that one in four inhabitants of the earth believes in? A researcher who bases his judgment neither on the behavior of the masses nor on the statements of the learned but from direct research into original texts can,
when speaking about religion, glance at the Quran, which, at least from the historic point of view, is one of the four texts among the greatest religions in the course of the history of the world.
As conscious, authentic, and responsible intellectuals of the East, we should understand that the intellectuals in the West do not, in principle, understand us. Nothing can be more disastrous than when our intellectuals put on the spectacles of others in order to better see themselves and consciously, or worse still, unconsciously, imitate their mental patterns, way of thinking, their attitude, and interpretations in order to grasp their own Eastern thoughts, culture, and beliefs, that is, human content and identity.
Has Iqbal not been unduly influenced by the East as a sort of regional position-taking? With his Return to Self, Iqbal does not advocate retrogression and reaction or a kind of archaic, narrow-minded cultural authenticity. In fact, no trace of romantic nostalgia can be found in the psychology of his intellectual school.
In spite of the intensity of his campaign against the West, the emphasis he laid is on India and on the mobilization of his people. In spite of his contempt for the culture, spirit, and role of Europe and his glorification of history and the emphasis on the values hidden in the very soul of his nation, Iqbal did not suffer from the ailment and ill-effects of nationalism. He did not take it as a gift, particularly as early 20th century Germany was afflicted with the fever of fascism, when he returned to his home.