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ROLE OF THE QURAN AS THE BOOK OF GUIDANCE

to obliterate all anthropomorphic notions about God and to establish perfect Monotheismnot
merely as a theological concept but as a full-fledged philosophy of life;
to inculcate the establishment and maintenance of a living and dynamic relation with God in order
that human beings may attain the highest spiritual and moral refinement and greatness;
to teach the truth that human beings are basically theomorphic beingsemphasizing the ascent of
Man to God as opposed to the descent of God in Man,and that the goal of every human being is
the actualization of his or her potential vicegerency of God through the imitation of Divine Attributes;
to give to Woman her rightful place in Society, as basically the equal of Man;
to resolve the dichotomy; of Faith and Reason; of Religion and Science of Love and Law of Beauty
and Simplicity of Participation in godliness and Participation in worldly life to establish in the
domain of the philosophy of Religion, the positive concept of Fulfillment in place of the universally
prevalent negative concept of Salvation;
to extricate Religion from superstitions;
to distinguish Spirituality from Mysticism and Psychicism;
to give a comprehensive Philosophy of Integration, based on the teaching of Unity-ism, thereby
providing sure basis for the integration of the life of the Individual as well as of Society; and, beyond
that, of Humanity at large;
to create an Integralistic Culture and an Integralistic Civilisation;
to make Morality the basis for Spiritual Development, on the one hand, and for Social Evolution, on
the other;
to inaugurate the era of Scientific Advancement by means of teaching the requisite fundamental
principles;
to highlight the role of Inductive Reasoning as the proper instrument for the pursuit of Knowledge;
to emphasize the quest for Empirical Knowledge, as well as the resultant Technological Advancement
and Conquest of Nature, as Exercise in the Worship of God;
to bestow on Religion the role of functioning as Social Alchemy for the establishment of a Total
Welfare Society;
to harmonize Truth and Justice with Love and Mercy;

to make Social Justice the very foundation for healthy collective life;

to establish the concept of Wealth for Welfare;


to eradicate Poverty, Disease and human Suffering in general;
to crown Labour with Dignity;
to proclaim the principle that value lies in Labour, Productivity and Achievement;
to provide the Golden Mean between the extremist philosophies of Monopoly Capitalism and
Communism;
to open the avenues and provide Guidance for human progress in all healthy directions in general;
to close the doors on all those perversions in religious and non-religious thought which go to make
Religion an opiate and the Secularistic Philosophies atheistic and immoral; and
to confer on Humanity many other Blessings, besides.
For that, the Qurn gave:
a well-co ordinated System of Belief,
a fully-integrated Philosophy, and
a comprehensive Code of Practice.

THE HOLY PROPHETS SUNNAH: Role, Definition and certain Facets thereof
The Quran has laid fundamental emphasis on the importance of imitation of the Holy Prophets Sunnah
as a vital factor in the practice of Islam, because it begins in accepting him as the sole human Guide, in
the post-Quranic period, in respect of Divine Guidance, and it develops in imitating him more and more
as the Perfect Practical Model thereof. The question, therefore, emerges: What does the Sunnah stand for?
We may concisely answer this question by saying that the Holy Prophets Sunnah stands for the dynamic
manifestations of the ethico-religious dimensions of his personality. Or: Looking at it in the perspective of
the Quran, we may define it by saying that it is the realization by him of the Quranic value-system in
the different dimensions of his personality;
If the implications of the Sunnah are understood properly by a Muslim, it saves him from indulgence in
bidah, on the one hand, and inspires him with intense fervour for realizing in his personality, to his
utmost capacity, the ethico-religious Idealism projected by the Quran.
The present is not the occasion to project the Holy Prophets Sunnah in detail, because it relates to a
personality that has been the richest, the most profound, and the most perfect in history. We may,
however, mention here just a few facets selected off-hand,only to provide a basic idea. They are:
1. Utmost devotion to God;
2. Spending every moment of life productively, and with planning and grace, and not wasting it in
frivolities and doing all that without the harshness and rigors of Asceticism, but with positive
consciousness of maintaining life in God-boundness;

3. Maintaining highest fortitude, with a cheerful countenance and a never-failing smile, even in the most
trying and terrifying circumstances;
4. Gentleness and considerateness in dealing with others;
5. Forgivenessand lovefor the worst enemies;
6. Practice of Mercy in all situations,the conquest of Makka demonstrating it at its climax;
7. Utmost generosity;
8. Utmost sacrifice for the welfare of others: feeding others, while himself remaining hungry, clothing
others, while himself wearing coarse garments patched time and again; not keeping any wealth with him,
in cash or kind, but distributing it to the needy before sunset every day;
9. Extreme humility together with full dignity;
10. Highest rational tolerance;
11. Good-will for all and ill-will towards none;
12. Eating less; sleeping less; talking less;
13. Total abstinence from quarrelsomeness;
14. Immaculate cleanliness in respect of the body, the dress and the environment; and
15. Practice of truthfulness, honesty, fidelity and self-control at their highest.
It is heart-rending to observe that the very notion of the obligatoriness of imitating the real Sunnah
which has been fundamentally projected abovehas progressively departed from the Muslims; while
love for externalistic formalities in the name of the Sunnah, and that too with much fuss as to
Juristic hairsplitting, has increasingly taken its place among the so-called orthodox pursuers of religiosity;
all that resulting in the creation of large numbers of Islamically unbalanced religious personalities.

THE QURNIC VIEW OF THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE


SOCIETY
The mission of the Quran in respect of both the Individual and the Society is vehemently Integralistic
the principle of Integralism being grounded in the concept of Unity (tawd), and expressing itself in the
balanced and harmonious realization of the basic values of Piety, Truth, Justice, Wisdom, Love, Beauty
and Selflessness.
The Ideational religious approach to human life may either be: (1) ritualistic, or (2) mystical. The
ritualistic approach leads to barren Formalism, or Externalism, which brings into play juristic hairsplitting
and bigotry even in purely devotional matters. Often falling victim to the cruel disease of pietycomplex, the adherents of this approach present the picture of a soldier who has acquired only a uniform
but no soldierly training. The mystical approach leads to inertia, or to superstitions, or both. As opposed

to both of those approaches, the Quranic approach is Integralistic, i.e., directed to the build-up of an
integrated life, which is fundamentally ethico-religious in character. Fundamentally ethico-religious
means that the Quran has emphasized the simultaneous pursuit of both Religion and Morality. Indeed,
religiosity without regard for the moral refinement and development emerges in the Quranic view as
nothing less than an opiate, because the very concept of godliness loses all meaning without the active
pursuit of the highest Morality.
The mission of a Muslim is: To build up his own personality, his social environment, and the world in
general, as good; and, for that purpose, to equip himself to possible heights of perfection in respect of,
and to cooperate with others in the pursuit of, all healthy and constructive human activities. The external
make-up of an Islamic personality is fundamentally grounded in natural grace, because the Quran has
ordained no sophistications.
Religious persons of a particular type feel that they should attach practically all importance to the Law of
Grace, and much less or no importance to the Natural Law. No doubt, both of those Laws are operative,
under the Divine Plan, in the universe and in the lives of human beings. But, the Holy Quran demands
that a Muslim should function in life with as much regard for the Natural Law as the wisest Materialist,
because God Himself has made the function of the Natural Law as fundamental, and that of the Law of
Grace as supererogatory.
The adoption of the atheistic mechanistic view of the universe and Man is advocated by its adherents as
the only and necessary condition for Scientific progress. That is, however, fallacious; because the
Quranic concept of the Reign of Law also ensures it in the same measure, and without damage to the
spiritual and moral values.
The Quran rules out the exploitation of man by man in all forms, whether in the social sphere in respect
of the economic and the political matters, or in the sphere of Religion in respect of certain so-called
religious practices whereby superstitions are traded in as a commodity. Similarly, it is firmly opposed to
all forms of tyranny.
Wealthy-ness has been very often wedded to wickedness, and the Holy Quran has condemned it in that
perspective time and again. Hence, while Islam permits private enterprise in business and industry, its
permission is not unqualified. Because, it permits only controlled freedom in respect of both earning and
spending ones wealth, whereby the emergence of both Monopoly Capitalism and its child, the luxurious
and aristocratic living, are ruled out, and the possessors of surplus wealth are stopped from adopting the
cult of indulgence in wealth, wine, and woman, while the Islamic society as a whole shoulders the
responsibility of the provision of basic needs of life to all with dignity.
We may sum up the Quranic standpoint in respect of Muslim society by saying in negative terms that,
with all the practice of religious rituals, the Muslim society loses a vital part of its Islamic character if:
1. any form of exploitation and tyranny is practised, and economic and political justice is not
comprehensively enforced;
2. the highest moral Idealism is not made the very lifeblood of the social order and the basic pursuit of the
individuals;
3. the mission of the conquest of Nature is forsaken,a mission that necessitates the pursuit of Empirical
Knowledge and Technology at the highest level.

PURSUIT AND NON-ASCETIC CHARACTER OF SPIRITUALITY

The Quranic ethico-religious approach does not lead to mysticism, but to what might be termed as
Dynamic Purism based on idq and af. That is the goal and the pride of the ethico-religious quest
with grace and sincerity,a quest that is the very essence of Islam.

The ultimate goal of the Quranic ethico-religious quest is God-realization. But, its pursuit is
impossible without selfrealization, which, therefore, becomes a Muslims primary obligation.

The struggle for self-realisation emerges in the Quranic perspective as basically three-dimensional:
the religious, the ethical, and the intellectual.

In spite of the fact, however, that it is to be undertaken fundamentally as the first step in the exercise
of God realisation, it leads simultaneously to a knowledge which might be named as the knowledge
of Spiritual Science.

That knowledge is scientific, because it is based, like physical science, on observation and
verification. The parapsychologists of today, working at the psychical level alone, have affirmed the
ESP, the astral projection, etc. But, Spiritual Science, in the hands of genuine uf teachers, has
attained immeasurably greater heights. The revelation by men like Rumi and Ibn al-Arabi of certain
higher truths discovered only recently by physical science, is a case in point.

Surely, Bidah (i.e., spiritual practices that violate Islam) and superstitions should be condemned by
every genuine Muslim. But, to condemn the Spiritual Science itself is unwarranted.

Prayer and Fasting play very definite roles in the Quranic spiritual Culture.

Prayer is an exercise in respect of the Communion of the finite with the Infinite. It extricates the finite
individual from servitude to the finite and opens to him the road to infinite progress. Prayer is thus for
progress. Fasting is the exercise in self-control, which is the key to spiritual progress.

The enemies of Islam have propagated the allegation that, because of its permission of polygamy, the
Quran teaches sex-indulgence, which does not harmonize with the pursuit of spiritual refinement and
progress. Actually, that allegation is based on the age-old misconception of Ascetic ethics, wherein
the very fulfillment of the natural biological demand of sex is considered to be unholy, in contradistinction to the Quranic view, which holds it as sacred, because it is in conformity with the Divine
Scheme, and which condemns only licentiousness as unholy. Thus, the qualified and restricted
Quranic permission for polygamy has not been prescribed as a license for sex-indulgence but only as
an alternative to promiscuity and prostitution, which it eliminates successfully, in sharp contrast with
the Ascetic as well as the Totally-Monogamic social philosophies. As for the former, one has to read
only the history of Christianity in the Age of Faith to witness the most ugly storm of licentatiousness
that overtook even the pursuers of saintliness, not to speak of the common folk. (Besides other
literature on the subject, the History of Sacerdotal Celibacy in the Christian Church written by
a very devout Christian scholar named Henry C. Lea, published by the University Books Inc., U.S.A.,
1966, is enough to provide a correct estimate of the moral disaster perpetrated by that wrong
philosophy). Coming to the latter, the modern Western civilization has established the most heinous
record of licentiousness,a record unsurpassed in the history of human civilizations.

The enemies of Islam extend their allegation to the person of the Holy Prophet Muhammad also,
and that to such an extent as to deny to him, with all his superbly-great qualities of character, even
basic spiritual goodness and greatness, simply on the basis of his practice of polygamy. But, what are
the facts?

Firstly, his entire personal life was a life of war against ease, opulence, luxuries, and self-indulgence
in general. Indeed, it was through and through a life of Austerity, wherein, even at the height of his
material power, he lived in a small thatched mud-hut, passed his days in hunger and toil, and spent his
nights for the most part standing in prayer to God.

Secondly, he adopted polygamy towards the dawn of old age, having led an exemplary monogamous
life from the age of twenty-five to the age of fifty in the company of a twice-widowed lady who was
fifteen years his senior.

Thirdly, during the polygamous period, while there was a wife like Lady Ayesha, who was a virgin of
seventeen at the time of the consummation of marriage, there were those who were widows or
divorcees, and there were even those who, at the time of their marriage with him, were already so old
as to have crossed the limit of fitness for married life. All these facts demolish the very basis of the
aforesaid insinuation completely, and establish, instead, the truth that the Holy Prophet adopted
polygamy in the Medinite period of his life solely for the sake of his noble and sacred mission,and
that in the perspective of a two-fold achievement. Firstly, in the tribal society of Arabia of those days,
wherein one of the fundamental conditions of the success of his mission lay in the unification of the
mutually-hostile tribes, one of the most potent instrument of their unification, in accordance with the
mentality of the Arabs of those days, consisted in uniting them through a kinship centered in his
person,and his marriages did make a signal contribution in that behalf. Secondly, through those
different marriages he was able to build in the persons of his wives the most accomplished ladyteachers and embodiments of Islam for the propagation of Islamic knowledge among the womenfolk.

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