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Islamic view of humanity and its relationship with religion
Immediately after our birth, we have no conscious
knowledge of ourselvesor our surrounding environment. And
yet we are not aliens, but rather beings who are fitted to
survive here. For example, each person’s body is made up of
the same elements that exist in nature. The building blocks
making up Earth’s mineral, vegetable, and animal elements
also constitute the sperm and the egg that, when joined,
initiate our earthly life. And yet no one knows how this
inanimate matter is transformed into living forms.
We can say only that it is a
direct gift of the Creator. Thus we are children of nature
and aware of ourselves as creatures made by the Creator.
Such awareness makes us aware of the second aspect of our
being: our heavenly aspect.
Typically, children are born
into a welcoming environment and know the embrace of parents
and a wider family of relatives. Moreover, they are
immediately provided with the most perfect nourishment: a
mother’s milk. As they grow, children experience the world
as a fully ordered environment of sight and sounds, heat and
light and rainfall, and an infinite diversity of plants,
fruits, and animals. All of these enable children to
exercise and enlarge the senses, feelings, and intellect
implanted within them by the Creator.
Likewise, their bodies
function without their conscious effort or decision. Each
person receives a minutely arranged and coordinated physical
body as a gift from the Creator when He bestows life, so
that his or her life may be supported and mature. Very
little of what we have can be said to be our own doing. In
fact, without the Creator’s help, we could not even manage
our own bodies and therefore would die.
The One Who created the
universe and subjected it to our stewardship is also the One
Who created us. Given this, it makes perfect sense to
consider what our responsibility is and, considering all
that we have been given, to reflect on how we will answer
for ourselves and for what has been placed in our care.
Human responsibility before the Creator is voluntary,
whereas all non-human creatures perform their duties without
reflection but also without defect.
The apparent efficiency of
modern technology obscures our relative impotence and
vulnerability. We cannot create even a leaf or a fly,
although we are free to tamper with God’s creation to the
extent He wills. We have no dominion over our body’s
operations, such as its hunger or thirst, or the world. We
cannot determine our parents, our time and place of birth
and death, or our physique or physical structure. We have to
use the natural world to sustain and enlarge our lives. The
One Who subjected nature to us also implanted within us the
necessary intellectual faculties by which we can use nature.
Our intellect is capable of obtaining some knowledge of
nature’s orderly operations and then formulating laws based
upon the observed uniformity and reliability. These laws are
our imperfect, human intimations of the supreme laws created
and used by the Supreme Being to create the universe.
Our humanity and development.
The quality of being human
comes from our immaterial and spiritual aspects, not from
our natural and material aspects. The spirit and intellect
do not originate in the physical body, for the spirit’s
departure from a dead body reduces that body to something
that will decompose into the soil. The body remains for a
while, but all of its former senses are now absent. This
means that the spirit uses the body, and that only life
gives the body any meaning.
This body–spirit relation
can be understood somewhat by the following analogy: A
factory, no matter how complex, sophisticated, and
excellent, has no more value than a pile of mechanical junk
if there is no electricity to operate it. This does not mean
that the spirit is everything in and of itself and that the
body is junk; rather, the spirit needs matter or a corporeal
form to express its powers and functions.
A fruit tree’s future life
is encapsulated in its seed, and a tree is worth only as
much as the value of the fruit it yields. In the same way,
each person’s life-history is recorded and is of value only
in proportion to the number of good deeds done and the level
of virtue attained. Again, just as a tree increases by means
of the seeds in its fruit, we prosper by our good deeds, the
weight and consequence of which one day will be revealed to
us.
We scatter our deeds in this
world and harvest the results in the next world. Given this,
the All-Majestic, All-Powerful, All-Wise Creator, Who brings
us into existence from non-existence and Who brings us to
life by breathing the “spirit” into our bodies fashioned
from nature’s clay, will resurrect us after we decompose
into the ground. For Him, doing so is as easy as bringing
day after night, spring after winter, and making what
appears to be dry wood at the end of autumn yield grapes the
following summer.
In addition to all of this,
we have three principal drives: desire, anger, and
intellect. We desire or lust after the opposite sex, and
love our children and worldly possessions. We direct our
anger at what stands in our way, and by using it can defend
ourselves. Our intellect enables us to make right decisions.
The Creator does not restrain these drives, but rather
requires us to seek perfection through self-discipline so
that we do not misuse them. It is this struggle that
determines our humanity, for without it we would have no
purpose and would be the same as all other non-human
creatures.
Only people mature
spiritually and intellectually, for no other part of
creation has the necessary ingredient for this process: free
will. All of them live lives that are wholly determined
within nature, for without free will they have no way to
keep themselves within the correct limits. If we ignore
these limits, we may usurp the property of others or seek
illicit sexual relations, or use our intellect to deceive
others.
This is why our powers must
be held in check. Our intellect was given to us to be used
with wisdom, and our desire and anger to be used lawfully
and in moderation. Moreover, since we are social beings we
must restrain ourselves, or else wrongdoing, injustice,
exploitation, disorder, and revolution will occur.
But what is lawful and
right, moderate and wise? Who decides the criteria, and how
will they be accepted by people? Who am I? Where do I come
from? What is my final destination? What does death demand
from me? Who is my guide on this journey, beginning from
clay and passing through the stages of a sperm-drop, a
blood-clot, and a lump of flesh, another creation where the
spirit is breathed into my body, and finally reaching the
grave and through there to the Hereafter? In all of these
questions lie the essential problem of human life.
Truth and where it comes from
What is truth?
It is rare for even two or
three people to agree on the truth of a matter. If the rich
and powerful define truth, their truth will exclude or
disadvantage the poor and vice versa. Truth cannot be
decided by majority vote, for truth is truth regardless of
how many people vote for it. Truth is—and can only be
determined by—the Truth, another name for God, Who created
humanity and the universe. Our task is to discover that
truth and abide by it.
Of course there are some
universal truths, such as honesty, generosity, altruism,
truthfulness, helpfulness, and compassion. These are
essentially reflections of our true nature. Created by the
One, Who is All-Wise, All-Generous, All-Compassionate, every
person has an innate inclination toward these virtues.
Therefore they are confirmed and established by Islam, which
was revealed by God through His Prophets to show humanity
how to resolve all of its psychological and social problems.
While constant change is
observed in nature, there is an underlying aspect of
permanence in everything. For instance, a seed germinates
underground and grows into a tree without the laws of
germination and growth changing. Likewise the essential
purposes of all people, regardless of any external material
or other changes in their lifestyles, as well as their
impact on our lives and environment have remained unchanged
since the creation of Adam and Eve. All of us share certain
general conditions of life and value: we are born, mature,
marry, have children, and die; we have some degree of will
and common desires; we share certain values, such as
honesty, kindness, justice, courage, and so on.
Thus all Prophets sent by
God were sent with the same message concerning God’s
Absolute Oneness and Absolute Transcendence: He does not
beget nor is He begotten, for He is Eternally Self-Existent.
Each created being naturally depends on his or her Creator.
Only the Creator is Self-Existent, unique and single, and
not composite, subject to change, or contained by time or
space. Belief in such a Divine Being constitutes the primary
foundation of the Divine religion preached by all Prophets.
Its other pillars are belief in the Resurrection, all
Prophets without distinction, angels, Divine Scriptures, and
Divine Destiny (including human free will).
Through sincere faith and
worship, as well as adherence to the Prophets’ pristine
teachings, we can attain the highest degree of elevation,
even becoming worthy of heaven. There is no other escape
from the snares of worldly life, the oppressive ignorance of
false human-made systems, or the tyranny of self-appointed
clerical authority.
Those who do not use their
free will to discipline themselves face the danger of
enslavement by their passions. Such lack of self-discipline
causes us to wrong others, for the goal of such behavior is
to satisfy our desires. Since the Divine religion does not
allow such wrongdoing, those who pursue it try to corrupt
religion in order to justify their whims and fancies. This
causes disorder, oppression, unending conflict, and
destruction. God wills mercy for His creation, not
oppression or injustice, and that they live in peace so that
justice prevails. However, history relates that the
followers of all earlier Prophets split into opposing
factions and tampered with the religion to serve a given
sect’s local cultural preference or interest.
All previous Prophets were
sent to restore the Divine religion to its original purity
by purging the innovations and deviations added by its
adherents. This is why Prophet Muhammad was sent after Jesus
to preach the same pillars of faith. God revealed to him the
Qur’an, which contains the eternal principles for our
individual and collective life. Since God decrees that the
Qur’an is absolutely and permanently preserved, Prophet
Muhammad is the last Messenger.
Unfortunately, Judaism and
Christianity rejected the Divine Messages and Prophets that
came after the ones sent to them: The Jews rejected
Christianity and Jesus, as well as Islam and Muhammad, and
the Christians rejected Islam and Muhammad. So these two
religions finally became so exclusive that Judaism took on
the form a national religion and Christianity presented
itself as the only true religion. However, Islam honors the
religious experience of those who came before its
revelation, because Islam confirms and completes what is
true in those religions. Given this, Muslims say that
Prophet Abraham and all other Prophets were Muslim. Such an
outlook explains why Islamic civilization, from its very
beginnings, was and remains tolerant, plural, and inclusive.
It has always been this way, except for the rarest of
exceptions.
Bibliography
1. Al-Ghazali, I. H. Muhammad. Ihya-i Ulumi’d-Din (Reviving
the Religious Sciences). Istanbul: 1975.
2. Nasr, S. Hossein. Sufi Essays. Albany: SUNY Press, c1991.
3. Nursi, Said. Sozler (The Words, vols. 1 and 2). Istanbul:
1958.
4. ———. Isaratu’l-I’caz. Istanbul: 1986.
5. Sahin, M. Abdulfettah. Cag ve Nesil I (The Age and New
Generation). Izmir: 1985.
6. ———. Buhranlar Anaforunda Insan (Man in the Whirl of
Depressions). Izmir: 199l.
7. Yazir, Elmalili Hamdi. Hak Dini Kur’an Dili (The Language
of the Qur’an: The Language of the True Religion). Istanbul:
1960.
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