THE ELEMENTS OF ISLAM
(Excerpts Only)

By: Shaykh Fadhlalla Haeri

Chapter 6
The Life of Muslims

The faith of Islam is founded on the belief that there is One Compassionate, All-encompassing God; that the purpose of His creation is to know Him; and that the approved existential behavior is sustained only in order to arrive at that knowledge. Man's primary and most urgent business is the knowledge of God, and the transformation that naturally follows. Every other human pursuit is secondary.

In this chapter we look at how Islam transformed people's outlook on life and how it shaped the way they lived. What were the unifying factors that gave Muslim culture its cohesion? How did Islam affect business and trade? What was the relationship between rulers and the ruled, and why was it that they did not produce a stable 'civil service' independent of the ruler's person? These and other questions are addressed by focusing on specific aspects of the life of Muslims, which because of limitations of space is by no means comprehensive.

As a complete system of life-transaction the Din of Islam affects every aspect of human experience. It permeates the person at the physical, material, mental, intellectual and spiritual levels, and therefore percolates into individual, familial, social and every other aspect of civil and cultural life. It is for this reason that we find such strong symmetry amongst racially, culturally and geographically diverse Muslims. A familiar thread weaves its way visibly from the life of a Muslim in China to the life of a Muslim in West Africa. There always have been and always will be localized elements of indigenous custom and cultural expression, but this diversity reflects geographically inherent differences and sometimes inherited pro-Islamic behavior.

On the whole wherever Islam spread it purified the existing culture from past inhuman, unjust or unnatural habits and conditioning. Those customs that were found to permissible, or indeed improved by Islam, were allowed to continue. While Islam suffused the old culture of the converts, producing an Islamic one in its stead, one must not fall into the simplistic fallacy that there was one Islamic culture, because Islam's dynamism transcends 'culture'. Its unifying force once translated into the arena of human life is ultimately neither social nor material but spiritual.

The Culture of Muslims

For every one of you we appointed a law and a way, and if Allah had pleased He would have made you a single people, but that He might try you in what He gave you. Therefore vie with one another in doing good. You will all return to Allah and He will inform you about that which you differed.

Qur`an 5:48

The culture of Muslims has never been bound by geographical or climatic considerations, for Islam is a universal path and therefore accessible to all peoples.

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Family and Social Life

O mankind, surely We have created you from a male and female and made you tribes and families that you may know each other. Surely the noblest of you with Allah is the most cautiously mindful [of his duty]. Surely Allah is Knowing, Aware.

Qur`an 49:13

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The Civilizing Sciences

The Prophet made it clear that seeking knowledge was obligatory for every Muslim, male or female. 'Seek knowledge even if it be in China', is a saying attributed to him, implying that one should go to great lengths in the pursuit of useful learning. Muslims did not have to go as far as that, however, before they discovered the philosophical, medical, aesthetic and other treasures of scholarship.

Possibly the greatest creative and rational act of the Muslims was their study and investigation of the knowledge developed in the classical Greek, Iranian, and Indian cultures, drawing from them what was useful and real through the 'filter' of Islamic understanding. The resulting hybrid of learning was the foundation for the far-reaching civilizing influence of the Muslims on world culture.

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With regard to self-knowledge, which in modern times has been subsumed by 'psychology', a large body of knowledge was collected by the Sufis. Numerous interlinking models were developed with which to understand the self, how to treat and purify it and render the inner aspects of human life healthy and vital. This knowledge was mostly based on the Qur`an and the teachings of the Muslim saints and Sufi Shaykhs.

The Prophet indicated the way to gnosis when he said: 'Whoever knows himself knows his Lord.' Knowledge of the self was based on the premise that the individual self comes about when a spirit, whose nature it is not possible to comprehend, is brought about to activate and produce the individual soul in the womb. This soul (nafs) embarks upon a journey through this world towards the next, the purpose of this experience being to render the soul able to enter into the next world of non-time and non-space fully prepared. If it becomes attached and infatuated with this world, then it is doomed, which is one meaning of hell. But if it uses this world as an allegory for the essence that is behind it – which is permanent, ever-lasting and merciful – then the soul has been saved. The soul's purpose is to realize the Divine Essence behind the solid veil of physical existence. Every single person is endowed with the freedom to achieve that end through the life-transaction of submission based on trust and the sharpening of the innate, primal faculties of intuition and deeper understanding.

In the early period of Islam, Muslim writers took from the Greeks many aspects of dream interpretation. Dreams were considered an important part of an individual's life in the unseen, and Islamic literature on this subject is consequently very rich. Dreams were doors on to the world beyond the senses. The process of dreaming was explained thus: the soul, when released from the body during sleep, can perceive aspects of the subtler world. When it returns to the body it brings those perceptions with it and passes them on to the faculty of imagination (khayal) with appropriate images, which the sleeper then perceives as if by the senses.

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The Sufis also used a certain amount of music in their circles of Dhikr (remembrance) or Sama` (listening). Neither poetry nor music were considered forbidden in themselves. The `Ulama had defined the conditions in which performing and listening to music were permitted, namely that it should not be for frivolous amusement or to induce sensual or lustful agitation, and should certainly not be obscene or blasphemous. Imam Ghazali went so far as to say that through appropriate music the heart could be stirred into longing for God and thereby elevated on to a higher path.

Markets and Towns

General patterns of urbanization in Muslim lands included market towns, garrisons that later grew into towns, and royal cities that grew around the ruler's palace and government buildings. Market towns were generally dominated by a local tribe and were thus under the authority of the tribal lord. Larger market towns tended to serve many of the smaller local ones. Seaside towns functioned as market towns in themselves as well as trading points. In most cities the merchants were a wealthy and important section of the population.

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Trade and Finance

Allah has allowed trade and forbidden usury.

Qur`an 2:275

And whatever you lay out as usury so that it may increase in the property of men, it increases not with Allah.

Qur`an 30:39

In a short ninth-century treatise on trade in Iraq we are given the following information: From the Kazars came slaves, armor, helmets and hoods. From India came tigers, leopards, elephants, deerskins, rubies, sandalwood, ebony and coconut, From China aromatics, silk, porcelain, paper, ink, peacocks, wild horses, saddles, felt and cinnamon. From Byzantium silver and gold vessels, imperial Diners, embroidered cloth, brocade, red copper, locks, water engineers, marble workers and eunuchs. No doubt imports from Europe were too insignificant at the time to be mentioned but by the Middle Ages European weaponry and English wool had also begun to be imported into the Muslim world.

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Rulers and the Ruled

Islam assumes that the governing élite should be an example upholding the highest level of Islamic ethical conduct, both in their outer rituals as well as in their personal qualities. When, however, this is not realized a clear division appears between the class of rulers and the ruled. Such divergence in the history of Muslims has often led to confrontation and revolt.

An institutionalized separation between the rulers and the ruled had begun from the death of the fourth Caliph 'Ali, when the objectives and lifestyle of the Umayyad Caliphs and courtiers diverged from the general Muslim public. This state of affairs continued almost throughout the entire history of Muslims. In the early days it was Byzantine and Persian Sassanian administrators and court advisors who helped Muslim rulers in fiscal and other bureaucratic controls. These were gradually replaced by other non-Muslims and foreigners who not only dealt with matters of finance but also military affairs and foreign relations.

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Special Issues in Muslim Life

Jews, Christians and Others Living Among Muslims

The Islamic attitude towards religious minorities allowed them to function according to their norms and customs and to be judged according to their own systems of religious law, as long as they did not interfere publicly with the Muslim practices or engage in activities that were un-Islamic. However, by the twentieth century this latter condition had been considerably relaxed. Most of the trade in wine and spirits and, indeed, the actual manufacture of alcoholic beverages and other commodities forbidden in Islam, as well as usurious money-lending, was in the hands of Jews or Christians who accumulated great wealth by doing so.

Jews were widely spread throughout the Muslim world. Living mostly in cities or smaller towns, their occupations were chiefly in trade, crafts and other commercial activities. In the Maghreb a sizeable part of the peasantry had been converted to Judaism before the coming of Islam, and some rural Jewish communities existed in the Yemen and the Fertile Crescent.

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Modest Dress and Hijab

The injunction for women to dress modestly has become a stumbling block much focused on in the popular media, whereas it is in fact very natural for a woman to be modest and for men to respect that modesty. The Qur`an says:

O children of Adam! We have indeed sent down to you clothing to cover your shame and [clothing] for beauty and clothing guards [against evil]; that is the best. This is of the messages of Allah that they may be mindful. (7:26)

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Multiple Marriage

Marriage is regarded as a sacred bond reinforced by mutual love, tender feeling and collaboration between man and woman. With time and correct attention the relationship between partners will grow in depth and magnitude. Marital union is usually further bonded by the birth of children.

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Slaves

Slavery in Muslim society originates from the time when Muslims were at war with pagan or primitive peoples. Whoever was captured and spared death was given the chance to discover Islam as the path to knowledge of the Creator. Among the charitable acts of the early community in Medina was the purchase of slaves so as to teach them the Din and eventually set them free. However, like other Islamic practices, this pattern changed considerably to suit the purposes of ignorant people, and in some cases became grounds for abuse.

The idea of slavery did not have the same association for Muslim societies as it did in the countries of North and South America. Slavery under Europeans was based on the total subjugation of slaves without any possibility for change in their status. In Islamic law a slave was given a recognized position. According to that law, a free-born Muslim could not be enslaved, and non-Muslim slaves captured in war or procured by other ways (such as children born of slaves) were to be treated with justice and kindness. It was also considered a highly meritorious act to free them. As a result of these legal provisions the relationship between master and slave was a close one and often continued even after the slave was freed. In many cases a freed slave might marry the master's daughter and conduct his business for him. Numerous Muslim rulers and leaders married women slaves, and many kings and sultans were the product of such wedlock (the Caliph Al-Ma'mun was one), Many of the Shi`i Imams, saints and outstanding Muslim scholars were the sons of slaves.

During Abbasid rule another category of slaves appeared – that of military slaves. These were brought in from central Asia and kept for the sole purpose of protecting the ruler. The Mamluks, who ruled Egypt and Syria from 1250-1517, were soldiers who had been recruited for this purpose, but converted to Islam and were subsequently freed.

In Muslim cities slaves were for the most part domestic servants and concubines. They were also used as eunuchs to guard the women of the noble élite and the more secluded parts of the household. It was quite a common feature in Muslim society to allow a slave to occupy a position of great influence and power, and to be called a slave was not derogatory.

Many Europeans, and Christian and Jewish merchants in the port cities of Italy, France and Greece were engaged in the export of slaves to the Muslim world. During the eighth century the Venetians competed with the Greeks for this trade and were known to have been the main suppliers of eunuchs both to the Byzantine courts and Muslim kingdoms. The trafficking of slaves between Europe and the Muslim world continued from the Middle Ages up until the fifteenth century when the Muslims gained direct access to sources themselves in the Slavic lands. The Ottoman wars in Europe brought large numbers of Christian slaves including Albanians Slavs. Except for isolated instances, the slave trade had died out by the twentieth century.

Present-Day Muslims

The general conditions of life for Muslims in the second half of the twentieth century can only be understood if we consider the totality of all the factors shaping their current situation. One of the most important points is the present geo-political distribution of Muslims. The majority of Muslims live in so-called Muslim states, many of which are Arabic speaking (nearly one-sixth of all Muslims are Arabs) joined together by a powerless political coalition called the Arab League (established in 1945). In 1971 over forty governments with Islam as their declared state religion joined together in an Organization of the Islamic Conference, and by 1992 there were forty-six members of the OIC.

The reality is that Muslim states are continuously embroiled in senseless controversy and even political or military confrontation with each other. There is very little real harmony between them or a common higher objective. Muslims within these states are also divided in a broader sense along ethnic, racial, sectarian and linguistic lines. Sectarianism within the Sunni majority as well as between Sunnis and Shi'is is often exploited. The unifying attributes of Islam – humanity, reasonableness, piety, submission to Allah, knowledge of the Qur`an and way of the Prophet of Allah – are not the primary objectives of Muslim rulers or their state policies. Present-day Muslims are divided by artificial geo-political lines and ruled by puppet kings, sultans and presidents who are allied to or nominated by Western diktat, upon whose advice, technology and economic control they are dependent.

Within these states much official propaganda and discussion about the glory of past Islam is indulged in. Thus we see and hear of Islamic conferences, Islamic parties, Islamic banks and even enforced Islamic codes. As the Islamic sentiment of the masses grows their governments label most of their acts as 'Islamic', without any true spiritual conviction or transformation.

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Islam teaches that it is the community that has to perform all functions of the life-transaction for themselves and by themselves, and not to rely on specialist professionals. In fact, it is a blameworthy act to be paid for teaching religion, reading the Qur`an or even being an undertaker. The community is beholden to serve itself and thereby increase human interaction and interdependence.

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The Future of Islam

... Allah never changes a favor [condition] which He has conferred upon a people until they change what is in their own selves, and surely Allah is Hearing, Knowing.

Qur`an 8:53

The Muslim world, and indeed the rest of the world, has been overcome by the commercial, technological, monetaristic and political dominance of the West. More than a thousand million Muslims are divided into hundreds of economically impoverished, politically and socially divided groups. Whenever a people forget that the purpose of this life is to know the Lifegiver, they become denuded of any creative energy or vitality, spiritual or material.

The rest of the world is also undergoing a similar process of fragmentation and erosion of moral and higher human values. The early power and oppressive dominance of the Church with its superstitious dogmas were finally rendered ineffectual by the scientific and Industrial Revolution, which reduced its power to mere ceremony. Real power went into manufacturing, production, finance and commerce. Until that time, however, commerce had been subservient or married to the Church. Whenever commerce superseded the authority of the Church it was broken, as in the case of the Knights Templar, who were in effect the first European banking system.

By the nineteenth century the power of money and banking had overtaken every other power base. The advent of sophisticated industry, vast supra-national commercial concerns, and the two World Wars of the twentieth century have globalized the power of money. With the crumbling of Communism the cantilever equilibrium of Capitalism has disappeared, and there is no clear political direction for the so-called world leaders. The Church lies defunct, the creative manufacturing period is effectively over, and the hopes aroused by the promise of science and money together solving the human problem have been shattered. In the post Gulf War era, the fragments of atomization of the human situation are evident everywhere. This is the day of reckoning, the day of which the Qur`an says: 'Whither to flee?' (75:10). This is precisely the point where a grassroots awakening to original Islam is most likely, initially on an individual basis, and leading later to collective and societal communities.

In the present world situation there are several factors that will influence the future course of Islam. With the coming of the jet age and satellite communication, the world has indeed become a closely interlinked global entity. The egalitarian advantages of independent civil and municipal services are universally acknowledged. The military is no longer of any consequence as it is subservient to the monetary system. The ultimate decision for the deployment of military force in the West is based on economic factors.

Muslims in the East are beginning to realize the extent of the erosion of both their material and moral inheritance. The rapid rate of population growth in many Muslim countries compounded by increasing literacy and higher education is bound to produce greater awareness and deeper natural connections between Muslims in all parts of the world, in spite of state controls and political barriers.

It is unlikely that Muslim countries will go through the same rational and evolutionary processes of economic union that have taken place in Europe. People themselves will begin to find that they have much in common with other Muslims across the border because Islam does not differentiate between race or color. They will begin to discover the collective strength which they had lost, and will rediscover their true Din. Artificial state borders will be ignored and in time disappear in the same way that the Soviet Union has disintegrated. As the so-called 'Muslim states' become ineffective and redundant, a new system will arise which will be totally different from anything we have experienced to date. It will not be based on a Western-style federation or union, themselves the sophisticated products of a long history of economic rationalization; for while Muslims may have adopted a Western-style civil service and the ideals of democracy, they have no concomitant technological or monetaristic tradition to support these structures. What is more likely to happen is a spontaneous and organic rise of coalitions between people, but not based on a centrally governed state. 'Self-regulating anarchy' may well be the most appropriate description of the early stages of the new order.

Islam will not rise universally in any shape that we can predict because it has never before occurred on a global scale. The world is now so interlinked, however, that Islam will make its impact in a manner which no one can reliably forecast.

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The future of Islam will start, not with some evangelical event, but by simple transformation through suffering and destitution. It will begin with love for true Islam in the hearts of men and women, from which will rise the post-modem Islamic way of life, bubbling out beyond and above state boundaries, selfish regulations, and all other artificial barriers.