Q299 :Would you please explain the relevance of
Islam in our time? Or may I phrase my question differently and ask
whether Muslims would have been worse off had they not been practicing
Muslims? May I also ask why Allah had deemed it fit to declare that
Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) is the last messenger.
A299 : To ask whether Islam is relevant to human
life in our modern time is to ask whether man needs divine guidance or
not. If we relate this question to a specific period in time, when we
suppose that divine guidance might have been suitable or needed at a
particular stage but, with human development and advancement, man may
nete to a stage when he is no longer in need of such guidance. To prove
this, we need to examine various human situations and see how human
society fares if it follows divine guidance and what may happen to it
if it considers such guidance irrelevant. Fortunately, examples abound.
Ever since the Industrial Revolution, Europe and American societies
have moved away from religion and decided that religion had no place in
shaping human life. In the West, the capitalist system emphasized the
freedom of the individual and considered faith and worship personal
matters which might remain isolated from the political and economic
fields. The sphere of influence of religion was further reduced, so as
to banish it altogether from the social order. What results do we see
there? In the West, where democracy has ensured a genuine chance for
people to replace their government, we see a frequently changing cycle,
with the electorate deciding to change directions every few years.
Thus, a right-wing government is replaced by a left-wing one, which is
replaced a few years later by another right-wing government. An
economic problem of rising inflation is succeeded by a more acute
problem of rising unemployment. Money supply is tightened or relaxed as
fits the outlook of the government in power which is bound to rely on
support from either the business netmunity or trade unions. It may be
argued that there is enough flexibility in the system to tolerate such
changes and allow the people to choose the direction in which they wish
to go. While this is true and the flexibility is netmendable in
principle, the frequency of change and the rapid cycle of rising
unemployment following close on the heels of sharp inflation causes a
great deal of suffering. It is often the case that the government of
the day wants to appease its own constituency, be it big business or
powerful trade unions. Therefore, the measures it takes and the
legislation it enacts seldom take the interest of the whole netmunity
into consideration. Rarely a piece of legislation is calculated to
serve the netmunity as a whole. The people face a dilemma which they
try to solve by voting an unpopular government out of power and
replacing it with a government which soon loses popularity. In Britain,
for example, it is always expected that any by-election which takes
place in the second or third year of the life of a parliament would go
against the government in power. This phenomenon is known as “protest
vote” against the government. As the time for general elections
approaches, the government in power starts to take popular measures in
order to try to win the next elections. There is no doubt that the
most important achievement of Western civilization is the importance it
attaches to the freedom of the individual. Over the years, this has
brought up the best in people. Freedom is certainly necessary for man
to allow his talents and skills to have full play and to yield their
best fruit. One cannot but admire the principle of freedom which is
valued so highly in the West. However, Western societies have erred in
giving little to discipline which should run side by side with personal
freedom. Thus, moral values have been allowed to lose their grip on
people’s conduct and the concept of unrestrained social behavior was
given full sway. One of the results of such philosophy was the
permissiveness which was given in the sixties of this century the title
of the “sexual revolution”. A by-product of this permissiveness was the
spread of wanton, permissive and perverted sexual behavior which has
increased the incidence of sexually transmitted diseases, the most
recent of which is AIDS. In the Eastern bloc, netmunism has ruled for
over 70 years in the Soviet Union and for nearly half a century in
other East European countries. In these countries, people lived under
ruthless dictatorships with little or no hope of ever enjoying the type
of personal freedom every human being yearns for. When we netpare the
capitalist system of the West with the netmunism of the East, from the
point of view of the material well-being of society, we find that
netmunism has allowed members of the party and top officials in the
government to get a large share of the nation’s wealth and imposed a
life of poverty and deprivation on the rest of the population. One of
the most flagrant examples was that of the Romanian dictator,
Ceausescu, who led a life emperors would be shy to contemplate while
his nation suffered from starvation. The bankruptcy of netmunism has
been made so obvious for all people to see, once the process of reform
was allowed to operate. On the other hand, capitalism allows people to
enjoy the fruits of their efforts but its financial system, which is
based on usury, is geared to allow the rich to be better off and gives
the poor little chance of improving their lot. Because of the widening
gap between the rich and the poor in capitalist society, it was
necessary for capitalist countries to introduce a system of social
security which offers housing subsidies and health insurance to people
of low innete. It must be said, however, that none of these benefits
could be gained without hard struggle. It is such examples that
explain to us the relevance of divine guidance in our age and indeed,
in every period of human society. Allah has provided us with guidance
which does not shackle us so as to prevent our advancement, but keeps
us on the route to progress while ensuring a respectable standard of
living for every one. Moreover, it is balanced between our material and
spiritual needs. It allows a disciplined and responsible sort of
personal freedom which allows man’s talents to flourish but gives them
the right guidance which ensures that they work for the betterment of
man as the creature Allah has chosen to be in charge of building life
on earth. Without divine guidance, man is likely to go astray, erring
in the side of spiritualism or materialism. When one of these two
elements is overemphasized at the expense of the other, the result is
human sufferings. You ask whether Muslims would have been worse off
had they not been practicing Islam. The answer is two-fold. First,
generally speaking, Muslims implement Islam only partially today.
Indeed, only a small part of Islam is implemented in the lives of
Muslims. Nevertheless, they would have been much worse off without such
partial implementation. Secondly, if Muslims were to lead a truly
Islamic life, they would indeed be much better off, not only
spiritually but also materially. Allah’s promise to humanity will
always nete true. If human beings were to implement divine guidance,
Allah would grant them abundance of every good thing in life. This
promise is repeated several times in the Qur’an. We need not have
anything in addition to that in order to believe that the
implementation of Islam will result in prosperity and happiness.
Allah’s promise always netes true. All prophets preached essentially
the same message to their nations. Allah has willed, however, to bring
His message in its fullness and to address it to all mankind. He has
sent Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) as His messenger to convey
this message to mankind. He has guaranteed that the message will be
preserved intact, free from distortion, for the rest of time. It was
necessary, therefore, to make it clear to all people that the Prophet
was the last messenger so that no one can claim to be a new prophet or
to have any new message. Moreover, our knowledge that Muhammad (peace
be upon him) was Allah’s last messenger reassures us that when we
follow his guidance, we are certain of our grounds. We will certainly
achieve happiness and earn Allah’s pleasure.
Our Dialogue ( Source : Arab News – Jeddah )