A World-Sanctifying Religion

By Abdullah Qutbuddin

In Buddhism and Christianity in the Light of Hinduism Arthur Osborne points out a very important alternative in the attitude of religion to the world: it can either regard the world as hostile and renounce it, or it can regard it as a book of symbols flung abroad by God, manifesting His power and beauty, and seek to harmonise and sanctify it. The former is the attitude of Buddhism and Christianity as enunciated by their founders; the latter is that of Judaism and Islam.

Christ told the rich young man to give his property away to the poor and become a wandering mendicant. His followers were to "render unto Caesar the things that art Caesar's", to pay taxes to an alien, irreligious government and obey its laws. He disappointed the Jews by refusing to lead a revolt against this alien government. His kingdom, he declared, was not of this world. As in every world-renouncing religion, celibacy was prized above marriage. St. Paul sanctioned marriage only as a concession to human weakness. It was much the same in Buddhism. Buddha did not endorse the caste system, but neither did he denounce it. Wholehearted seekers would in any case renounce the world, of which caste was a part, to become monks and celibates, so what did it matter?

The Qur'an, on the other hand, is full of references to the earth and the marvels of it, to mountains and seas, the sun and rain, day and night, beasts and birds, as God's creation and as signs for those who can understand. Nothing of His mercies is to be rejected. Neither monasticism nor celibacy is acceptable. The whole of God's creation is to be accepted, understood, enjoyed, but with purity, without egoism; and thus it will also be sanctified.

Therefore Islam had, from the start, far more need for social, legal and political organisation than Christianity or Buddhism. If the world is to be renounced in any case, why trouble to organise it? Let Caesar do that and pay him his dues, but leave the men of God free to follow their path of renunciation and seek the kingdom which is not of this world. Such could not be the attitude of Islam. Since the world was to be accepted and sanctified, all its relationships must be regulated; and this necessitated a network of civil and criminal law governing domestic, economic, professional and other departments of life.

The word 'Muslim' can be used in two senses. In one sense it can signify any one in any religion who submits to God, as for instance, Abraham, who lived. long before Mohammad, is referred to in the Qur'an as a Muslim. In this sense it would correspond in Hindu terminology to bhakta, one who follows the path of devotion and submission. Normally, however, it is used in the more technical sense of one who accepts and follows the specific religion established by Mohammad with all its religious, moral, social and legal obligations. In this sense it is a complete fusion of bhakti marga and karma marga.

This explains why the early Islamic Empire was so largely due to conquest, why in fact the Prophet and his immediate successors felt the need to challenge and conquer their neighbours. It was not simply a question of intolerance - no one could outdo the early Christians in intolerance once they had the power to persecute the persecution of the Monophysites and other heretics among them, Charlemagne's slaughter of the pagan Saxons, etc. But Christians, having at first no framework of karma marga to their religion, could quietly infiltrate a pagan world, paying their dues to Caesar and regarding their religion as something private between themselves and God. Muslims could not. In order to live an Islamic life as prescribed for them in their Holy Book, it was necessary to belong to an Islamic community governed by Islamic law; and for this they had to be the rulers. They might tolerate non-Muslims within the community (and they did more often than the Christians, though a good deal less than their modern apologists are apt to imply) but the community had to be shaped by Islamic law and tradition administered by Muslim rulers and jurists.

This is important today because it accounts for the dilemma with which Muslims are faced in the modem world. It explains why almost every modern book on Islam devotes so much space to the question of adaptation to modernism, while books on Buddhism and Christianity pass lightly over the subject or find it unnecessary to raise it. The modern world is no more alien or hostile to religion than was the Roman government of Palestine in the time of Christ. Christians, renouncing the unsuccessful Mediaeval attempt to create a Christian social order and make Christianity a world-sanctifying religion, can therefore revert to the attitude of Christ's day, rendering unto Caesar the outer organisation of life and making their religion a private and personal matter. So can Buddhists. But not Muslims.

A Muslim who honestly believes that the modem organisation of social and economic life is superior to the Islamic and that an Islamic state could and should adopt some Western code of law in place of the shari'at has in effect ceased to be a Muslim, just as a Communist who really prefers the capitalist organisation of society has ceased to be a Communist. A Muslim marooned in a modern community, like a Communist in a capitalist society, may have to put up with a social order that he disapproves of, but only reluctantly and with the intention of overthrowing it if it ever becomes possible. Until and unless he does so he cannot lead a fully Islamic life.

If that is the Position of the individual Muslim, what of the Islamic state buffeted by the economic and cultural winds of modernism - an economic system based on the payment of interest, a non-religious educational system, a democratic political system, basing law on the will of the people, not the word of God, a social system based on equality of the sexes? I do not claim to be able to provide a quick or easy answer to a question that is agitating all Islamic governments and writers today, but I do insist that it is not a question of detail, of how many concessions have to be made and what sort, but of principle: whether the Islamic order of life is still held by Muslims to be the best attainable, indeed whether it is still at all viable. If not then the position should be boldly faced and it should be admitted openly that that particular amalgam of bhakti marga and karma marga which was instituted by the Prophet Mohammad has served its purpose and no longer meets the needs of mankind. The answer cannot be a compromise because Islam is based on the Qur'an as firmly as Christianity is on Christ, and the Qur'an expressly denounces those who accept some parts of it and reject others. For those who accept it, it pronounces on questions of law and social behaviour as well as of faith and worship. It lays down, for instance, the procedure for divorce. It says at what age a child shall be weaned. It prescribes cutting off the hand as the punishment for theft. It forbids taking interest on loans, and it insists that it is to be accepted as a whole.

It is still possible to be a Muslim in the vaguer sense of pure bhakti marga, of one who submits to the Divine Will; it is still possible to follow a spiritual path, however uncongenial outer conditions may be; but is it still possible either for an individual or a state to follow the Islamic way of life, sincerely believing it to be the best possible and championing it as such? This is the question with which Muslims are today faced. It can be answered with a 'yes' or a 'no', but it should not be evaded.