MAN’S superiority over all creatures lies in his faculty of creative knowledge, which the heavens, despite their heights, the mountains, despite their firmness, and the earth, despite its vastness, refused to take on (Quran 33:72). This points to the faculty to discern the properties of things and give them ‘names’ (2:31). This is man’s inherent capability to unravel the mysteries of the universe and employ the same for his mastery over nature. Thus his mastery of the universe was a foregone conclusion. What matters most is to wield this mastery responsibly, for knowledge is a double-edged sword, prone to be used both for salutary and destructive ends.

Therefore, man’s real test lies in ‘mastering’ that mastery of the universe. So, ‘al-amana’ or the ‘trust’ which the universe trembled to bear, according to late Islamic scholar and thinker Fazlur Rahman, was to discover the laws of, and thus achieve mastery over, nature or in the Quranic terminology, to know the ‘names’ of all things and then use this mastery — under the human initiative — to create a positive world order.

To the Quran, all knowledge — intellectual, scientific or intuitive — comes from God. It sets high value on knowledge and excludes no category of learning whatsoever, with the overriding principle that this knowledge should be utilised through proper and constructive channels. Man’s essential task is to reconstruct a scientific picture of the objective reality and employ the same to create a healthy moral order. So, to engage in scientific pursuit without harnessing it for the creation of a just moral order — to know the ‘names’ without utilising them — would be, in the words of the Quran, ‘abath’ or a vain, dangerous, indeed Satanic pursuit.

Pristine Islam combined metaphysics and social reality — the Holy Prophet’s (PBUH) religious experience concerned both monotheism and socioeconomic justice. With an inherent symbiotic relationship, both monotheism and socioeconomic reforms assume fusion and flow like a seamless singular stream from the inner unity of the Quran and the immaculate conduct of the Prophet. Closer examination reveals that it was not monotheism but rather its entailing social reforms that invoked a vehement reaction from the Makkan oligarchy for they were least bothered by the monotheism of the Hanifs — certain Makkans who arrived at monotheism through self-deliberation — not linked with social reforms.

Islam combined metaphysics and social reality.

Islam, unlike the ancient world, combined metaphysics and social reality. Earlier, the streams of pure intellect and transcendentalism had flowed independently despite the coexistence of Jews and Greeks for a considerable period of time at Alexandria. To Christianity, excepting the gospels, everything was futile. Islam focused on the fusion of religious and positive knowledge; it made history a field of divine activity to objectify moral values. The Quran inspired Muslims to pursue all branches of knowledge irrespective of the dichotomy of the sacred and the profane and to utilise the same for the benefit of mankind.

Born out of a violent break with its past, the modern West will seek no negotiation with any spiritual system or moral ideology. In such a situation, what else but the Quran can steer the world out of its crisis? For Islam was the only genuine movement in history which ethically ‘oriented’ the raw materials of history rather than compromised with them under the convenient cover of secularism. Later, vested interests broke the fusion of metaphysics and social reality. Orthodoxy’s nexus with dictators led to the dichotomy of state and religion, while many Sufis’ neutr­ality to social phenomena triggered ‘personal-ism’ at the cost of collectivism. Ever since, orthodox religious knowledge is quarantined in the ma­­dressah, having no organic link with the positive knowledge of the external world.

The world of Islam in contradistinction to the ‘material’ West and the ‘spiritual’ East stands as a ‘gold median community’ (2:143) tasked with arbitrating their conflicts. On this premise, Iqbal has said: “Although we [Muslims] are coiled up in ourselves like a bud; should we perish, the whole garden [of the world] must perish.”

Dr Fazlur Rahman similarly challenged the West along the lines that you can ignore the law of gravity but Islam cannot be ignored. Muslims have become prisoners of the past and if they do not take the initiative to rediscover Islam, their future is bleak.

Muslims owe it to themselves and to the world at large to recover the fusion of moral values and social phenomena by the crystal-clear Weltanschauung of the Quran. This would be a potent step for them to assume the steering wheel of history. For how long must the Muslim faith remain in the grip of the past?

The writer is an academic.

Published in Dawn, November 8th, 2024