Islam Give's Two Concepts Of Life

[nawaz]

Dear All


The foremost essential which a people must determine and define in


law-making is the concept of life. As is the concept of life of a


people so will be its law. Broadly speaking, two concepts of life,


which have come down to us through history, are prevalent today, and


have a direct bearing on the point under discussion.


One concept sees man only as a physical body, endowed somehow with


consciousness, living according to certain chemico-physico-biological


laws and then dying under the operation of these very laws. With his


physical death man, like other animals, ceases to exist. This concept


is known as the materialistic concept of life. Laws or rules of


conduct framed under this concept of life are based on expediency and


admit of no permanent or unchangeable values. Changes, abrogation's,


or amendments in the laws are also governed exclusively by expediency.


Governmental machinery set up by people subscribing to the


materialistic concept of life is called the -Secular- form of


government, whether its pattern is democratic or dictatorial.


There is another concept of life which is propounded by the Holy


Quran. Man, according to the Quranic concept, is a combination of a


physical body, which is changing, changeable and liable to death, and


a Personality which does not change, but develops and is capable of


self-integration and becoming immortal. The aim of life, according to


the Holy Quran, is the development of Personality. Human Personality


is not static but is potentially capable of developing and expanding.


Its development can, however, take place only in a social order called


the Islamic State. The Islamic State provides the ways and means for


the proper development and progress both of Body and Personality.


Since man is according to this concept of life, an integrated


composition of permanence and change, laws governing the social order


wherein his development takes place, should also be a combination of


permanence and change. This point has been elaborated beautifully by


Iqbal in his sixth lecture in the series on the Reconstruction of


Religious Thought in Islam. He says:


The ultimate spiritual basis of all life, as conceived by Islam, is


eternal and reveals itself in variety and change. A society based on


such a conception of Reality must reconcile, in its life, the


categories of permanence and change. It must possess eternal


principles to regulate its collective life; for the eternal gives us a


foothold in the world of perpetual change. But eternal principles when


they are understood to exclude all possibilities of change, which


according to the Quran is one of the greatest signs of God, tend to


immobilise what is essentially mobile in its nature.


Regards


Nawaz


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