Dear All
Islam is a code of laws revealed by God, through his Messenger
Muhammad peace be upon him, for the guidance of the whole of mankind,
and which are fully preserved in the Book of God, known as the Quran;
and they constitute what we may call the Permanent Values. Further,
Islam emphatically and confidently advances the claim that if life is
led in full compliance with and in complete subordination to the
Permanent Values, it will be rid of all the travails and troubles in
which the entire world of the present day finds itself beset
condemning humanity to a hellish life despite the wonderful and
awe-inspiring material and scientific advancement. The order of life
according to these Permanent Values is termed as the Quranic Social
Order or in other words the Islamic State. It requires however to be
made clear that even the order of life established by the so-called
Muslims would not necessarily be the Islamic State as such, for the
Islamic State connotes only that State which is based on, and is in
the fullest consonance with the Permanent Values; and any other
lacking in this foundation, will be only un-Islamic, established
though it may have been by the Muslims themselves. An Islamic State
is thus an agency for the enforcement of Quranic injunctions and laws
made in the light of the principles enunciated therein.
It should not, however be misunderstood that the laws thus framed are
rigid and hidebound with hardly any scope for progress or wanting in
meting out the exigencies of the ever-changing conditions of life in
the progressive world. In fact the Islamic State is fully authorized,
after mutual consultations to legislate within the framework of the
Permanent Values, to provide for the needs of the time and the body of
laws thus promulgated could be altered and amended when necessary to
suit the circumstances prevailing at a given time with this essential
provison that in no circumstance shall the framework of the Permanent
Values be disturbed or interfered with. From this point of view the
Islamic State may be considered as a controlled democracy which is
quite distinct in character from the concept of democracy commonly
prevalent in the West for in that system the nation or its
representatives enjoy an unlimited power of legislation. This would
provide a check on the apprehension of Ouspensky who once cited
Gurdjieff in support of his views when he declared that: If a man is
changing every minute if there is nothing in him that can withstand
external influences, it means that there is nothing in him that can
withstand death. But if he becomes independent of external influences,
if there appears in him something that can live by itself; this
something may not die. In ordinary circumstances we die every moment.
External influences change and we change with them. If a man develops
in himself a permanent "I" that can survive a change in external
conditions, it can survive the death of the physical body.
Regards
Nawaz