In Islām, the world was not created in vain; and neither was man. The purpose for which man was created is the realization of a divine trust which neither heaven and earth nor the angels were capable of realizing. This trust is the realization in space and time of God’s desire. God’s will being realized in nature by necessity, through the workings of natural law, His desire awaited the arrival of man who can realize value morally, that is, freely. Because only man may do so under the open possibility of realizing as well as denying and violating the divine command a pre[re]quisite without which no realization of value would be moral—man is a cosmic bridge through whom the moral law, as God’s eminent desire, may be fulfilled in space-time. The content of divine desire is the highest and final good. It is a pattern into which every part of creation—above all man’s own self—ought to be molded. The moral order of the cosmos is precisely one where the man who realized the pattern is blessed and given his due reward, and he who fails is damned and awarded his due punishment. Salvation then is a man’s own work. Any other kind of salvation must either deny man’s moral freedom and responsibility or expose him to demonization or apotheosis. Man is built of body and soul, each of which is perfectly equipped for its task, the latter to discover the divine pattern and to will it, the former to be instrument, material carrier, and theater for its realization.
The Islāmic imperative is twofold: personal and societal; and it consists of duties to God and duties to man. This notwithstanding, every duty Islām has enjoined aims at the self as well as at the other selves, and it is aimed at once at the service of God as well as of man. None may be exclusively the one or the other. The confession of faith (shahādah) (as solemn acknowledgment of the Islāmic imperative and commitment to its cause), the supreme act of worship (salāt) (as devotion to God and His will), sharing one’s wealth with one’s fellows (zakāt), fasting (ṣawm) (as self-discipline and commiseration), and, lastly, pilgrimage (ḥaij) (as self-identification with Islāmic history and personal and societal stock-taking) constitute “The Five Pillars” or the institutionalized minimum expected of the Muslim in his life on earth. If he is to do more, the Muslim is expected first, to realize the personal values in himself, then to enter into all the processes of history in space-time, whether in the persons of others or in the group life of human societies everywhere, and there to alter the course of every casual chain for the better to bring them to a realization of the divine pattern. His ideal is the felicitous life of the universal brotherhood under the moral law, to whose fate his fate is inextricably attached, not as a passive object of history but rather, as history’s active subject, as the second master of creation.
And when your Lord said to the angels, “I shall create a vicegerent for Myself on earth,” they answered, “Will You plant therein a being who sheds blood and works evil, while we perennially worship You and praise You?” God answered, “I know better; and you do not.” (Qur’ān or Koran, 2:30) We have offered Our trust to heaven and earth and mountain, but they feared and withdrew from undertaking it. Man, however, came forward and assumed it. (33:72) Say: It is God Who established you as His vicegerents on earth and raised some of you higher than others and of different ranks, that, with all that He had endowed you, you may excel one another in the deed. (6:166) O men who believe, if you turn back from your religion . . . if you will not go forth to fight in God’s cause, to obey His command, to realize the divine pattern, He will inflict upon you a painful punishment and will choose in your stead a people other than you who will not be irresponsive like you, who will love Him and whom He will love . . . who will strive in His cause fearful of nothing. (5:55; 9:40) O God, You have not created all this in vain. (3:191) We have not created heaven and earth and all that is between in idle sport. . . . Rather, that truth and goodness may be hurled against falsehood and evil; that the latter may be crushed and disappear. (21:16) Teach and remind (man, O Muḥammad) for teaching does benefit the believers that I have not created man and jinn (spiritual beings between angels and men) except to serve Me. (51: 55–56) God has covenanted away paradise to the believers for what they spend of their lives and property in His cause; . . . a true covenant proclaimed in the Torah, the Evangel and the Qur’ān. Who is truer to his covenant than God? Look forward therefore to the consummation of this covenant in which you have entered. (9:111) Every man, We have entrusted with his own destiny. On the Day of Judgment, We shall enroll for him the record of his own deeds and say, “Read it yourself! And you be the judge thereof.” (17:13–14)
We have created man out of a substance of clay. We then transformed him into a small organism, and this we have made into a clot, then into a tissue, and then into bones. We covered the bones with flesh. Then We caused him to become a new creature. Blessed is God, the best Creator. . . . Who created everything at its best. . . . Who well-formed man and breathed into him of His own spirit, Who gave man his hearing, his sight, and his faculties of knowledge. (23:12–14; 32:9) It is He Who creates you out of clay . . . brings you out as a child, causes you to grow to full maturity, then to grow old, some to die sooner, others to reach an appointed time, that you may consider. O men! Fear your Lord, Who created you all of one soul, Who created woman therefrom, as well as all the men and women that ever lived. (40:67; 4:1) It is He Who created you all out of one man, Who created out of him his female partner, that he may find rest in her. (7:189) O men! We have created you from male and female, constituted you into diverse peoples and nations that you may know and cooperate with one another. The best among you in the eye of God is the most pious, the most virtuous. (49:13) We have created man to strive and to struggle. . . . Have We not given him his eyes, his tongue and lips, and shown him the two ways of good and evil? (90:4–10) Man was created impatient; he panics at the fall of evil and proudly withdraws unto himself at the fall of good; except those who steadfastly pray, who recognize the right of the destitute and deprived, who believe in the Day of Judgment . . . who maintain their chastity remain true to their trust and covenant and fulfill their testimony. (70:19–33)
We commanded the angels to submit and to serve Adam, and they complied except Iblīs (or Satan), who refused and took to pride. . . . We told Adam and his spouse to live in Paradise, to eat happily of its fruits except that tree, which would make them unrighteous. Satan caused them to slip and drove them out of their state. We said, “Go forth, some of your enemies of others, and inhabit the earth for a limited time.” Adam then received a revelation in words from his Lord. He repented and was forgiven. God always listens to the repentant voice. (2:34–37)
God said to the angels, “I am about to create man . . . and when I complete his fashioning and breathe into him of My spirit, submit yourselves to him. All the angels did submit except Iblīs who refused . . . and incurred eternal damnation. (15:28–35) And having taught Adam all the names (i.e., natures) of things, God asked the angels to tell the names. . . . They replied, “Glory to You! We have no knowledge other than what you taught us.” . . . God then asked Adam, and Adam told the names. (2:31–33) We have favored the sons of man, provided transportation for them on land and sea, granted them the good things of the world and many significant privileges which We did not accord to many of Our other creatures. (17:70) Do you not realize that God has made what is in heaven and on earth subservient to you, and has accorded to you blessings hidden and apparent? . . . that He has made even the sun and the moon subservient to you? (31:20–29) God has made the sea subservient to you, that you may set sail through it and seek His bounty . . . every thing in heaven and earth He made subservient to you. (45:12) He made the rivers subservient to you, the constantly rising and setting sun and moon, the alternating night and day and He granted to you everything which you have asked of Him. Were you to count His favors, you would find them innumerable. (14:32–34)
a. The Five Pillars or the Institutionalized Minimum
(1) Confession (shahādah). God witnesses that there is no god but He; that He is righteous; that none is God but He, the Wise and Omnipotent; and so do the angels and men of knowledge. (3:18) God Himself witnesses to the veracity of what has been revealed to you, O Muḥammad. For that was revealed in His full knowledge. And so do the angels witness. (4:165) Say: We believe in God, in that which was revealed among us, in that which was revealed to Ibrahim (Abraham), Isma’īl (Ishmael), lsḥaq (Isaac), Ya’qūb (Jacob), and his children, in what was revealed to Mūsā (Moses), Īsā (Jesus), and all the prophets. We make no difference between them. To God we submit ourselves. (2:136)
(2) Prayer (ṣalāt). Establish the prayers. Command your people to hold the prayers. . . . Those truly believe in Our revelation who fall to the ground in worshipful prostration whenever the revelation is remembered to them, and humbly praise their Lord. (29:45; 20:132; 32:15) Proclaim good tidings . . . to those who establish the prayers . . . whenever We establish their authority in the world. Felicitous are the believers who hold the prayers and do so reverently. . . . Prayer forbids evil and debauchery. (22:3441; 23:1–2; 29:45) O you who believe! When you ready yourselves for prayer, wash your faces and arms to the elbows, wipe your heads and your feet to the ankles. In case you are impure, then bathe yourselves; and if sick, on a journey, or you have answered a call of nature or touched women and you find no water, then take clean sand and wipe your hands and faces clean therewith. God does not wish to make things difficult for you but only to help you become clean and to complete His favor unto you. (5:7) Do not come to prayer while in a state of drunkenness, but refrain until you can clearly cognize what you recite. (4:43) Woe to those who are in a state of distraction while they pray, to those who feign piety. (107:4) Do not raise your voice in prayer, nor make it inaudible but follow a mean between the two ways. (17:110) And when you travel over the earth, or fear that the unbelievers may attack you by surprise, it is not blameworthy for you to shorten your prayers. (4:101) When the call to prayer is made on Friday, hurry thereto and put away your business. That is better for you. . . . But when the prayer is done, strike out into the world and seek God’s bounty. (62:9–10) Righteousness does not consist in turning your faces east or west (i.e., merely in prayer). Rather, it consists of faith in God, in the Day of Judgment, in His angels, Books, and prophets, in giving lovingly of one’s wealth to relative and orphan, to the destitute, the deprived, and the wayfarer, in spending freely for ransoming the slave. It consists in the payment of zakāt, fulfillment of trusts and covenants made, in firmness through misfortune and adversity. . . . Such men as do these things are the righteous (2:177)
(3) Sharing of wealth (zakāt). Establish the prayers and pay the zakāt. (2:43) My servants are those who . . . give of what We have provided them. (14:31) You will not achieve righteousness unless you give of that which you cherish. (3:92) Give to the relative, the destitute, and the wayfarer, to each his due. But do not squander your wealth away. Those who do are brothers of Satan. . . . Do not hold your hand so tight as to choke thereby, nor extend it all the way and thus become destitute yourself. (17: 26–30) A kind speech and forgiveness are better than charity followed by harm. . . . Do not nullify your charity by showing off your generosity or by allowing injury to follow it. (2:263)
(4) Fasting (ṣawn) O you who believe! Fasting is ordained for you, as it was ordained for those who went before you, that you may become virtuous. Fasting is for a set number of days. However, those who are sick or on a journey should make up the days later on; or, if they can afford it, by feeding a destitute man. To volunteer in this however is better, and to fast is better still. . . . God wants your well-being, not your discomfort. . . . Go to your women eat and drink until dawn, when the white thread is discernible from the black, then complete your fast until night. (2:183)
(5) Pilgrimage (ḥaij). And we have made the House of God a place of assembly and a place of safety for the people. Make then of the house Ibrahim built a place of prayer for We entrusted it to Ibrahim and to lsma’il before you, to keep it pure and open for pilgrimage and prayer. (2:125) The first house to be built for man’s worship of God is the blessed house in lsakkah (i.e., Makkah or Mecca), a guidance for mankind. It is man’s duty to God to make the Pilgrimage to the house if such is in his Power. (3:96–97) Pilgrimage is during months well-known. Whoever undertakes it shall avoid all obscenity, all wickedness, and all wrangling. (2:197)
b. Moral Freedom and Responsibility
Whoever wills to believe, or to disbelieve, does so of his own accord. (18:29) God does not require of any person except that of which he is capable. (23:62) God does not change the situation of any group of men until they transform their own selves. (13:11) Do not ask anyone to bear the burden of another. (17:15) God commits no injustice to anyone. It is to themselves that men are unjust. Say: O men, the truth has come to you from your Lord. Whoever accepts this guidance does so to his own merit and whoever errs does so to his own demerit. . . . Teach the Qur’ān, that man may learn that it is by his own deeds that he delivers himself to ruin. . . . Whatever man has earned, he will certainly be given. (10:44; 6:70; 53:40)
c. Ethical Striving
God Commands that justice be done, that man should act in charity and contribute to the welfare of the relative. He forbids adultery, wickedness, and rebellion. . . . Fulfill the covenant of God, now that you have entered therein, and do not repudiate your solemn promises of which you made God guarantor. . . . Do not take your oaths as means of deceiving one another. . . . Do not sell away God’s covenant. That which is with God is better for you, if you only know. What you have is temporary; what God has is eternal. . . . Whether man or woman, whoever does the good in faith, We shall cause him or her to live a good life rewarding him or her with better rewards than he or she had deserved. (16:90–97) Your Lord commands . . . kindness to parents. . . . Do not show them any sign of disrespect however small and do not speak harshly to them but kindly. Humble yourself to them in love and pray: May God have mercy on them as they nursed me when young. . . . Even if you have to avoid them on account of your fulfillment of God’s call, give them a kind and compassionate explanation. . . . Do not kill any man—that is God’s prohibition—except after due process of law. Whoever is killed unjustly, to his heir a right of revenge is established. But he may not kill wantonly, for his right shall be recognized. Do not touch the wealth of the orphan unless it be to increase it, until the orphan comes of age. Be true to your covenants, for to covenant is a serious and responsible affair. Fill the measure when you measure, and weigh with the true weight; that is better and more rewarding. Do not pursue that of which you have no knowledge; and remember that your hearing, sight, and heart, as cognitive faculties, were given to you for a responsible function. Do not walk around with impudence and false pride for you will never be a match either to earth or to mountain. (17:23–37) Those believers are felicitous who refrain from gossip . . . and guard their chastity except against their spouses. (23:1–6) The servants of the Merciful are those who tread softly on this earth who say “Peace” when the ignorant contend with them . . . who repent, believe, and do the good. God forgives their past misdeeds and counts their good deeds. They are those who never give a false oath; who pass the gossip of men gently by, who do not fall blindly and overhastily over their Lord’s revelations when these are brought to their mind. (25:63–74) Those who believe and rely on their Lord . . . are those who forgive the trespasses of others even in anger . . . and resist victoriously the temptations of evil and rebellion. Punishment for an injury is an equal injury but whoever forgives and reconciles has his merit with God. God does not love the unjust, and whoever avenges the injustice he suffered does so legitimately. Lawlessness is on the side of those who act unjustly, who inflict injuries on the people without right. Theirs will be a painful suffering in the hereafter. Nonetheless, those who bear patiently and forgive are truly endowed with greatness. (42:3643) Tell My servants that they should always stand by the kindlier alternative. (17:53) Never will the good deed be the equivalent of an evil one. Respond, therefore, always with the better deed and you will find that your enemy immediately becomes your closest friend. Only the patient are capable of this, and they are of great fortune. (41: 34–35) Let no people speak contemptuously of another people, or woman of another woman. . . . Do not tease one another with offensive nicknames and titles; that is unbecoming of you after you have entered the faith. Avoid indulgence in doubt or suspicion, for even a little of it is a crime. Do not spy on one another. Do not speak ill of one another in the person’s absence. (49:11–12) Do not turn the other cheek in abjection, and do not take to false pride. . . . Observe prayer, enjoin the good and forbid evil and endure with patience whatever may befall you. To do so belongs to great character. Let your walk be serious, and your voice be gentle. Remember the ugliest voice is that of the donkey because it is the loudest. (31:17–18) God will surely bring victory to those who . . . if established on earth will hold the prayers, pay the zakāt, enjoin the good and forbid evil. (22:39–41) Let there be of you a people who enjoin the good and forbid the doing of evil. Such people are the felicitous. (3:104)
If man moves from contemplation of the beauty of the cosmos, expression of his gratitude for being placed therein, for his capacity to penetrate it with his mind and to enjoy it, to the consideration of his place as man in that cosmos, then will he be seized with the majesty of divine perfection and his will to moral perfection will begin to stir. While his tongue invokes and praises God, his heart will ponder, in fear and in hope, that “O God! Surely You have not created all this in vain. Glory be to you!” (Qur’ān, 3:191) Thus, those who combine thought with remembrance express their achievement of the two virtues, their synthesis of the two requisites, in the thought that God has not created all the heavenly and earthly bodies in vain, that He has not completed and perfected them all, as it were in sport. His transcendence and glory demand that we think of Him as standing above vanity and sport, as assigning to every creature its proper nature, role, and place in the cosmos. For He does not undo what He has done, and He Himself is eternal. As creatures in the cosmos, we too could not have been created in vain; nor could our presence in creation come finally to nought. Our bodies may disintegrate and our parts may dissolve after death. But that is merely the corruption of the corruptible in us. “Your holy face,” we may say to God in praise and gratitude, “that which remains in us of Your eternal knowledge (that is, our human soul as subject of knowledge of the divine) will by Your power come back for another life, just as You have brought it the first time in this life on earth. Then will you divide men into those whose earthly life was one of true guidance and those whose life was one of error and misguidance; the former to enter paradise for their works and Your grace, the others to enter hell for their works and Your justice. . . .
That God has not created the cosmos in vain means that the greatness, perfection, and sublimity of everything therein could not have been meant merely to run their short course and pass into eternal oblivion. Man, who was endowed with a mind capable of perceiving this truth and appreciating this sublimity and whose predilection for this knows no bounds, could not have been created merely for this brief span between two eternal “nothings.” Rather, man was so endowed and perfected that he may live an eternal life, a life in which each receives the reward of his deeds. (Muḥammad Rashīd Riḍā [d. 1935], Tafsīr al Qur’ān al Karim [Exegesis of the Holy Qur’ān], vol. 4, pp. 299–301)
Know, that all men are instances of manliness . . . that manliness is synonymous with being naturally capable of ethical action . . . and, hence, with being God’s vicegerent on earth. That is the element common to all humanity.
Know, O Brother, that man’s imperfect soul has been attached to his imperfect body that the soul’s virtues may be realized, that its potentialities of goodness and felicity may be fulfilled, just as the revelation of God’s existence, mercy, grace, beneficence, providence, and wise government are impossible without His creation of this great, well-ordered cosmos and all that it contains.
What is the purpose of the instincts built into man’s nature? It is to stir the person to seek what benefits his body and to avoid what injures it, to discover and to learn the deeds and habits which lead to its advantage and disadvantage.
Know . . . that since man is composed of the four elements (Earth, Water, Air, and Fire), and these give him his four temperaments (respectively, the hard, the cold, the humid, and the fiery), the wise and praise worthy Creator made his activities and affairs to correspond to these innate elements, that he may be helped by them to achieve the objective of each. Thus we find that some of his deeds are innate; others are psychic and voluntary; others are of the nature and thought and intellect; and others are political and pertain to the law. Know . . . that nature is a servant to the animal soul and precedes it, that the animal soul is servant to reason and precedes it, that reason is servant of al Nāmūs (the Law) and precedes it. For, after nature has implanted a habit and ingrained it in a person, the soul deliberately stirs it into activity and enables it to achieve its objective. Here, reason comes with its deliberation and criticism to guide the soul and help it to realize itself through the satisfaction of these habits. Then the law, with its commandments, rectifies and redresses these pursuits so that when an instinct realizes itself as it ought, under the circumstances that it ought, and for the purpose that it ought, it would be good and otherwise evil; that when man allows and pursues such realization as he ought, under the circumstances that he ought and for the purpose that he ought, he would be virtuous and praiseworthy, and otherwise vicious and blameworthy; and that when man’s choice and volition are the result of rational deliberation and critique, then he is wise, philosophic, and virtuous and otherwise ignorant, plebeian, and crude, and that when man’s deeds, volition, choice, and thought are commanded by the law, and performed as they ought, then he would be rewarded and praised and otherwise punished and blamed.
Know . . . that in ordering the various souls of man (i.e., the elemental, vegetal, animal, rational, etc.), God linked them together so that the higher may assist the lower to realize itself as well as to rise to the higher rank. Thus, the vegetal soul stands in an order lower than the animal which it serves; the human, speaking soul stands in an order lower than the rational, wisdom-seeking soul which it serves; the rational soul in an order lower than the law-pursuing soul which it serves; and, finally, the law-pursuing soul stands under the Divine Essence which it serves.
I considered, investigated, thought, and re-examined. Then I found the true meaning of Satan and of his numerous soldiers, of their enmity and evil inspiration to man. Satan and his host are nothing but internal forces, innate and hence “hidden” powers, built into mankind. They are the immoral pursuits, the blameful habits perpetuated since youth and enhanced by ignorance, by accumulated false opinions and repeated evil and shameless deeds. They are the commonplace passions gone berserk and excessive, usually attributed to the irascible animal soul.
Furthermore, I found that all the virtuous deeds and moral acts are those which proceed from the rational, speaking soul on account of its true opinion and perfect convictions. But I found that such opinions, convictions, and all the habits which realize them proceed from an ethos of the soul acquired and developed by learning and thinking and such just temperaments as are innate to the rational nature of man. . . . Then I understood the saying of the Prophet on his victorious return from the battlefield, “Now we have returned from the lesser struggle to the greater one” [i.e., from the struggle against the external, conspicuous enemy to one internal to and hidden within man].
. . . Thus I learned that if I sought my Lord’s help, rolled up my sleeves, exerted myself, and opposed the passions of my irascible and animal soul and warred against all those enemies within which run counter to the purposes and principles of my rational soul, I would vanquish them with His power. Then, commanding them as my servants and slaves, I would put them to work at the service of my rational soul and enable her to perform her good deeds and moral acts, to proclaim its true knowledge and certain convictions and to fulfill its beauteous ethos.
But then . . . looking deep within myself, . . . I found my nature composed of various, mutually conflicting elements, of firebrand passions imbedded in sulphuric bodies . . . whose flames are inextinguishable—like the huge waves of the sea that sweep everything before them; hunger bestirs eternally to make me fall on its object like a starved wolf; the fire of my ambition and anger would fain consume the world, that of my pride regards myself as the best of all and mankind as my slaves and agents whose necessary and sole duty is to obey me. . . . Its desire to recreation makes of myself a mad, drunken god; its love of praise, the most virtuous and worthiest of all; its passion for vengeance weighs on it like a tremendous mountain. . . . Looking closer at this self of mine, I have found that it is all raging flames and inextinguishable fire, perpetual fighting and war between irreconcilable elements, incurable disease, unabatable anxiety, struggle incessant—except in death. (Ikhwān al Ṣafā wa Khillan al Ṣafā [The Brethren of Purity and Friends of Fidelity, anonymous encyclopaedists and philosophers of the eleventh and twelth centuries], Rasā’ il Ikhwān al Ṣafā [Epistles of khwān al Ṣafā], vol. 2, pp. 306, 318–320; vol. 3, pp. 364–369)
There is no man in the whole world, from its beginning to its end, who approves of anxiety and calls it good, and who does not seek to dissipate it. When I understood this general principle well, it appeared as if I had come by God’s guidance upon a wonderful discovery. I then began to search for the way to banish anxiety, which is the objective of all men whether ignorant or refined, noble or ignoble. I found it only in the total orientation to God through works conducive to Paradise. (Ibn Ḥazm, Kitāb al Akhlāq al Siyar fi Mudāwāt al Nufūs [Book of ethics and conduct for the curing of souls], pp. 10–11).
Passion, or man’s inclination by nature to that which accords with him, was created in man on account of its necessity for survival. Were it not for his passion for food, drink, and sex, man would have neither eaten, drunk, nor procreated himself. Passion moves him to seek that which he desires, just as antipathy moves him to remove that which he avers. By itself, therefore, neither passion nor its Opposite is to be either commended or condemned. What is so is the excessive satisfaction of either. Most men, however, are excessivists in this regard. They pursue their passion or antipathy for objects of desire and aversion beyond the legitimate point of useful advantage for their persons as wholes. That is why passion is more often condemned than praised. . . . Only few men are so just in their natures as to use their passions appropriately. (lbn al Qayyim al Jawziyyah, Rawḍat al Muḥibbin wa Nuzhat al Mushtāquīn [Garden of the loving and recreation of the longing], pp. 321, 463–479).
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From The Great Asian Religions, edited and compiled by Wing-tsit Chan, Isma’īl Rāgī al Fārūqī, Joseph M. Kitagawa, and P.T. Raju, pp. 346–353. Copyright © Macmillan 1969. Text edited.