Qutb Social Justice in Islam

1. Auflage 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4835-5709-0
Verlag: BookBaby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 352 Seiten

'Social Justice in Islam' is perhaps the best known work of Sayyib Qutb, a leading figure in the Muslim Brethen of Egypt who was executed by the regime of 'Abd al-Nasr in 1966. Despite the years that have passed since Sayyid Qutb's death, the imprint of his thought on the contemporary Islamic movements of the Arab world remains profound. The Arabic original of 'Social Justice in Islam' was first published in 1949, but this book in particular retains its relevance in many respects: the persistence of gross socio-economic inequality in most Muslim societies; the need for viewing Islam as a totality, imperatively demanding comprehensive implementation; and the depiction of the West as a neo-Crusading force.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Qutb, Sayyid

Weitere Mitwirkende

Algar, Hamid

Leseproben

1   RELIGION AND SOCIETY
IN CHRISTIANITY AND IN ISLAM In the world of economics an individual who has private means does not resort to borrowing before he has examined his means to see what resources he has there; nor does a government resort to importing until it has scrutinized its native resources and examined its raw materials and their potential. And so in the case of spiritual resources, intellectual capabilities, and moral and ethical traditions—are not these things on the same level as goods or money in human life? Apparently not; for here in Egypt and in the Muslim world as a whole, we pay little heed to our native spiritual resources and our own intellectual heritage; instead, we think first of importing foreign principles and methods, or borrowing customs and laws from across the deserts and from beyond the seas. We have only to look in order to see that our social situation is as bad as it can be; it is apparent that our social conditions have no possible relation to justice; and so we turn our eyes to Europe, America, or Russia, and we expect to import from there solutions to our problems, just as from them we import goods for our industrial livelihood. With this difference—that in industrial importing we first examine the goods which are already on our markets, and we estimate our own ability to produce them. But when it is a matter of importing principles and customs and laws, we do no such thing; we continually cast aside all our own spiritual heritage, all our intellectual endowment, and all the solutions which might well be revealed by a glance at these things; we cast aside our own fundamental principles and doctrines, and we bring in those of democracy, or socialism, or communism. It is to these that we look for a solution of our social problems, although our circumstances, our history, and the very bases of our life-material, intellectual, and spiritual alike-are quite out of keeping with the circumstances of people across the deserts and beyond the seas. At the same time we profess Islam as a state religion, we claim in all sincerity to be true Muslims—if indeed we do not claim to be the guardians and propagators of Islam. Yet we have divorced our faith from our practical life, condemning it to remain in ideal isolation, with no jurisdiction over life, no connection with its affairs, and no remedy for its problems. For, as the popular saying goes, “Religion concerns only a man and his God.” But as for ordinary relationships, the bonds of society and the problems of life, and political or economic theory—religion has nothing to do with these things, nor they with it; such is the view of those who are not actively hostile to religion. As for the others, their reaction is: Make no mention of religion here; it is nothing but an opiate employed by plutocrats and despots to drug the working classes and to paralyze the unfortunate masses. How have we arrived at this strange view of the nature and the history of Islam? We have imported it, as we import everything, from across the deserts and beyond the seas. For certainly the fable of a divorce between faith and life did not grow up in the Muslim East, nor does Islam know of it; and the myth that religion is but a drug to the senses was not born of this faith at any time, nor does the nature of the faith even sanction it. We merely repeat these things like parrots, and accept them second hand like monkeys; we never think of looking for their origin and their sources, nor of learning their beginning or their results. Let us see first, then, whence and how these strange opinions came about. Christianity grew up in the shadow of the Roman Empire, in a period when Judaism was suffering an eclipse, when it had become a system of rigid and lifeless ritual, an empty and unspiritual sham. The Roman Empire had its famous laws, which still live as the origin of modern European legislation; the Roman public had its own customs and social institutions. Christianity had no need then—nor, indeed, had it the power—to put before a powerful Roman government and a united Roman public laws and rules and regulations for government or for society. Rather, its need was to devote its power to moral and spiritual purification; and its concern was to correct the stereotyped ritual and the empty sham of ceremonial Judaism, and to restore spirit and life to the Israelite conscience. Christ (upon whom be peace) came only to preach spiritual purity, mercy, kindness, tolerance, chastity, and abstinence, and to moderate certain restrictions that had been imposed on the Children of Israel or that they themselves had invented. He showed by his behavior and by his opinions that he attached no importance to the narrow traditions of the priests and the scribes; they were concerned only with external acts, while his concern was with the moral and the spiritual realms. Thus he made the Jewish sabbath lawful to his disciples; and thus he allowed them to eat anything which entered the mouth, because it was not that which defiled, but rather that which came forth in the way of “deceit, falsehood, and adultery.” Thus, while he made it lawful for his disciples to break the fast on the Jewish fast-days, yet he would not stone the adulterous woman who was brought to him for questioning; for of those who should have been responsible for her stoning, according to the Mosaic Law, not one was free from guilt. He once said, “You have heard that it has been said ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth’; but I say to you Resist not evil; but whoever strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other to him also. And whoever wishes to quarrel with you and to take your undergarment, give him your overgarment also; and whoever forces you to go one mile, go with him two.”1 The same spirit is apparent also in the words, “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘Do not kill; for whoever kills is liable to judgment.’ But I say to you, Indeed, everyone who is angry with his brother without cause is liable to judgment; whoever says to his brother “Fool” is liable to the Council; and whoever says “Imbecile” is liable to the fire of Gehenna. So if you bring your offering to the altar, and if you remember there that your brother has some cause of complaint against you, then leave your offering there in front of the altar, go first and settle your quarrel with your brother and then come and present your offering. Be reconciled with your opponent quickly while you are in the way. Or again: “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘Do not commit adultery’. But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman with desire has already committed adultery with her in his heart; if your right eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out and cast it from you, for it is better for you that one of your members should perish than that your whole body should be thrown into hell-fire; or if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and cast it from you, for it is better for you that one of your members should perish than that your whole body should be thrown into hell-fire.” Or: “Again ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old, ‘Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths.’ But I say unto you, Swear not at all. Not by Heaven, for it is God’s throne; nor by the earth, for it is His footstool; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. Nor shalt thou swear by thy head, for thou cannot make one hair white or black. But let your speech be, Yea; nay, nay. Whatsoever is more than that cometh of evil.”2 Accordingly, Christianity forgot about “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s,” and it turned its full strength towards spiritual purity and pious discipline. It took its stand upon the ground that “Religion concerns only a man and his God, while the temporal law is concerned with the relationship between the individual and the state. And this was the more natural since Christianity grew up in the embrace of the Roman Empire, and since it was a reaction against Judaism. Accordingly, the Christian faith pushed to the uttermost limit its teachings of spiritual purity, material asceticism, and unworldly forebearance. It fulfilled its task in this spiritual sphere of human life, because it is the function of a religion to elevate man by spiritual means so far as it can, to proclaim piety, to cleanse the heart and the conscience, to humble man’s nature, and to make him ignore worldly needs and strive only for holy objectives in a world of shades and vanities. But it left society to the State, to be governed by its earthly laws, since to it society was connected with the outer and temporal world, whereas the faith had its realm in the soul and the conscience. In this, Christianity was logical on three counts; first, because it grew up in a strictly limited area; second, because of the particular needs of the Jewish people to whom Jesus was sent in that they formed only a tiny fragment of the totality of the great Roman Empire; and thirdly, because of the limited time allotted to Christianity before the appearance of the new world religion—the faith of Islam. Then God so willed it that Christianity should cross the seas to Europe, taking with it all its sublimity and purity and denial of the material world. There it met the Romans, inheritors of the pagan and material culture of Greece, and there it met also the peoples of the remoter parts of Europe, its first contact with the barbarian world. They were peoples of immense...