This explains why Muhammad Iqbal, the well-known Muslim poet who advocated the formation of the state of Pakistan, wrote to Mr Jinnah in 1937, ten years before the state was established, that if the state of Pakistan were to follow social justice as its central policy it would be returning to the cardinal message of Islam

 

Social and Dynamic Transformation of an Islamic Society
By Prof. Khalid B. Sayeed
Ontario, Canada

 

There are several translations of the Qur’an. There are the familiar translations of Yusuf Ali and Muhammad Asad. The basic approach in these translations is to get involved in meanings and interpretations of certain words in the Qur’an. Unlike such translations is the interpretation of the Koran put forward by Professor A.J. Arberry.

We find that Professor Arberry tries to go to the central message that the Qur’an is putting forward rather than getting involved in detailed meanings of words or phrases. An example is Chapter 90 entitled “The Land” where the Qur’an establishes the central point “we created man in trouble”. What, does he think none has power over him, saying
I have consumed wealth abundant?...
Have we not appointed to him two eyes,
and a tongue, and two lips
and guided him on the two highways?
Yet he has not assaulted the steep;
and what shall teach thee what is the steep?
The freeing of a slave, or giving food upon a day of hunger
to an orphan near of kin
or a needy man in misery;
then that he become of those who believe
and counsel each other to be steadfast,
and counsel each other to be merciful.
Those are the companions of the Right Hand.

The above passage from the Koran explains why the second Caliph Omar Ibn al Khattab beckoned his slave or servant to ride the camel when he entered Jerusalem as the conqueror while the caliph was leading the camel. Such a sight startled the onlookers.
Obviously, the message was that the Koran advocated the social transformation of a society. The Koran was not merely emphasizing that the believer should worship one true god. This worship of one true god implied in the next step the social transformation of the Muslim society. This explains why Omar Ibn al Khattab emphasized that the central message of Islam was designed to weaken the rich and improve the wellbeing of the poor. This was the essence of social justice.

This explains why Muhammad Iqbal, the well-known Muslim poet who advocated the formation of the state of Pakistan, wrote to Mr Jinnah in 1937, ten years before the state was established, that if the state of Pakistan were to follow social justice as its central policy it would be returning to the cardinal message of Islam.

Ever since Pakistan was established in 1947, Muslims under the guidance of the Muslim League or other parties have not adhered to the central Islamic policy prescription.
They tend to follow some of the ideas regarding the establishment of democracy by merely emphasizing that the electorate needs to have certain basic qualifications of literacy or dividing itself into political parties. These are the outward manifestations of democracy.
Dag Hammarskjold when he was Secretary General of the United Nations kept a diary recording his messages to Christ. These were published as Markings.

In one of these he wrote, “Your position never gives you the right to command. It only imposes on you the duty of so living your life that others can receive your orders without being humiliated.”

Similarly, according to Dag Hammarskjold, Christ sat down with street women and harlots not because he wanted their votes but because he wanted to transform their personalities so that they may become better human beings.

Markings suggest that this is what democracy is all about and this is precisely what the British had in mind when they thought that democracy was progressive realization of responsible government.
Many reformers and educators in the developing world think that their fellow human beings need to be educated to become literates and improve their skills in areas like arithmetic. They don’t realize that this does not necessarily lead to the social transformation of the society. If you follow the road to democracy through literacy and arithmetic, the road tends to be a long one.

The Qur’an is emphasizing that man, in order to get out of the trouble that God has placed him in, has to assault the steep highway and as we have suggested earlier, that assaulting the steep highway lies through creation of social justice and social transformation of a society. In this sense the Koran is suggesting that the Islamic path through social transformation is a revolutionary path. In a very well-known poem in Iqbal’s Baal-i-Jibreel, there is a dialogue between God and Lenin and towards the end of the dialogue God issues commands to his angels in which he declares
Arise and awaken the poor people of my world and shake the doors and walls of the
palaces of the rich where a peasant cannot get his living from the land he tills that land should be destroyed.
(translation from Baal-i-Jibreel)

It is obvious that the upper and middle classes in Pakistan have not followed the guidelines that their national poet Muhammad Iqbal put forward so eloquently before them. The main cause of the deviant and different path that the middle and upper classes in Pakistan have followed is that they do not realize that the central message of Islam is social transformation. This also explains why the upper and middle classes in Pakistan have forged alliances with the seemingly corrupt bureaucratic and entrepreneurial classes. The path of reformation and education that such classes would like to follow is the tepid and gradualist path of social changes influenced by the West and other dominant groups in the world. More than a hundred years ago Abraham Lincoln, the American president, in one of his major speeches, said:
What constitutes the bulwark of our own liberty and independence? It is not our frowning battlements, our bristling seacoasts, the guns of our war steamers, or the strength of our gallant and disciplined army. These are not our reliance against a resumption of tyranny in our fair land. All of them may be turned against our liberties, without making us stronger or weaker for the struggle. Our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in our bosoms. Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere. Destroy this spirit, and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors. Familiarize yourselves with the chains of bondage, and you are preparing your own limbs to wear them. Accustomed to trample on the rights of those around you, you have lost the genius of your own independence, and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises. And let me tell you, all these things are prepared for you with the logic of history.

As we have said earlier, the great majority of Muslims are clearly under the impression that God rules the world largely through fear. God’s subjects are supposed to be fearful and constantly aware that if they deviate from the path of righteousness and the requirements of five daily prayers plus the fasting of one month that has been prescribed and the performance of a pilgrimage to Mecca, they have not carried out his guidelines. Adherence to these guidelines will eventually reward them with a place in the blissful paradise.
All these are highly essential guidelines and Muslims are expected to adhere to them meticulously.

A major problem that we have raised is that even a strict adherence to the commandments laid down in the Islamic faith does not automatically create a noble society on this earth. We are asking that if Muslims by and large were to follow God’s commandments on this earth, does it automatically guarantee that the community will live in peace and honor without being subjected by foreign rule and domination? Our contention is that if the large majority of Muslims were to follow God’s commandments, would the rest of the world community respect and honor them in such a way that the community will live peacefully and honorably. Our distinct impression is that this is not likely to be so particularly if Muslim countries are in control of some of the invaluable oil resources that exist in the Middle East and other Muslim lands. Other countries and particularly military powers would like to seize control of the oil resources and strategic areas. In other words, Muslim countries will be faced by other non-Muslim countries in a continuing struggle for world domination and power.

Some of the recent examples from world history also clearly indicate that the struggle for world power has several origins and causes. There has never been a world which has been governed by principles of justice and fair play. World history tells us that in the global struggle for power there are nations constantly in search of more and more power because man by nature tends to be competitive and combative and is motivated by what philosophers have called “animus dominandi” that is desire for more and more power because life on this earth is very much like what the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes described as nasty, brutish, and short. (Published earlier in June 2007)