Understanding Islam:
 

Islam, correctly understood, is a way to both inner and outer peace; peace for the individual, and peace for society. The Quran asserts, "In truth, through the remembrance of Allah the heart finds rest" (13:28, Interpretation of Meaning).

A Muslim is a person who, through reason, accepts their place in the cosmic scheme of things: a person who, having pursued knowledge and reflected upon it, knows and understands how they themselves relate to all living things, all being, and to the creator of those living beings, and all that exists, has existed or will exist. It is this understanding, this realization, of the interdependence of all life, all being, which forms the essence of the Islamic way of life.

Many enlightened non-Muslims also understand this:
 

 Islam - like Buddhism and Hinduism - refuses to separate man and nature, religion and science, mind and matter, and has preserved a metaphysical and unified view of ourselves and the world around us.

Western civilisation has become increasingly acquisitive and exploitive in defiance of our environmental responsibilities. This crucial sense of oneness and trusteeship of the vital sacramental and spiritual character of the world about us is surely something important we can relearn from Islam.  ( Speech by The Prince of Wales, at the Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford 27 October 1993 CE )

Islam is a means whereby individuals can rise above this primitive state of being by using their will to restrain themselves. The Quran - the Holy Book of Islam - is "a Guide for those who can restrain themselves..." (Sura 2: 4, Interpretation of Meaning) and there are many recorded sayings by the Prophet Muhammad regarding restraint.

The free surrender, deriving from reason and love, and the conscious following of the perfect example of Muhammad, is the quintessence of Islam:

"Some people submit to Allah out of desire for reward: that, surely, is the submission of traders. Other people submit to Allah out of fear, and that,
surely, is the submission of slaves. Yet another group submit to Allah out of gratefulness, and this, most certainly, is the submission of free human
beings." (Nahjul Balagha,   Saying 237)

To create a peaceful, human, reasoned, society all that is needed is correct guidance and a community of Muslims who truly surrender themselves to Allah because they consciously understand and accept such an obeying of Allah's will as the meaning, the purpose, of their life on this Earth. That is, the individuals of such a community remember Allah, and consciously accept their own purpose, every day of their lives, a remembrance made real through daily prayer, through enjoining good deeds and striving to discourage bad deeds.
 

Thus, the essence, the foundation, of any and every Islamic society is this obeying of Allah's will, manifest in the society through the Shari'ah and through the guidance of honourable, learned, Islamic scholars. Such a society is thus a reflection, a manifestation, of Allah's will on this planet which is our temporary and mortal home: a means, a path, a guide, to Allah and thus to Paradise. This means, this guidance, is far more important than material prosperity, than property. It is recorded that the Prophet of Islam said:
 

My foremost anxiety is not the incursion of material hardship among my community; that about which I am most anxious for them is dishonourable thinking. That which a lack of reason will bring my community is much worse than that which a lack of material goods will bring them.

In Islam, there is the reality of we human beings as Vicegerents of Allah, as guardians of this Earth, who have been given a sacred trust. Islam outlines the terms of this trust, and to be a Muslim is to accept our duties and obligations: to ourselves, to other Muslims, to other human beings, to all life, and to our Creator, Allah.
 

In complete contrast, Western society is dominated by materialism, by economics, based as Western society is on the quest for, and accumulation of, material possessions, wealth, and material comfort. The foundation of modern Western society is the happiness, in this life, of the individual, or at least the happiness of the greatest number, and the twin ideas that we human beings are or can be the masters of our own fate, and that we are or can be the masters of Nature, of this world, which is ours to use and exploit as we wish.

The materialism of the West is based upon capitalism which itself relies upon usury, the goal of profit, and the idea of a continuing "progress" with the consequent "development", innovation and change. Implicit in such capitalist change and development is exploitation, of both the natural world and of people.

The story of one person will express, and serve to illustrate, the ethos, the spirit, the essence, the attitude, of the West. This is the Spanish Conquistador, Pizarro who, through ruthlessness and deceit, began the Spanish ("Western") conquest and exploitation of South America in the sixteenth century of the Christian era and who was driven by a lust for gold, for wealth. His treatment of, and attitude toward, the native Indians of South America is as instructive as it is indicative of the attitude which formed the basis for the colonialism of the nations of the West: he regarded them as inferior, as savages, who needed to be ruthlessly controlled and ruthlessly ruled, and he had no hesitation about torturing and killing them. In the same way, he regarded their land, their property, and even the people themselves, as mere possessions which he could claim "on behalf of Spain" and which he, and his Spanish King, could and indeed should exploit. So it was that for centuries Spain ruled and exploited these people and their lands.

In more recent times, the brutal colonialism of Western nations has been replaced by the exploitation of capitalism. The truth is that these multi-national capitalist companies are the heirs of Western imperialism: exploiting the resources of this planet, and exploiting its peoples, in the lust for profit, for wealth. Just as the Spanish believed that their God gave them the right to exploit, suppress and rule over other peoples and their lands, so too do modern capitalists and their companies justify their actions and policies by appealing to theories such as "social darwinism" which asserts that it is natural and indeed necessary for the strong to dominate because life is a mere struggle for dominance and only the "fittest" will - or deserve to - survive.

As a result, the world and its peoples are now increasingly being exploited by the spread of American-led consumer-capitalist commercial "culture" which seeks to find markets for capitalist goods, which seeks to persuade people, through commercial advertising and commercial blackmail of governments, to buy these goods (often through taking out loans based on usury) and which seeks to find cheaper and cheaper labour to produce these goods. One essential element of such continued exploitation is the need to produce newer, more costly, versions of products and to persuade people that they must have the latest product, the latest device, the latest "technology", the latest "fashions". In effect, a new global capitalist market has been created which uses sophisticated advertising and other means to persuade people to buy more and more material goods, year after year after year.

The Myth of Industrialization:

The exploitation of the world and its peoples by the West - through both historical colonialism and modern capitalism - has been achieved and is now being continued through the Western myth of industrialization.

The basis of this myth is that all nations, all societies, must continually change and that such change is, in itself, "good" for it prepares the way for, and may even create, the "ideal society" where there will be, on this Earth, peace, happiness and prosperity, all achieved by abandoning "old ideas" and the "old ways" in favour of "modernization": in favour of modern ideas, new ways, dreamt up by some "clever" human being.
 

In effect, the West has persuaded the world - and especially the Islamic world - that it too can achieve the wealth, the prosperity, the West has achieved if they "modernize", which means create an industrialized society.

An industrialized society means international trade, with prices set by Western financial centres and financial markets; it means funding growth and new factories and business through loans, using usury; it means setting targets and goals based upon profits. But above all, it means the notion, the idea, the belief that what is important is personal comfort, personal wealth, personal possessions: that the measure of success in life is material goods and property not bought by cash but obtained through usury, through loans from Banks, or governments, or financial institutions.
 
 

This industrialization of the West, and the world following the bad example set by the West, this commercial exploitation of the world and its peoples by capitalism, is wrong: totally against the principles of Islam
 

The sad fact is that the Islamic world has followed the West and sought to create industrialized nations based on the Western model. From Arabia, to Egypt, to Turkey, to Iran, the Islamic world has been radically changed with the old traditional, rural-based, almost self-sufficient societies being destroyed and replaced with "modern nations" and large cities and towns with their polluting industries, their large factories, their noise, their roads, their increasing traffic, and their urban way of life.

But this change, this industrialization, has not brought peace, harmony, social justice, true freedom or even solved the problem of poverty. It has not even done these things in the West itself, as anyone who visits a large, industrial or commercial, city in America will discover. What industrialization has done is to hide these problems, distracting people's attention from them through entertainment, sports, government sponsored propaganda events and spectacles. In many cases industrialization has added to these problems: creating more divisions within societies; making some wealthy, and many others poorer. In particular, industrialization has ravaged and is ravaging the world, so much so that if it continues we will damage this planet for ever.

In addition, the newer industrialized societies - including those in the Islamic world - are discovering some of the many social problems which such industrialization, such a breakdown of traditional rural, society brings: widespread alcohol-abuse; widespread drug-abuse; random violence; burglary; organized crime; wide-spread corruption. And, of course, more government taxes (to help pay-back "foreign loans") and more and more government laws - enforced by an ever-growing Police force - to regulate things and ensure continued "economic growth".
 

The World of Islam:

The Time used by the world of God - the world of Islam - is a different Time from the Time used by the world of the West and the world newly created by the West.

The Time of the West, and used by the West, is the manic Time of rapid communication, of commerce, of industry, of multi-national companies where every second can mean a profit or a loss.
 

This difference in Time between Islam and the West can be simply understood: the Time of Islam is the slow, almost still and always quiet Time of the desert, while the Time of the West is the rapid, noisy, never-still Time of the modern city.

Islamic Time is human, traditional: a reflection of the laws, the cycle, of Nature. Islamic Time has been given to us by God, by Allah and is manifest in our daily cycle of prayers, which follow the rising and the setting of the Sun, and in our monthly calendar, which follows the cycle of the Moon.

Western Time is abstract, inhuman, changing: a reflection of man-made ideas, man-made machines. Western Time has been created by human beings and is manifest in the large factories which work continuously, shift after shift, day after day, month after month, year after year. Western Time is manifest in the brightly lit cities at night with their constant flow of motor traffic and their constant flow of business and commerce.

Islam states quite clearly that the only criteria which matters - the only thing which distinguishes one human being from another, which gives them preference - is their virtue, their honour: their willingness to do what Allah has decreed and avoid what he has forbidden.

This is the criteria which a true Islamic government, an Islamic society, uses in all things: what matters for such a society is Islam, the submission to the will of Allah. What does not matter - or what is of only secondary importance - is wealth, material comfort, goods.

The Islamic way is to prefer - and indeed to insist upon - a society where the main daily concern is Allah: His worship, the seeking after His Signs through learning, the striving to do good deeds and refrain from bad deeds. That is, the Islamic way is to use Islamic Time, born as this Time was in the deserts of Arabia and manifest as it was in the small community created by the Messenger of Islam in Madinah.
 

Expressed simply and starkly, an Islamic society does not require and does not need vast industries; vast cities and urban sprawls choked by traffic transporting commercial, material, goods; it does not need large internationally owned factories or companies. It requires a much more simple way of living: a return to Islamic Time with all that this implies in terms of a non-urban society and a non-urban way of life.

To live in Islamic Time is to remember Allah: to be aware of Allah. To live in Western Time is at best to be distracted from Allah and at worst to forget Allah and His Messenger.
 
 
 

Abdul Aziz