How do you define Life ? And what meanings lurk behind daily events ?
These questions are not that easy to answer, but, one aspect of it
probably can be conveyed in the following manner :

Life can be viewed as one big struggle to gain liberation. By liberation, I mean precisely 
as the Oxford Dictionary would have it - freedom. Man's notion of freedom however, differs from one individual to another. 

At tle lowest level, the pangs of hunger forces one to strive for the means of sustenance. It is one form of liberation. One that all of us share. Beyond this, is a myriad of other needs that demand our attention. And the way we view and react to these needs also differ from one person to another. 

I have not read anything on the subject of human needs, though I have heard of the name Maslow. What I am about to say is borne by experience and personal reflection. 

Man can be defined in the singular or the collective. As an individual, he/she would be concerned with his/her immediate physical, emotional and spiritual well being. As a social person, he/she would now have to extend the horizon of need to encompass others. The need for love, companionship and self esteem are some traits of this enlarged horizon. 

Let's look at Man as an individual. An appropriate analogy that we can use to illustrate his (dispensing with "her" at this point, for the sake of brevity) needs would be the onion. Each "layer" of need gives way to another, and yet another. What would these layers be ? At this juncture, we can resort to some form of classification. One such would be : BODILY COMFORT, EMOTIONAL COMFORT and SPIRITUAL COMFORT. Bodily comfort would refer to food and sustenance, clothings and dwelling (let's throw a nice car in there as well). By emotional comfort, we mean a state of being that is free of stress. Gratification of the senses by seeking out that which is pleasurable and pleasant, like for example, listening to music do confer some degree of emotional comfort. The third category of need, spiritual comfort, pertains to that state of being that can only be described as being "certain" with one's self. 

It would be easy to conclude that a case can be made for a hierarchy of needs that starts with the body and ends with the spiritual, but life is more complex. My experience tells me that they are inter-related. 

Two things about these needs are for certain. Firstly, these needs are "attachments" - you need them and you are occupied with them. Secondly, they do not provide the ultimate innate fulfillment, hence the need to transcend them. A hungry man dreams of bread but not a satiated man. The latter, having filled his stomach would dream of things much loftier and subtler. So, the next question that needs to be asked is : What is the crown of fulfillment ? No amount of music, Pavarotti or Mukesh notwithstanding, can confer this fulfillment. At some point, the law of diminishing returns will set in. Similarly, sex, generally regarded as the highest form of sensual gratification, has its limit in the limited energy that one possesses. 

If you were brought up with some religious education or indoctrination, you would have been told in many ways that the answer to the question would be found in religion. Between this theoretical possibility and actual experience however, is a huge chasm. Theoretical formulations at best provide some degree of emotional support. Only inner experience of certainty will put the wandering mind to rest. 

The language of struggle is one of lamentation. I am reminded of a strain from Hafiz :~ 

Where is the news of your coming
as a bride that will set free my soul,
For I am that celestial bird
whom the world's snares cannot hold,
Grant me the day of my death a glimpse of Thy beauty
And I, Hafiz, shall soar above life and the world !

These precious lines have been with me for many years, and to me, they bespeak of the ultimate liberation, that which will make one soar above life and the world. To be free, you must die ( in the spiritual sense). To me then, spiritual comfort, is a need that will address man's innate calling. It transcends rather than supplant the other needs. The various needs are like rungs in a ladder as you climb up, while spiritual need is like the need to view the landscape from the top. 

Now let's turn to Man as a social being. In this context, physical comfort would just be as applicable as it is the lowest and most basic need. The nation must be fed, cloathed and provided with shelter. 
Beyond this is the need to recognize the dignity of man, his self worth - that which encompasses all his emotional needs, now extended to include "liberty, individualism, humanism and tolerance". 

Anwar Ibrahim, in his book The Asian Renaissance, picked this thread. According to him,  "..increasing wealth should be the occasion for the extension of freedom to all spheres, these being the legitimate expectations of a civil society. Notwithstanding the moral basis envisaged in our concept of civil society, these include the expectations that certain fundamental liberties and rights are inviolable and cannot be taken away without due process of the law..." 

From bodily comfort to the recognition by the State of Man's self worth. Man does not live by bread alone says the dictum.The Prophet of Islam in his Hajja al Wida' (Farewell Pilgrimage) said : " O Mankind, your blood, your property and your honour are as sacred as this Holy Land." 

From the point of view of the physical and the emotional, Man as an individual or the collective share these needs. In the spiritual sphere, on the other hand, it is inconceivable that today's society will ever attain the spiritual heights as those attained during the apostolic age in the sense of the numbers that partake of divine intimacy and nearness. But Allah knows best. 

In my opinion, spiritual comfort will only be found in the seekings of individuals. Religions can only accord moral exhortations and laws to the masses. 

~ABA (28-5-01) 

The following is an extract taken from Anwar Ibrahim's The Asian Renaissance
addressing a related theme, albeit from the social point of view. 
 

DEMOCRACY AND CIVIL SOCIETY

(Excerpts from Anwar Ibrahim's The Asian Renaissance)

Little noticed by much of the west, Asia is witnessing the revival of the debate over democracy and civil society. This discourse, rooted in Asian traditions and culture, is lead by a new generation of confident and assertive Asians - intellectuals, social activists, artists, and politicians - who subscribe to the universality of demmmocratic values. 

The debate is in part fueled by a new sense of confidence acquired following a period of sustained economic growth and political stability. The impact is greater than that of the process of decolonization some five decades ago, reshaping the global order and propelling Asia to the centre of world affairs. 

At the same time, Asian societies are undergoing internal transformations. The soul of Asia is being reconstituted. The integration of Asia with global systems and the interaction between its cultures and that of the West have permanently altered its character. 

The ongoing discourse on democracy and civil society is also influenced by the peculiar norms and mores of Asian cultures. In short, as Alexis de Toequeville wrote, it is a debate shaped by "customs" - the whole moral and intellectual condition, including the "habits of the heart" - of people whose religious, cultural and ethnic diversity far surpasses that found in any other part of the world. 

The outcome of these exchanges is a less dogmatic, much richer and more pluralistic conception of democracy and civil society. The diverse possibilities of democracy, shaped by differing laws and mores, were also alluded to by Tocqueville. He wrote : 

...the Americans have shown that it would be wrong to despair of regulating democracy by the aid of customs and laws. If other nations should borrow this general and pregnant idea from the Americans, without, however, intending to imitate them in the peculiar application which they have made of it....what reason is there to suppose their efforts would not be crowned with success ?

The consensus in Asia is that for civil society to thrive, there must be a strong and vibrant economy, which in turn is predicated upon a stable social and political order. While it id true that freedom and democracy have their intrinsic values and their basic principles must be understood and cherished, priorities must be put right. East Asia could not have achieved such impressive economic results without stability. The urgency accorded by Asians to economic development is understandable. Poverty and the inequitable distribution of economic opportunities are sources of a host of social evils. They breed discontent, frustration and anger, and can destroy the very fabric of society. Thus, freedom and democracy would be seriously compromised if prescribed without due consideration to economic progress and the maintenance of a stable socio-political order. 

Now that Asia is secure in its economic stability and vibrancy, it is embarking on a venture to reinvent its social and political order. The present quest for democracy and civil society is an integral part of the continuum of the movement for national liberation and self-determination which begun in the first half of the century. 

In this renewed research, Asia has dusted off the shelves the ideals and values expounded by its ancient philosophers and championed by the early figures of the Asian Renaissance : poets, thinkers and statesmen such as Rabindranath Tagore, Muhammad Iqbal, Jose Rizal, Sun Yat-sen and Mahatma Gandhi. They demonstrated that Asia and Asian traditions are part and parcel of a world built on the dignity of man, an ideal which in the recent past has been purportedly the exclusive domain of the West. 
 

~DIGNITY OF MAN~

The creation of a civil society in Asia will no doubt be a gradual process and the path is fraught with challenges. We must remain focused on its basic need. Foremost is the creation and preservation of social order, without which there will be chaos. Freedom, under the circumstances, will be illusory. In a truly democratic regime, such an order is to be achieved through the exercise of authority with accountability, not merely by the coercive power of the state. On the part of the people, the proper and legitimate assertion of one's individual rights must go hand in hand with the recognition of private duties towards the public good. Liberty must not allowed to degenerate into immorality and permissiveness. This sense of social discipline must exist if we are to bring to fruition a civil society built upon our ideals of democracy. 

The basic proposition governing democracy and civil society is the idea of the dignity of man. That idea took a long time to grow. The earliest comprehensive formulation of the concept of the dignity of man in the West was made during the Renaissance by Pico della Mirandola in an oration delivered to an audience of priests : 

I have read, reverend Fathers, in the works of the Arabs, that when Abdala the Saracen was asked what he regarded as most to be wondered at on the world's stage, so to speak, he answered that there is nothing to be seen more wonderful than man (nihil spectari homine admirabilius).

This Abdala the Saracen, the source of Pico's idea on the dignity of man, could be no other person than Ibn Qutaiba, the celebrated humanists of the Abbasid era and author of Khalq al-Insan or the Creation of  Man.

A century and a half after Pico, the idea of the dignity of man was to be expressed in unsurpassed beauty and brevity in Shakespeare's Hamlet : 

What a piece of work is a man ! How noble in reason ! how infinite in faculty ! in form, in moving, how express and admirable ! in action how like an angel ! in apprehension how like a god ! the beauty of the world ! the paragon of animals !

Democracy should not be an end unto itself, but merely the means by which we can ensure humane governance: the restoring of the dignity of the human person and satisfying the hunger for justice. There can be no dignity in poverty, sickness, deprivation, illiteracy and ignorance. Nor can there be dignity when women continue to be denied equal status, opportunities and remuneration. There can be no justice when the individual is oppressed and fundamental rights are denied him and when whole populations are trapped in war and senseless slaughter. We are nowhere near dignity or justice when the global order is dominated by a few who preach democracy at home and blatantly deny it abroad, when 85 percent of the world's wealth is enjoyed by 20 percent of the global population. Our ultimate goal must be nothing less than the establishment of a just and equitable society. 

The civil society we envisage is one based on moral principles, where governance is by rule of law not human caprice, where the growth of civic organizations is nurtured not suppressed, where dissent is not stifled, and where the pursuit of excellence and the cultivation of good taste takes the place of mediocrity and philistinism. For that, we have to retrieve, revive and reinvigorate the spirit of liberty, individualism, humanism and tolerance.

The fact that Asian countries are in different stages of economic development suggests that each country will negotiate its way to democracy and civil society at its own pace. This is further attenuated by the diversity of cultures, social systems and historical experiences. While accepting that all humanitarian ideals are universal, we cannot deny that cultural diversity exerts a powerful influence on the social and political processes. 

Consequently, the Asian vision of civil society departs in a fundamental respect from that articulated by some Western thinkers, which is derived mainly from the social philosophy of the Enlightenment. The basic doctrine of this philosophy is that religion and civil society are intrinsically incompatible. Asians would find greater affinity with the precepts of the Founding Fathers of America in marrying civic republicanism and the Puritan religious heritage. This is because religion and spirituality run deep in the Asian psyche. Religion has been a source of great strength to Asian society and will continue to be a bulwark against moral and social decay. 

More fundamentally, the Asian world view and its intellectual resources will shape its civil society in its own direction. Foremost among them is the concept of man as a moral being with a transcendent dimension, endowed with not only inalienable rights but also with unshirkable responsibilities : to God, to family, to fellow humans and to nature. 
 
 

~LIFE'S INVIOLABILITY~

For humane governance, it is essential that power be vested in a democratically constituted authority rather than in the hands of an individual. Power personalized is power plundered from the people. Democracy is not a luxury that Asians cannot afford, as some would have us believe. On the contrary, it is a basic necessity for responsible and ethical governance. As Reinhold Niebuhr said : "Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary." 

Properly instituted, democracy will ensure order and stability. Because it allows for legitimate grievances to be aired and contentious issues to be openly debated, democracy prevents the accumulation of violent and disruptive forces. 

The pursuit of economic prosperity is no justification for the persistent and flagrant deprivation of political and civil liberties. In fact, increasing wealth should be the occasion for the extension of freedom to all spheres, these being the legitimate expectations of a civil society. Notwithstanding the moral basis envisaged in our concept of civil society, these include the expectations that certain fundamental liberties and rights are inviolable and cannot be taken away without due process of the law. The Prophet of Islam in his Hajja al Wida' (Farewell Pilgrimage) said : " O Mankind, your blood, your property and your honour are as sacred as this Holy Land." 

This doctrine of inviolability of man cuts across civilizations. When John Locke launched a revolution in political thought in the seventeenth century to emancipate man from political tyranny, central to his thesis was the idea of the inviolability of human life and property : 

Every man in born with a double right. First, a right of freedom to his person which no other man has a power over, but the free disposal of it lies in himself. Secondly, a right before any other man, to inherit, with his brethren, his father's goods.

In resisting democratization, some would argue that the people are not sophisticated enough to practice democracy. To this, Dr Sun Yat-sen replied earlier this century, "Alas! This is like telling a child that he cannot go to school because he is illiterate." 

This does not mean that democracy should be unfettered. for democracy without restraints will lead to chaos. Unbridled individualism cannot but paralyze our predisposition for consensus in nation building. The answer lies in treading the middle path between anarchy and absolutism. 

In the multicultural, multi-religious, and multi-ethnic context that we live in, this approach takes on added significance. Each community will always have its extremist fringe, which if given free rein would whip up sentiments to plunge entire nations into turmoil and even bloodshed. It is crucial that we have a moderate majority, one that will be prepared to act firmly and decisively against extremist elements. Lest we forget, democracy itself can only flourish in a nation at peace, where there is mutual tolerance and respect between communities and ethnic groups. In Vaclav Havel's words : 

....we are witness to a bizarre state of affairs: society had freed itself, true, but in some ways it behaves worse then when it was in chains. Criminality has grown rapidly, and the familiar sewage that in times of historical reversal always well up from the nether regions of the collective psyche has overflowed into the mass media, especially the gutter press. But there are other, more serious and dangerous symptoms : hatred among nationalities, suspicion, racism, even signs of fascism; intrigue, and deliberate lying; politicking, an unrestrained, unheedful struggle for purely private interests, a hunger for power, unadulterated ambition, fanatism of every imaginable kind, new and unprecedented varieties of robbery, the rise of different mafias; the general lack of tolerance, understanding, taste, moderation, reason.

The fact that democracy is often abused, leading to chaos and paralysis, does not mean that dictatorship is the answer. Rather, the solution lies in purging democracy of its excesses such as unrestrained individualism on the one hand, and mob rule on the other. Thus democracy must be revitalized by infusing it with ethical principles and moral uprightness derived from Asian civilizational ideals and intellectual legacies. 

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This page is dedicated to sister Zainab Ahmad