Quranic Foundations And Structure Of Muslim Society
PURSUIT AND NON-ASCETIC
CHARACTER OF SPIRITUALITY
The Qur’anic
ethico-religious approach does not lead to mysticism, but to what might be
termed as Dynamic Purism based on Sidq and Safa. That is the goal and the pride
of the orthodox Sufi orders, in history. They pursued the Qur’anic
ethico-religious quest with grace and sincerity,—a quest that is the very
essence of Islam.
The
ultimate goal of the Qur’anic ethico-religious quest is God-realization. But,
its pursuit is impossible without self-realization, which, therefore, becomes a
Muslim’s primary obligation.
The
struggle for self-realisation emerges in the Qur’anic perspective as basically
three-dimensional: the religious, the ethical, and the intellectual.
In
spite of the fact, however, that it is to be undertaken fundamentally as the
first step in the exercise of God-realisation,
it leads simultaneously to a knowledge which might be named as the
‘knowledge of Spiritual Science’. That
knowledge is scientific, because it is based, like physical science, on
observation and verification. The parapsychologists of today, working at the
psychical level alone, have affirmed the ESP, the astral projection, etc. But,
Spiritual Science, in the hands of genuine Sufi
teachers, has attained immeasurably greater heights. The revelation by
men like Rumi and Ibn al-Arabi of certain higher truths discovered only
recently by physical science, is a case in point.
Surely,
Bid‘ah (i.e., ‘spiritual’ practices that violate Islam) and superstitions
should be condemned by every genuine Muslim. But, to condemn the Spiritual
Science itself is unwarranted.
Prayer
and Fasting play very definite roles in the Qur’anic Spiritual Culture.
Prayer
is an exercise in respect of the Communion of the finite with the Infinite. It
extricates the finite individual from servitude to the finite and opens to him
the road to infinite progress. Prayer is thus for progress. Fasting is the
exercise in self-control, which is the key to spiritual progress.
The
enemies of Islam have propagated the allegation that, because of its permission
of polygamy, the Qur’an teaches sex-indulgence, which does not harmonize with
the pursuit of spiritual refinement and
progress. Actually, that allegation is based on the age-old misconception of
Ascetic ethics, wherein the very fulfillment of the natural biological demand
of sex is considered to be unholy, in contra-distinction to the Qur’anic view,
which holds it as sacred, because it is in conformity with the Divine Scheme,
and which condemns only licentiousness as unholy. Thus, the qualified and
restricted Qur’anic permission for polygamy has not been prescribed as a
license for sex-indulgence but only as an alternative to promiscuity and
prostitution, which it eliminates successfully, in sharp contrast with the
Ascetic as well as the Totally-Monogamic social philosophies. As for the
former, one has to read only the history of Christianity in the Age of Faith to
witness the most ugly storm of licentatiousness that overtook even the pursuers
of saintliness, not to speak of the common folk. (Besides other literature on
the subject, the “History of Sacerdotal Celibacy in the Christian Church”
written by a very devout Christian scholar named Henry C. Lea, published by the
University Books Inc., U.S.A., 1966, is enough to provide a correct estimate of
the moral disaster perpetrated by that wrong philosophy). Coming to the latter,
the modern Western civilization has established the most heinous record of
licentiousness,—a record unsurpassed in the history of human civilizations.
The
enemies of Islam extend their allegation to the person of the Holy Prophet
Muhammad pbuh also, and that to such an
extent as to deny to him, with all his
superbly-great qualities of character, even basic spiritual goodness and greatness,
simply on the basis of his practice of polygamy. But, what are the facts?
Firstly, his entire personal life was a life of war against ease, opulence,
luxuries, and self-indulgence in general. Indeed, it was through and through a
life of Austerity, wherein, even at the height of his material power, he lived
in a small thatched mud-hut, passed his days in hunger and toil, and spent his
nights for the most part standing in prayer to God. Secondly, he adopted
polygamy towards the dawn of old age, having led an exemplary monogamous life
from the age of twenty-five to the age of fifty in the company of a
twice-widowed lady who was fifteen years his senior. Thirdly, during the
polygamous period, while there was a wife like Lady Ayesha, who was a virgin of
seventeen at the time of the consummation of marriage, there were those who were
widows or divorcees, and there were even those who, at the time of their
marriage with him, were already so old as to have crossed the limit of fitness
for married life. All these facts demolish the very basis of the aforesaid
insinuation completely, and establish, instead, the truth that the Holy
Prophet adopted polygamy in the Medinite
period of his life solely for the sake of his noble and sacred mission,—and
that in the perspective of a two-fold achievement. Firstly, in the tribal
society of Arabia of those days, wherein one of the fundamental conditions of
the success of his mission lay in the unification of the mutually-hostile
tribes, one of the most potent instrument of their unification, in accordance
with the mentality of the Arabs of those days, consisted in uniting them
through a kinship centered in his person,—and his marriages did make a signal
contribution in that behalf. Secondly, through those different marriages he was
able to build in the persons of his wives the most accomplished lady-teachers
and embodiments of Islam for the propagation of Islamic knowledge among the
womenfolk.
Source
to be continued . . . . .
