UPRIGHT SYSTEM OR UPRIGHT INDIVIDUAL?

The notion that Islam is an ideal socio-political system and that it is the duty of the Muslim community to establish this system in the world is against the real goal of Islam. This approach goes against the very target of Islam. The main goal of Islam is that every individual attain God-realization, everyone become a rabbani person—a devoted servant of God (3: 79) in worship and in ethics. Islam desires that individuals should make success in the Hereafter their main goal. A person who interprets Islam in terms of an ideal system makes this present world his target, rather than the Hereafter. For such a person, preparing for the Hereafter makes way for the pursuit of worldly glory. Islam asks a person to lead a God-oriented life and become a devoted servant of God, but the political interpretation reduces Islam to a material and political religion. The main purpose of Islam is that man should discover God. He should build a spiritual personality within himself. He should begin to see the higher truth in his daily affairs. He should consider the life of this world to be a mere temptation and the life of the Hereafter to be truly desirable. For a person with this bent of mind, establishing an ideal socio-political system in this world is akin to a passenger of a train who starts to make his desired home on a railway platform! While mentioning Paradise, the Quran says: It is for the like of this that all should strive (37: 61). The Prophet said: “There is no life worth living except the life of the Hereafter.” (Sahih al-Bukhari) The Quran and the corpus of Hadith abound with similar teachings. The mind that develops from these teachings is incompatible with the concept of Islam as a socio-political system. It would then be fair to say that the ‘political system’ approach makes a Muslim a kind of ‘Islamic Communist’. It does not really build an Islamic personality. The terms Rabbani (spiritual) Islam and Political Islam can be used to explain this difference. Rabbani Islam fosters the spirit of God-realization in man. It cultivates a sense of accountability and introspection within man. Such a person begins to live in anticipation of Paradise. His days and nights pass in the blissful cogitations of the Hereafter. Worldly success is unimportant to him, while the success of the Hereafter As far as the task Islam entrusts the believers is concerned, the real target of Islam is the moral and spiritual development of individuals, and not the establishment of social and governmental structures.