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Page 1: Qur’ânic Humanism - Global Vision Pubglobalvisionpub.com/globaljournalmanager/pdf/1393650036.pdf · Qur’ânic humanism is its serious preoccupation with human concern and human

July 2000

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Qur’ânic Humanism

— Syed Vahiduddin

Man is the paradoxical of all the living beings. His situation has ever remained ambiguous. Inthe march of life, he is always faced with alternatives. There is nothing to wonder at if the

development of his situation should reflect the essential bi-polarity of his existence and a constantswing between the ex-tremes. In the region of his excellent activities, in his achievements in scienceand technology, in his artistic and creative imagination, in his persistent quest on the path ofphilosophical speculation, we find him involved in situations which bristle with conflictingpossibilities. Be it in individual growth of his person or in the development of his civilisation, hehas to pass through many conflicts and live through many crises. Unlike sub-human levels of life hispath is not fixed once for all by the species to which he belongs.

This is the reason why philosophical anthropologists like Arnold Gehlen call Man an incompleteanimal. From the outset, he is exposed to a life of perils and risks and it is his destiny to work outhis own future without full guidance from Nature. The civilisation, i.e. his creation is not the simplerecurrence of inherited patterns but the birth of a new system. In the course of his earthly life, he isdovetailed with two different orders, nature and history. Nature has given him birth, but historyinculcates culture in him and awakens in the human mind a sense of values. Traditions and languageforge the individual personality in a super-personal mould.

Religion also can be seen in two ways, first, as a reaction of man to the mystery of theunknown, secondly, as the intrusion of the transcendent in human experience. Whether we look atreligion in one way or the other, religion affects human culture in its varied aspects, be it in artisticachievements or philosophical speculations or social and economic organisations and ethicalevaluations. In this way, religion becomes a major part of human culture, and it remains so even if itis divorced from its transcendental dimensions. Be it noted at the outset that every age has its ownbias and its perceptions are molded by its historical compulsions and empirical pressures. As such,when we talk of religion we cannot ignore the dominant trends which prevail today and mould ourvalue judgements. Thus, even when it is a question of religion we are forced to relate it to thecliches and slogans which govern our consciousness at the moment however ambiguous they maybe in their application and understanding.

Of them, secularism and humanism figure most prominently in our contemporary discussionsand both deserve clarification when used in their present-day context. The Encyclopaedia of Religion

Syed VahiduddinISSN 0972-1169July 2000, Vol. 1/I

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Global Religious Vision, Vol. I/I

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and Ethics describes secularism “as a movement intentionally unethical, relatively religious, withpolitical and philosophical antecedents.” But we have developed a concept of secularism stripped ofits negative implications and we may say without paradox that our secularism is spiritually orientedand its function is to safeguard the plurality of spiritual values, the variety of religious experiencesand the diversity in expression.

For the moment, I am not concerned with secularism as such but with humanism which is somuch in vogue today. No philosophical or religious perspective can claim respectability at thepresent moment unless it is dubbed humanistic. Humanism also suffers from the same ambiguitywhich we find in the concept of secularism. When the Sophist Protogras declared Man to be themeasure of truth, he was giving expression to a view which refuses to judge any human achievementby any standards other than the human.

Later, Humanism was associated with the period of enlightenment and appeared as a reactionagainst antiquity. Sometimes, it appears as a sharp reaction against all humanistic, theologicalreflections and sometimes as positivism dissociated with all metaphysical speculations. The Frenchphilosopher Compte preached a religion of humanity where man was deified and a new religion wasseemingly proclaimed. At least this kind of antitheistic humanism found its radical expression inNietzsche’s declaration: ‘God is dead’ and a new movement in theology was supposed to begin witha kind of Godless theology.

Hence, when we talk of the Qur’ânic humanism our emphasis is laid on its human concerns.Little wonder if we do not take into account all these negative factors here. What we mean byQur’ânic humanism is its serious preoccupation with human concern and human values. With all itstranscendental orientation the world we live in is not considered an illusion or a lie but given itsdue. It figures as a platform for human actions and for the realisation of human ideals. When theworld seems to be deprecated it is really not world as Nature but what we call seems to be worldliness,our total absorption in riches and luxuries of life which makes us neglect things which matter:“Beautified for men is love of the joys that come from women, off-spring and stored up heaps ofgold and horses blinded (with their mark) and cattle and land” (3:14).

What we are at present concerned with is not to approximate the Qur’ân to any specific ideologybut to highlight its ethical dimension. Its appreciation of human values and its regard for theuniqueness of man in spite of all his inadequacies and failures. The Qur’ân reminds the Prophet totake lesson from his own life, from what he has gone through and to shape his life accordingly:“Did He not find thee orphan and shelter thee. Did He not find thee erring and guide thee. Did henot find thee destitute and enrich thee? Therefore the orphan scold not, therefore the beggar drivenot away” (93:6-10).

Man is considered the vicegerent of God on earth and en-dowed with a trust (amana) which noone dared to carry. Without going in depth what amana or trust means, the trust which none daredto carry, one can only say at least this much that it is man’s bi-polar nature and his over-confidencein himself that is meant to be highlighted: “Lo! we offered the trust unto the heaven and the earthand the mountains, but they shrank from bearing it and were afraid of it. And man assumed it:Surely he has proved a tyrant (against himself) and fool-hardly” (37:72).

Here, it is that man is scolded and scolded lovingly: “he is ever trying to overdo himself andyet it is he alone who seems to be capable to attempt what is beyond his reach. What we are trying

Qur’ânic Humanism

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to suggest that in spite of its symbolic language which may seem baffling to those who are notsensitive to any transcendental intimation the Qur’ânic intensions are perfectly on the humanempirical level.

Again, it is said of Man that he is created in the best of moulds and yet he is capable of fallingto the lowest depths. What is characteristic of the Qur’ân is that it does not play down differencesbut recognises them for what they are worth. It repeatedly insists on the fact that mankind is createdfrom a single soul which means that the difference of race and sex have no ontological validity butonly empirical relevance: “O’ mankind! take care of your duty to your Lord who created you from asingle soul and from it created its mate and from them twain has spread about a multitude of menand women.”

The Qur’ânic concern for man is best illustrated in its unconditional call: “Help one another torighteousness and piety, but help not one another to sin and hostility” (5:3). And we find its concernfor Man most forcefully in the declaration that true piety consists in actions of charity, “to giveone’s substance, however, to kinsman and orphans, the needy, the traveller, beggars and to ransomthe slave, to perform the prayer, to pay the alms. And they who fulfill the covenant and they endurewith fortitude, misfortune, hardship, and these are they who are true in their faith, they are the trulyGod-fearing”. The Qur’ânic humanism is God-oriented, no doubt, but quite alert to human concernsto man’s predicament, his anguish and loneliness, the frustration he experiences and the despair towhich he is subjected.

As It has been written that al-Qur’ân is a book of different accents and moments. It recognisesthe fact that man is created weak, is given to haste and has propensity to evil. Yet with all hisinadequacies and failures he is not given up as lost but cheered with hope: “O Ye who have beenprodigal against your own selves despair not of God; And what is most striking is the fact thathuman attachments are not looked down upon but assigned a place in the human framework.”

The stories which we are told of the Prophets of old bear eloquent testimany to the allowancewhich al-Qur’ân makes of human relationships. The story in which the temptation of Joseph isdescribed in great detail is designated the most excellent story and the woman who creates so muchtrouble is not condemned out-right but ‘excused’ as it were. And the Prophet Joseph concedes withenviable openness: “Yet I cannot hold myself free of guilt. Lo! the soul of man incites to eviluseless my Lord hath mercy” (12:53).

For long, the view prevailed in the West that the Qur’ân denies soul to women. Whatever maybe the merit of other accusations often made on flimsy grounds, it is clear from the Qur’ân that manand woman constitute an indivisible unity and that they complement one another. Ontologically andmorally they have the same status, howsoever subject to change their social relationship may be.

The Qur’ân addresses Man from different levels of reality and consequently there is a shift ofaccents. We have to distinguish its approach in different contexts whether it is a transcendentallevel, whether it is universal ethical levels or it is a social and historical level.

Unless we do this understanding of the Qur’ânic vision of man will be very one-sided andstatic. We can move forward only with the recognitions of what Iqbal called the principle of movementin Islam and accept the view that our understanding of the sacred book need not be consideredclosed once for all but open of new insights.

Syed Vahiduddin