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Spirituality -
Two views
Australian Muslim convert Bilal Cleland contrasts Islam's holistic approach to
the material and spiritual worlds with that of other philosophies and religions.
In contemporary western society
there is a religious dichotomy. On one side there is the religion of modernisn,
materialism, on the other the world of 'pure' religion concerned with matters of
the dimension beyond.
Materialism is strongly confident
that this world is all there is and that what cannot be touched, tasted, heard
or smelled does not exist. What is real is what is concrete and measurable. This
is the religion of the dominant groups in western bureaucracies and
institutions. It is the way of thinking of those who make decisions on
government, on the economy and who decide what issues will become the main ones
in the media and the research topics which will get funding. In this sense,
western society is post-Christian and post-Judaic. Those in public life who
espouse religion, apart from the clergy, seem motivated more by concerns about
career and position than the other world, for religious ideology does not enter
into their decision making to any noticeable degree.
The dominance of this
materialist-scientist religion is in part related to the western view of
spirituality, which is embedded in the religious attitudes of the culture. Alija
Ali Izetbegovic in an article "Moses-Jesus-Muhammad" writes of this
Christian approach to religion: According to Christianity, human energy must not
be broken down into two opposed directions: toward heaven and toward earth. 'No
man can serve two masters, for either he will hate one and love the other, or he
will hold to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.' (Matt
6:24). Tolstoy picks up on this thought and carries it further: 'One cannot care
for one's soul and for worldly goods at the same time. If one hopes for good, he
gives up worldly goods. Otherwise, one could be torn and would have neither one
nor the other..'
This road of 'pure' religion in
Christianity is 'a shelter one must climb into in order to leave behind the
emptiness of an unrepairable world governed solely by Lucifer'. It is only for
the truly devoted.
All religions which take this
extreme position, the very antithesis of materialism, have one path for the
elite and another one for the masses The ordinary people are not expected to be
able to measure up. In Buddhism there is the 'Mahayana' the 'great road' severe
and difficult, reserved only for the elite and the 'Hinayana" 'the small
road' for the common people. In Christianity there is the path for the clergy,
particularly for the monastic orders, and the way for the laity. Some sections
of Christianity hold to celibacy for the clergy, or a section of clergy, the
true solution, while permitting marriage as a compromise for other believers.
According to Izetbegovic, 'When the Quran says: "God places on no soul a
burden greater than it can bear" (2:286) it is clearly aiming at
Christianity.'
The Announcement (the Gospel) of
Jesus brought a turning point in human history, for Jesus was indeed 'a sign to
the world' (Quran 21:91). This Announcement brought with it awareness of the
divine and growing consciousness of the value of humanity, yet it did not affect
the world as profoundly as we might expect. For example, the position of the
Roman Emperor was, if anything, enhanced by Pauline Christian teachings and the
gratitude of the church hierarchy for his protection. Even such unimaginable
anti-human entertainments as gladiatorial contests continued for 100 years after
the Empire accepted Christianity as the State religion.
While clear in its rejection of
materialism, such 'pure religion' leaves the pathway to dominance open to the
materialists, those for whom religion is either meaningless superstition or
window-dressing for personal ambition. The weakness of 'pure religion' is that
it assumes worldly power will belong to Lucifer or his slaves. The Gospel
according to John carries this ideology, reporting that Jesus said: 'My kingdom
is not of this world' (18:36). Passivity in the face of worldly power was one of
the basic tenets of Pauline Christianity from the beginning. Paul wrote in his
Letter to the Romans, while the authorities were deeply and aggressively pagan:
"You must all obey the
governing authorities. Since all government comes from God, the civil
authorities were appointed by God, and so anyone who resists authority is
rebelling against God's decision, and such an act is bound to be punished. Good
behaviour is not afraid of magistrates; only criminals have anything to
fear.....The State is there to serve God for your benefit." (Romans 13:1-4)
The separation of the spiritual
from the secular is clearly enunciated in Christian teachings according to Paul,
making it clear that religion and worldly life are poles apart. "Render
unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and render unto God that which is God'"
has been used millions of times to argue for the separation of the teachings of
Jesus from the behaviour of the States which govern Christian majorities. Church
leaders have in the past decade forced priests to draw back from campaigns for
land reform in feudal countries, as such worldly matters are not considered
spiritual and thus not the concern of the followers of Christ.
From within this world view,
matters spiritual deal directly with the inner world of mental discipline, with
religious ritual and with dogmatic belief. The truly spiritual person is one who
devotes himself or herself to ritualistic 'spiritual' exercise, aimed at
increasing inner awareness of the divine. Denial of the world, denial of the
demands of the flesh, submergence in the 'Great Soul' or unity with God through
total inner submission, the freeing of the rational mind into the sphere of
'intuitive knowing', the life of holy contemplation, are all acceptable aims for
the 'spiritual' being.
The Last of the Prophets, Muhammad
(s) fasted, he went to the cave of Hira and contemplated and prayed for
guidance. He was a mystic, a 'hanif'. He began to receive revelations when still
in Makkah and we trace many surahs of the Quran to this period of his life.
However the Islamic calendar is dated from the Hijra to Medina, where Islam was
put into effect. This is the profound development brought by this last stage of
Islam, when our way of life was completed by the revelation of Quran and
illuminated by the practice and behaviour of Muhammad (s). It marks the
conjunction of the inner world, the world of God-awareness, with the material
world. Alija Izetbegovic expresses it in these words: "Muhammad had to
return from the cave. If he had not returned, he would have remained a hanif.
Since he came back, he became a preacher of Islam. That was the meeting of the
inner and 'real' world, mysticism and reason, meditation and activity. Islam
started as mysticism and ended as a state. Religion accepted the world of facts
and became Islam."
The Bipolarity
of the Pillars of Islam
Izetbegovic discusses the inner
and outer aspects of the five pillars to illustrate the dual nature of Islamic
spirituality. With each one there is that inner aspect, assisting the individual
to come closer to God through clear demonstration of submission to Him, while
there is also the outer aspect which relates to the social and physical
requirements of the way of Islam. They complement each other and are not in
contradiction.
The profession of faith, shahadah,
by which one becomes Muslim, is performed before witnesses. The ummah, or Muslim
family, is a total community, with both the inner spiritual and the outer social
aspects of life encompassed. To join a religion, no witness is necessary as this
is between the individual and God, but the world of Islam is more than this.
There are moral obligations as part of the spiritual obedience, but there are
also legal ones as part of the Muslim community.
The expression of faith, that
there is no object of worship other than Allah and that Muhammad is the Apostle
and Messenger of Allah, incorporates not only the most profound spiritual truths
but also political truths. Izetbegovic writes in
"Moses-Jesus-Muhammad": The two essential dogmas of Islam (Allahu
Akbar - God is the greatest, and the famous al'-aqidah - la ilaha illallah:
There is no deity but God) are at the same time the two most revolutionary
devices in Islam. Sayyid Qutb rightly holds them to be a revolution against a
worldly authority which has usurped the fundamental prerogatives of divinity.
According to him, they mean that 'the power is to be taken away from the
priests, the leaders of the tribes, the wealthy and the rulers, and returned to
God.' Therefore, as Qutb concludes: ' There is no deity but Allah' is abhorrent
to those who are in power in any age and place.'
Observance of Ramadan, which has
profound spiritual benefits for the individual, benefits recognised by all
religions, has also a community aspect. It is seen as a social obligation,
expressing the solidarity of the Muslim community and public violation of this
duty is regarded with hostility.
Salah (Islamic prayer) is invalid
unless the individual has performed ablution. 'God loves those who keep
themselves pure and clean' (Quran 2:222). Salah involves the whole body as well
as the mind. It involves the first prayer before sunrise and the last prayer
well after sunset at night, effective devices against excessive regard for
comfort. This is quite distinct from certain monastic orders in Christianity and
Hinduism according to which the disregard and even active neglect of the body
can reinforce the spiritual component of prayer. 'The less the physical is
present, the more the spiritual is stressed'.
Salah, which is performed facing
the qiblah, and at certain times of the day, by its very nature is located in
worldly space and time. It encourages the development of accurate time-keeping
and of direction finding. Thus the introduction and spread of salah gave great
impetus to the development of astronomy and other sciences amongst the Muslims.
The spiritual is thus shown to have direct relation to the development of the
material sciences.
Zakah, a voluntary giving to the
poor in the early period of Islam, became a legal obligation once Islam was
established in Medina. Izetbegovic argues that the institutionalising of zakat
is aimed at destroying deprivation, the external side of poverty and at the
curbing of the internal or spiritual evil which permits its existence.
Izetbegovic writes: "Zakah eliminates poverty among the poor and
indifference among the rich. It reduces material differences between people and
brings them closer to each other. The goal of Islam is not to eliminate riches
but to eliminate misery."
The frequent mentioning in the
Quran of the obligation or recommendation to generosity led to a gentle
revolution in Muslim societies. The establishment of waqf, while not referred to
in the Quran, occurred everywhere in the Muslim world as a result of awareness
of the importance of zakah. There is no parallel in non-Muslim communities for
this type of trust to which property or funds are given to serve the common
welfare. Market forces economic theory cannot explain this phenomenon but even
today, in this comparative Dark Age of the Muslim world, there is talk of waqf
being able to sustain social welfare in modern Islamic societies.
Haj, the pilgrimage to the Ka'bah
in Makkah, like the other pillars of Islam, has both inner and outer aspects. It
is a spiritual exercise of great difficulty, requiring spiritual preparation,
concentration and sacrifice of material resources. It is so great an exercise
that it is required only once in a Muslim's life. It is also a great world
gathering of Muslim individuals once a year, at which goods, information and
ideas can be exchanged. It is a means of keeping all parts of the Muslim world
in touch with each other.
A Guide for the
Voyager to both the Material World and the Spiritual World
Islam is indeed a 'middle way'. It
is a bridge between that 'spiritual religion' which demands what is beyond the
capability of most human beings and the world of the material, what the
'spiritual' see as the world controlled by the forces of evil. Islam teaches
that, while we must spend our lives in a disciplined way and that we must
observe the requirements of prayer and fasting, zakah and both inner faith and
outward expressions of that faith, we can be confident that what is expected of
us is not beyond our capabilities. We can also be confident that the world is a
beautiful creation which is to be cared for and enjoyed, not something evil from
which we must retreat.
Islam is not a way of life for a
tiny devoted spiritual elite. It is a way of life that anybody can follow. It
provides for both our inner spiritual needs and our needs for a decent and
civilised life, free from fear of oppression, from fear of miserable poverty and
from exploitation. Muslims can analyse and combat evil in the world without
giving way to despair or to the notion that Satan is in control. God has
provided us with the guidance which we are free to use if we wish to deal with
this evil.
It is this dualism of Islamic
spirituality which is its great strength. Militant materialism, whether the
pagan humanism of the Renaissance, the search for the goddess Reason in the
Enlightenment or the Dialectical Materialism of Marxism, has been a feature of
western societies because of the ethereal, world-shunning nature of Pauline
Christian spirituality. It has its complement in the Buddhist approaches of the
east, where materialism, albeit to a lesser extent, has made a deep impact. The
similarity of the Pauline Christian and Buddhist attitudes to spirituality
explains to a large extent the popularity of that philosophy in post-Christian
western societies. It is a spirituality with which those brought up in a western
culture are comfortable.
The cost in human terms of this
spiritual-secular dichotomy has been profound. Although western thinkers and
west-worshippers in the Muslim countries argue that the separation of the
religious and secular, the spiritual from the material, is evidence of a high
stage of 'human civilisation' it is a fact that even in the current Dark Age of
the Muslim world, Islamic culture has been strong enough to resist the
introduction of this mind-poisoning dichotomy into the popular consciousness.
The Islamic rebirth we are witnessing, in which Islam is being seen as the
vehicle to overcome neo-colonialism, intellectual and military oppression,
exploitation of the poor and social alienation, views life as a whole. There is
no separation between the religious and the real in the Islamic world view and
it is this profound ideological and cultural difference which many
post-Christian westerners find so hard to comprehend. It also explains the
vibrant strength of Islam as we move into the 21st century of the Common Era.
© Bilal Cleland January 1997
Reference
Alija Ali Izetbegovic Islam
between East and West. Printed on the occasion of the International
Bosnia-Herzegovina Conference, October 1994. Ankara Turkey
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