COMMENTS BY
KHALAF AL HABTOOR
On a recent
trip to the Scandinavia I was impressed by
the warm welcome afford me by nearly
everyone I met. However, I was much more
impressed by the way, in which their
societies had managed to truly achieve a
social system that seemed to me to have
truly encompassed all the main tenants of
Islamic teaching on the structure and
nature of civil society and the treatment
of human life.
What make this all the more surprising are
the Scandinavian people, who, while
believing in God, are not Muslims and are
largely ignorant of the teachings of Qur’an
and the Sunnah.
What do I mean by Muslim civil society? I
mean a society that is a set of
institutions that meet the needs of
economic life and regulate people’s
pursuit of their private affairs. It is
separate from, but complimentary to the
government and commercial sectors of
society. It includes those entire
organisations within society that support
and nurture the family, reinforce a moral
code, protect individual human rights,
ensure democracy, promote peace and ensure
freedom of worship. All these things I
found in Scandinavia.
It is something that is sadly lacking in
many of the Islamic societies of the
Middle East where what most people call
Islam is not Islam in full, what is mainly
preserved are the forms of prayer,
fasting, charity, and pilgrimage; noble
deeds in themselves. But what is missing
are the laws and protections that enable
people to live full lives within the
framework of their societies for the
benefit of their families. All too often
political and religious leaders have
ignored the true laws of Islam and
exploited its teachings to fulfil their
own aims and ambitions to the detriment of
the Ummah.
If we look back at Muslim history to the
“Golden Age” of Classical Islamic
society, we can see that the greatness of
that society went beyond military
victories and Shari’ah
scholarship. Islam’s great achievements
in the Sciences, medicine, agriculture,
urban planning and international
relations, were underpinned by a
successful civil society made up of
government, commercial interests and many
independent organisations spread over a
all social strata. These included
independent institutions for learning and
research which were independent through
the establishment of charters known as awqaf
the same was true for hospitals and
clinics and even in some cases even roads
and canals upon which the great Islamic
civilisation was constructed. What are
striking are the similarities between the
institutions of the
“Golden Age” of Islamic
civilisation and the private foundations
and social organisations that give such
vitality to the civil society of Northern
Europe. The only difference is that many
modern European institutions are
democratically organised and are
independent of central government.
Muslim
social structures today have ossified and
become rigid with age. How can societies
that do not allow their people full
participation in their society, and make
them frightened, criticise any aspect of
their government for fear of condemnation
and reprisal hope to develop into modern
states underwritten by true Islamic
values. All that now are the empty symbols
of what was once a dynamic and vibrant
civilisation.
This
repression is against all what is written
in the Qur’an, which in fact exhorts
people to strive for peace through their
submission to God; to treat every human
being equally, fairly and without
prejudice. It commands a respect for the
rights of the individual and guarantees
his right to worship freely. Islamic
society reached great heights in its
“Gold Age” putting into practice these
principles. The irony of course is that
these are theprinciples, on which much of
European civil society is based today.
This is why I say that Islam is alive and well.
The pity is that it is the societies of
Northern Europe that are doing a better
job preserving and propagating some of the
core values of the Qur’an then some of
the “Muslim” societies around the
world.
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