The Development of the Social Sciences, the Idea of an “Islamic Way of Life”

and the Twenty-First Century Islamic Movements

The fundamentals of Western philosophy, disguised as suspension of judgment or agnosticism, were in fact the denial of God and the life Hereafter. They caused the physical universe to replace the transcendental concepts of God and soul from the center of human concern and inquiry. Numerous scientific discoveries and inventions naturally followed from this exclusive emphasis on worldly interests. Eschatological doctrines of life-after-death were completely rejected as topics of research in favor of the immediacy of worldly existence. As a result of persistent and exclusive thinking about the multifarious aspects of worldly life, a number of sociological and politico-economic theories were conceived and put forward. These theories gradually developed into full-fledged ideologies and world-views. Confined to strictly academic discussion in the earlier stages, these world-views were later made the social, political, and economic basis of nations. The age-old political systems based on traditional feudalism were replaced by nationalism, dictatorship, and democracy, and ancient economic systems by capitalism and socialism. A number of new political and economic movements emerged in the wake of these changes.

The world of Islam also received the impact of Western ideas in the field of social sciences, and Muslims began to propound Islam as a system of life. Islamic teachings were projected as an all-embracing ‘system of life’, and movements in different lands were launched to implement and put into practice this system of life.

These twentieth century revivalist movements started almost simultaneously in Muslim countries from Indonesia to Egypt.They were similar in a number of ways.Indeed, it would not be far from true to say that they were all animated by a single conception of religion. It must be admitted, in all fairness, that these efforts imparted credibility to Islam as a code of life superior to other ideologies, and weakened the influence of the West upon the young.

There were other factors that helped to limit the influence of Western ideas and culture.The sweeping military and political victories of the Western colonial powers were checked with the passage of time and in many countries were met with forceful and sustained nationalist freedom movements.Consequently, Western countries were forced to withdraw their political hegemony from occupied lands.

Though political influence and economic domination in the form of defense pacts or military and monetary aid programs are still very much there, almost the entire Muslim bloc has gotten rid of the yoke of direct rule by imperialist powers.In many Muslim countries nationalist freedom and self-rule movements were launched, and these invariably appealed to religious sentiments of the people for sparking off feelings of nationalism.There was no alternative to this, as Muslim nationalism had no anchorage other than Islam.This appeal to religion, however, was more like a slogan than an existential concern for the Islamic faith.Yet it did strengthen the idea of the revival of Islam.At the same time, the hollowness of Western civilizations had been clearly brought out by the two disastrous world wars, causing even the West to consider the foundations of its own culture as ill-conceived and misguided.Materialistic atheism reached its logical culmination in the forms of socialism and communism, and moral as well as religious values were reinterpreted in purely economic terms. This alarmed Western peoples themselves, and they began to propound a new philosophy of humanism which was quite sympathetic to spiritual values. In the realm of science new physical theories shook the very foundations of Newtonian physics and Euclidean geometry. Matter was no longer considered as something permanent and tangible, and the former absolute faith in mechanical laws gave way to less rigid views of the universe. This made it easier to affirm metaphysical beliefs, and gave support to religion.

Ref: An excerpt from the English translation of the Book "اسلام کی نشاة ثانیہ :کرنے کا اصل کام"byDr Israr Ahmad (RAA); “ISLAMIC RENAISSANCE: The Real Task Ahead” [Translated by Dr. Absar Ahmad]