Muslim Cultural Unity

By Maitham Al-Janabi (Iraqi political scientist)


Muslim cultural unity does not mean a standardization of culture, but rather the reasonable proportion of its basic components, because the spirit of order is what is most essential in Muslim culture. Order is moderation determined by a priority of justice. This makes justice the prism in which the socio-political and ethical values of community are refracted. The social, political, and military collisions of the first century of Hijra—a century of turbulent formation of the Caliphate—were related basically to the struggle around the ideas of justice. The early Kharijites and Shi’ites were the first people tested through the prism of the Islamic understanding of justice. These trends were formed originally in response to the perception of the deviation of authorities from the initial principles of Islamic justice, especially during the reign of the third Caliph Osman Ibn-Afan (d. 35 AH), in constant protest against the excesses and luxurious lives of the rulers. One of the famous disciples of the prophet Abu-Thar al-Gifari (d. 22 AH) proclaimed as his slogan the verse in the Qur’an that says: "One who accumulates gold and silver and does not spend them in the name of God, is awaited by a terrible punishment." Osman Ibn-Afan was assassinated by a rebellious community, which realized in practice the Islamic principle that declares: "There is no obedience to God." Obedience in this case is synonymous to justice. It is well known that all those who support and criticize the actions of the masses at the early stages of state formation, as a rule take the form of sharp disagreement, condemnation, and disobedience, reflecting the feeling of withdrawal from truth and justice. Therefore, the wide discussion of socio-political and ethical problems such as faithfulness and blasphemy, good and evil, sin and repentance, freedom of will and predetermination, etc., is not accidental. Accusations of blasphemy were closely connected to the question of "mortal sins" whose criterion was withdrawal from truth and justice. The Kharijites, for example, in the beginning of their activity considered it possible to name any person blasphemous when they commit the slightest evil. Later, they considered blasphemous any person who committed one of the mortal sins. Ibadites-Kharijites considered such a person an apostate (from blessings). The Kharijites were against the deliberate and cowardly separation of word and deed, belief and action. Azrakites condemned those who do not fight against the tyrants who were the real teachers of blasphemy. They deeply felt the value of the state and the function of supreme authority within it, which led the Baikhasites-Kharijites to the conclusion: "If the supreme ruler is blasphemous, then all the members of the community both present and absent are part of this act." Ibadites considered those Muslims who disagree with such rulers to be believers, whereas the governors were criminals. Nadjites, in general, supposed possibility a community without an Imam (governor), if its members observe practically the Qur’anic instructions. All this shows that the basic motive of the socio-political and ethical thought and actions of the Kharijites was justice.

We find a similar motive in Shi’ism, as an embodiment of the emotional aspect of justice and truth in the personification of the Imam, who appears as a sublime image of the Muslim self or identity. This conditions the transformation of the problem of the Imamate and Imam into a problem of fundamental beliefs (based on a creed), instead of a particular political issue. Shi’ism underscores that the Imam is an embodiment of Truth and the True, that is, the substantial value that glues together the order of our life.

Alongside Kharajites and Shi’ites, there appeared trends, such as Jahmites, Murji’ites, and others, each of which tried in its own way to substantiate ideas of justice as moderation and moderation as justice. The highest form of comprehension and realization of this idea among schools of Kalam was developed by the Mutazilites. For the first time in the Caliphate history, they created a comprehensive ideological system about justice, having transformed it theoretically and practically into a universal principle of their metaphysics, ontology, and ethics.

In building their doctrine, the Mutazilites proceeded from the principle of justice and ended with the principle of monotheism. From this followed their name: the "people of justice and monotheism." This name reflects their deep and all-round understanding of the essence of Islam. Mutazilites aspired to unite the physical and historical sense of Islam by identifying monotheism with justice and vice versa. In this light it is some kind of rational-ethical synthesis, which, in the general development of Islamic civilization, has promoted a deepening affirmation of the cultural spirit of Islam.

The monotheism of the Mutazilites aspired to prove the transcendental character of God, to detach the divine from the vulgar and the passing desires of opposing sides. According to the doctrine of the Mutazilites, the divine substance is a being with absolute essence, absolute reason, universal kindness, and perfect beauty. Such an ideal substantiation gives man an opportunity to improve his/her reason and will. A strong-willed reason, educated around the value of goodness and beauty, is capable of establishing a similar order and organizing it as a realization of justice. They recognized man’s free will as the creator of his goodness and evil; hence, God cannot be accused of evil, nor can injustice be the common denominator of the Mutazilites.

If God created injustice, He would be unfair; if He created justice then He is fair. According to all Mutazilite schools, God performs only what is good and perfect, because, according to wisdom, it is necessary to encourage and to protect all that is good and beneficial to people. All this is accessible to reason, for it is reasonable, and what is reasonable should be real: supreme reason is justice. The Mutazilte al-Nazzam (d. 231 AH) said in this regard that God is not capable of doing to people anything that contradicts what is virtuous for them. Al-Iskafi (d. 240 AH) asserted that God cannot do injustice to reasonable beings (people); hence, our world is the best of worlds and is accessible to rational comprehension. Man is capable of realizing justice in this world, for the existence of the world assumes the presence of justice, both from the point of view of its divine origin as a principle, and from the point of view of its reasonable continuation in human activity.

This conclusion, as a whole, was shared by the major representatives of Caliphate intellectual schools, including the Hanbalite. Ibn-Taymiyya (d. 728 AH), for example, focused attention on problems of justice, considering it as basic to his approach to state and society. His general conclusion states: Justice is the source of the material and moral immunity of the state and person from evil.

As to philosophers, they shared the view about the value of universal justice for all beings. Islamic philosophy, in general, put justice as the basis of its rational and moral understanding of the world, and on this developed its understanding of such problems as God and man, state and society, life and death, goodness and evil, perfect and ugly. Proceeding from this, al-Kindi (d. 252 AH) elaborated his notion of reason and justice; al-Farabi (d. 339 AH) the notion of the ideal city and happiness; Ibn-Sina (d. 428 AH) the system of being and knowledge; Ibn-Rushd (d. 595 AH) the synthesis of traditions and truth in their various forms and aspects. The cumulative achievement of Islamic philosophy facilitated the assertion of a vision of justice as the core of what is reasonable and proper for human existence as a whole.

The Sufis asserted a proportion between justice as an actuality and as something that is due or ought to be. According to the Sufis, God is absolute harmony, unity of contrasts, and live proportion that indefatigably pervades the universe. This is reflected in their name: "the people of Truth." Truth here means perfect proportion in all. This is defined as a living immanent proportion of ontology, metaphysics, and morals, expressed in the unity of the Way (Tariqat), Law (shari’a) and Truth (Haqiqah). This means that truth has its law and Way. Sufis embodied truth through the laws (Shari’a) of its culture (Muslim) and its Way, showing that the great truths are those of culture. The originality of these truths is inherent in them, for they represent the spirit and pursuit of justice and order. One finds ideal methods for this pursuit in the great systems of al-Ghazali and Ibn-Arabi.