• Society — Western society and the Eastern society
Is it correct to say that while Western society is bad in all respects, the Eastern society is good in every respect? If a person does in Western style something that is not prohibited in Islam, will his action constitute a sin?
It is not right to describe everything in Western society as bad and everything in Eastern society as good. What we can properly say is that in a proper Islamic society, things are all good, as long as they conform to Islamic teachings. That is due to the fact that Islam is the system designed by Allah for human life and Allah has included in it all good things. In Eastern societies today, however, there are many traditions which are either borrowed from other communities or developed in isolation from the Islamic system. These must be judged objectively. We cannot say that they are all good. Besides, there are times when an Eastern community loses touch with the true Islamic system. It begins to drift away, either because of ignorance or because of different trends of influence. I will give an example. A century ago, education was totally neglected in many parts of the Muslim world, to the extent that you could hardly find anyone who could read and write in a whole village. The situation in cities was not much better. Could we say that at that time, illiteracy was good because it was a characteristic of Eastern society?
On the other hand, there are certainly good elements in Western civilization. Let us take the example of respecting the dignity and the rights of every individual. In many Western societies, every individual can get his or her rights without the need to fork out large sums of money in the form of fees to lawyer. You do not need a lawyer to get what the law assigns to you. This is certainly a good thing which cannot be denied.
The Prophet was once asked who were the best people. When he established what his questioners meant by their question, he answered: "The best of people in pre-Islamic days are the best of them in Islam, provided that they acquire good knowledge of their faith." In the Prophet's reply, we note that he described some people as good and that these make up the best of people when they embrace Islam, provided that they get to understand it well.
• Soldiers: Muslim soldiers of a non-Muslim countryHow much of a position does "patriotism" have in Islam? Should a war break out between a Muslim state and one’s own country, what should be the attitude of the Muslim soldiers in the other country?
In our modern times, loyalty to one’s country has been given the top place among a person’s bonds and attachments. If one is born in a certain place, then his first loyalty should be to that country where he was born. If one acquires a second nationality, he is required to make an oath of allegiance to that country or system of government. Despite this strong emphasis on national loyalty, or patriotism, its bond has proven itself to be weak when it comes in conflict with other bonds and loyalties. You have only to look at the several instances of civil war resulting from tribal or ethnic differences within the same country. The cases of Angola, Bosnia, Croatia, Northern Ireland and Rwanda come quickly to mind.
Islam considers loyalty to faith as the supreme loyalty. It takes precedence over loyalties to family, tribe, race and country. A Muslim belongs to the community of believers, i.e. the Ummah. In cases of a war breaking out between two sections of the Muslim community, his place is against the aggressor group. Before allowing a war to break out, everyone should try his best to prevent the conflict from deteriorating into a war. Once the aggressor is repelled, efforts should be made to re-establish amity and brotherly love between the two groups.
If the conflict is between two states, and one of them is a Muslim while the other is not, then the Muslim community in the second state should try its best to mediate between its government and the Muslim state in order to prevent an armed conflict. Should such efforts fail, [or the Muslim community is in no position to do that,] then the Muslims in the army of the non-Muslim state should make their position clear, telling their government that they cannot join the fighting against their co-religionists. Such a clear attitude should be good enough to secure for them an exemption from fighting on conscientious grounds. However, in some countries, such a possibility is not available. If Muslim soldiers find themselves in the battlefront against a Muslim army, they must not fire to kill fellow Muslim soldiers, although they belong to the opposing army. They should not allow themselves to be responsible for killing Muslims over a political question.
• Sons of God: Distorted application by Jews & Christians
"The Jews say: Ezra is the son of God, while the Christians say: The Christ is the son of God. Such are the assertions they utter with their mouths, echoing assertions made by the non-believers of old. May God destroy them! How perverse they are! They make of their rabbis and their monks, and of the Christ, son of Mary, lords bedsides God. Yet they have been ordered to worship none but the One God, other than whom there is no deity. Exalted be He above those to whom they ascribe divinity." (Repentance, At-Tauba: 9:30-31) Commentary by Sayyid Qutb — Translated by Adil Salahi & Ashur Shamis.
Here is an authentic report transmitted by Imam Ahmad, At-Tirmithi and At-Tabari on the authority of Addi ibn Hatim:
When Addi, who had been a Christian in pre-Islamic days, heard of the Islamic message, he fled to Syria. His sister was taken prisoner together with a group of his tribesmen. The Prophet treated his sister kindly, granted her freedom and gave her some gifts. She went to her brother and urged him to adopt Islam and to meet the Prophet. Addi took his sister's advice and arrived in Madinah. He used to be the chief of his tribe, Tayyi', and his father was widely known for his unparalleled generosity. People were speaking about his arrival in Madinah. When he went to see the Prophet he was wearing a silver crucifix which he hanged in his neck. The Prophet was reading this verse: "they make of their monks and rabbis ..... lords besides God." Addi said: "They have not worshipped them." The Prophet said: "Yes, indeed they did. They followed them when they forbade them what was lawful and permitted them what was forbidden. That is how they worshipped them."
As-Saddi, a learned commentator on the Qur'an, Al-Aloussi, a scholar of the modern period says: "That they made them lords does not mean that they have treated them as if they were gods in control of the universe. What is meant is that they have obeyed them in what they have bidden and forbidden."
From the very clear Qur'anic statement and its interpretation by the Prophet which is final, and also from the observations of modern and ancient scholars we may deduce a number of very important conclusions concerning religion and beliefs which we will state here very briefly:
According to the Qur'an and the Prophet's interpretation, worship means the following of the law. The Jews and the Christians have not made their rabbis and monks lords in the sense that they treated them as gods or that they offered their worship rituals to them. Yet god describes them in this verse as 'associating partners with Him' and as 'non-believers' in a later verse in the surah, only because they have followed the laws they devised for them. This alone, regardless of beliefs and rituals, is sufficient to make anyone who does it a person who associates partners with God, which takes him out of faith altogether and puts him in the category of non-believers.
The Qur'anic statement attaches the description of 'associating partners with God' and 'un-belief' to both the Jews who accepted the laws made for them by their rabbis and put those laws into practice and the Christians who believe that Christ is their Lord and offer worship rituals to him. Both actions are the same in the sense that both make their perpetrators polytheists ascribing lordship to beings other than God.
Polytheism comes into being merely by assigning the authority to legislate to anyone other than God, even though this is not accompanied by a belief that such a legislator is a deity or by offering worship rituals to it. The primary aim of pointing out these facts is to deal with the circumstances of Muslim society at the time, particularly reluctance to confront the Byzantine and the feeling that they were believers on account of their having received revelations. Yet these facts are of general application and serve to emphasize the nature of the true religion.
The religion of truth which is the only one that is acceptable to God from any human being is 'self surrender.' Such surrender is manifested by implementing God's law, after having believed in His Oneness and offering worship to Him alone. If people are to implement a law other than that of God, then what God has said about the Jews and the Christians will apply to them as well. In other words, they would be polytheists and non-believers, no matter how emphatically they assert that they do believe. Those descriptions will apply to them once they willingly implement a law devised by human beings in total disregard to God's law, unless they protest that they only follow such laws against their will and they have no power to repel that compulsion.
The term 'religion' has nowadays lost much of its significance in the minds of most people, so much so that they confine it to beliefs to which they may hold and rituals they may offer. This was exactly the situation of the Jews who are described by this categorical verdict, as interpreted by the Prophet, peace be upon him, as non-believers, associating partners with God and disobeying His clear command not to worship anyone besides Him. This same Qur'anic statement tells us that they have taken their rabbis as lords besides God.
The most essential meaning of 'religion' is 'to submit and to follow.' This is most clearly evident by following the law as it is proven by offering worship. The matter is very serious and admits of no ambiguity of the sort of considering people who follow laws other than God's law, without being compelled to do so by forces which they cannot resist, as believers and as Muslims, only because they believe in God and offer their worship to Him.
This ambiguity is perhaps the most serious threat to this religion of Islam at the present time. It is the worst weapon leveled at this religion by its enemies who try hard to depict as Muslims and as Islamic people and situations similar to those described by God as of non-believers who take as lords some beings other than God and who do not follow the religion of truth. If the enemies of their religion try to associate those people and situations with Islam, then it is the duty of the advocates of Islam to deny them that description and to uncover their reality. They would thus show them for what they are: People who do not believe in the Oneness of God and who take for themselves lords, other than God when "they have been ordered to worship none but the One God, other than whom there is no deity. Exalted be He above those to whom they ascribe divinity."