The Theme of Man in the Qur’anic/Islamic Conscience—(2)

In the previous article, I explained that, according to the Qur’an, when God creates a thing (khalq); He at the same time puts into it, in addition to its qadr, the laws of its behavior (amr , “command” or sunnatullah “the way of God”), and that this should not to be confused with laws imposed ON Man but, rather, laws ingrained IN him—what the Qur’an calls “fitra” (30:30). Amr means that if X happens, Y must essentially follow. Man is not an exception, since these laws are ingrained in every created being to provide steadiness to this world which thus makes it livable. These laws are so steady that we can establish our perspectives in this world based on them. Interestingly, the fact that this concept is reiterated so many times in the Qur’an reflects how crucial it is that we properly conceive it (33:38, 62; 35:44; 40:85; 48:23; 7:54).

The only, yet major, difference in Man than other beings is that Man has been granted the freedom to choose his X’s, but not the Y’s (see the previous example) for him/herself rather than being dictated by God. Interestingly, this means that Man not only has the freedom to choose his/her own set of references, but s/he has been provided with potentialities that can equally make him/her a morally and aesthetically “perfect” man or a “Satanic” one (95:5).

But why is it easier for Man to “gravitate down to the Earth” (7:175-176)?

It is because of what the Qur’an calls “pettiness (da’f)” and “narrowness of mind (qatr)” which are effortlessly existent in Man. His/Her self-destructive selfishness and the greed to which s/he is a constant prey, his/her hasty, panicky behavior, his/her lack of self-reliance, and the fears that perpetually haunt him/her arise ultimately from the effortlessly existing narrowness of his/her mind (70:19-21; 17:100; 21:37; 17:11). Eventually, this results in Man being oblivious of the long-term consequences of his reactions—the Y’s. The Qur’an ubiquitously talks about this condition where Man becomes conscientiously “blind” and “deaf” despite being physically sound (7:179; 22:46)—Man becomes completely immersed in the externalities of this life, where s/he becomes a slave for anything and everything—societal traditions, fear, parental upbringing, political and religious authoritarians, people’s expectations, culture, the unknown, money, sex, time and place, etc. (30:7; 9:24) i.e. He becomes a conscientiously dead Man and a lively Satanic mosaic.He bci.e. S/He becomes so outward that s/he loses the realizability of the real moral and spiritual consequences of his deeds—Good becomes bad and vice versa; corruption becomes reformation and vice versa (18:103-5; 2:11-12). He loses himself in the middle of the chaos of the world that s/he does no longer remember what s/he once was. Indeed, this echoes strongly with what the Qur’an says in 59:19 that s/he who forgets God (i.e. his/her primordial, God-conscious nature and his/her responsibility of being a morally sound and autonomous being), God causes him/her to forget him/herself. For it is God’s “remembrance” that ensures the cementing of personality where all details of life and particulars of human activity are properly integrated and synthesized; “forgetting” God, on the other hand, means fragmented existence, “secularized” life, an unintegrated and eventually disintegrated personality, and enmeshment in the details at the cost of the whole. This is precisely Muhammad Iqbal’s distinction between Godliness and un-Godliness:

The sign of a kafir is that he is lost in the horizons;

The sign of a mu’min is that the horizons are lost in him.

It is in this sense that all evil deeds are very often termed dalal by the Qur’an. This term is usually translated as “misguidedness” which is correct provided that we clearly understand that misguidedness signifies primarily that “one will not go anywhere”, no matter how long or how hard one walks. That is to say, dalal, is sterile or vainless—what the Qur’an calls batil. Arguable, torture in hell basically consists of the realization that the mountains one had built have suddenly shrunk to a particle of sand and that all false Gods will come to nothingness (6:24;94; 7:53; 10:30; 11:21; 16:87; 41:48; 7:139; 11:16; 22:62; 29;67; 47:3). This establishes the equation of batil and dalal and their contrast with hidaya (getting somewhere) and haqq (the truth).

The Theme of Man in Qur’anic/Islamic Conscience—(1)

Last time, I purported that Man, and not God, is the center of the Qur’anic revelation. I also alleged that God is not an item among items; rather, He gives meaning to everything we perceive in this world. This does not negate that He is actually existent (although the form is intangible to Man), but his existence lies in His and not this world. His only existence here in this world is “within everything” here—that is what I previously called the “One-God Conscience”.

There has been much debate on what the axial nature of Man is. Is it the Mind/Intellect (2:31-33)? Or the Spirit (15:29; 38:72; 32:9)? Or the soul (nafss) (2:75; 91:7; 12:53)?

When one approaches the Qur’an in its relaying of the story of creation of Man/Adam, one can see that only two peculiar points stand out: (1) that God breathed in His own spirit into him (15:29; 38:72; 32:9), and (2) the fact that Man was the one and only among creatures who was able to “name things” (to describe their natures) spelling the disabled angels ( 2:31-33). It is actually quite important to think of these two peculiarities collectively—the ability to describe the nature of things cannot be exclusively intellectual; since when I describe something, I don’t actually tell how it truly is; but, rather, how I perceive it. In other words, my connection with the things of the world, which I describe, runs much deeper than a mere machinery ability to put labels on them. This process of describing the nature of things depends on your prior set of references, whether innate or acquired. For example, how I describe a lady depends on my very moral, aesthetic, intellectual and sentimental identities i.e. my Whole. This can range from erotic to beautiful, from insipid to funny, etc. And this is how I describe each and every thing.

But how does this relate to the story of God breathing His own spirit in Man? Well, strongly. But first, I may need to explain two terms frequently mentioned in the Quran—Qadar (to measure out) and Amr (command).

Qadar linguistically means “to measure out”. This is to be contrasted to the medievally-originated misinterpretation of the term as “divine predetermination of everything including man’s actions” (this topic is so demanding that it needs a whole post).And the idea is that while God alone is absolutely infinite, everything else bears the creaturely hallmark of “being measured”, i.e. having a finite sum of potentialities—even though the range of potentialities may be very great as in the case of Man. This measuring on the one hand ensures the orderliness of nature and on the other expresses the most fundamental, unbridgeable difference between the nature of God and anything else. It is precisely this belief in such sharing that is categorically denied by the Qur’anic doctrine of shirk—one has to be completely free from everything in this world when deciding on one’s set of references in life. Be it parental upbringing, social traditions, cultural influences, personal or social heritage, or financial references. Indeed, it is the freedom of Man from each and everything that essentially defines humaneness. It may be important to reiterate here what I said in the beginning—God cannot be considered as a restraint of Man’s will; God’s only existence in this world lies “within everything” including Man’s own conscience—that is what I previously called the “One-God Conscience” or primordial covenant with God (7:172). He is not an item among items but rather He gives meaning to everything. This perception of God can never get along with a tyrannistic/ authoritarian one. Indeed, this denotes lack of perfection since in this latter case, God is in need of satisfying Himself and He would get this from practicing authority on Man. Again, this externalizes God from Man, something I completely reject herein.

This idea relates perfectly to my discussion on the second term—Amr (Command). According to the Qur’an, when God creates a thing (khalq); He at the same time puts into it , in addition to its qadr, the laws of its behavior (amr , “command"). Again, this is not to be confused with laws imposed ON Man but, rather, laws ingrained IN him, what the Qur’an calls “fitra” (30:30).