A Dream Assembly

Comparisons between the Shari'a and modern civilization, and the genius of modern science and guidance of the Shari'a

In a true dream on a Friday night at the beginning of the Armistice Period following the First War, I was asked by a vast assembly in a World of Similitudes:

"What will the Islamic world's situation be following its defeat?" I replied as the deputy for the present age, and they listened to me:

This State, which through undertaking from early times the religious obligation of jihad to maintain Islam's independence and uphold the Word of God, considered itself bound to sacrifice itself for the undivided unity of the Islamic world and saw itself as the standard-bearer of the Caliphate —this State's, this Muslim nation's, past calamity will certainly bring about Islam's prosperity and freedom.

The disaster of the past will be made up for in the future. One who loses three and gains three hundred makes no loss. The zealous will transform its past into the future.

For wondrously this calamity has made unfold compassion. Islamic solidarity and brotherhood, the leaven of our lives, and has expedited the shaking, the destruction, of civilization.

Present-day low civilization will change form, its system will fall apart, then Islamic civilization will emerge.

Muslims will certainly be the first to enter it voluntarily. If you want a comparison, look closely at the principles of the civilization of the Shari'a and those of present-day civilization, and consider their results:

The principles of present-day civilization are negative. Its foundations and values are five negative principles. Its machinery is based on these.

Its point of support is force instead of right, and the mark of force is aggression and hostility, and their result is treachery.

Its goal is mean self-interest instead of virtue, and the mark of self-interest is rivalry and dispute, and their result, crime.

Its law of life is conflict instead of co-operation, and the mark of conflict is this: contention and mutual repulsion, and their result, poverty.

Its principle for relations between peoples is racialism, which flourishes through harming others and is nourished through devouring others.

The mark of negative nationalism and racialism is ghastly clashes, disastrous collisions, and their result, annihilation.

The fifth is this: its alluring service is to excite lust and the appetites of the soul and facilitate the gratification of whims, and their result is vice.

The mark of lust and passion is always this: they transform man into a beast, changing his character; they deform him, perverting his humanity.

If most of these civilized people were turned inside out, you would see their characters in the form of apes and foxes, snakes, bears, and swine.

They appear to the imagination in their pelts and skins! Examples of its products are these. The Shari'a, however, is the balance and equilibrium of the earth.

The mercy in the Shari'a comes from the skies of the Qur'an. The principles of Qur'anic civilization are positive. Its wheel of happiness turns on five positive principles:

Its point of support is truth instead of force, and the constant mark of truth is justice and balance. Security and well-being result from these, and villainy disappears.

Its aim is virtue instead of self-interest, and the mark of virtue is love and mutual attraction. Happiness results from these, and enmity disappears.