YOU and the WIDER COMMUNITY

Purpose of community; Nature of the Muslim Community

Contains:

· PRINCIPLES OR SUPREME VALUES – Justice; Shuura

· COMMUNITY INSTITUTIONS AND PEOPLE – Political institutions; Members in a Muslim community; The Mosque–of pivotal importance

· ECONOMIC INSTITUTIONS – Zakaat and Social Welfare; Other economic institutions; Educational Institutions; Collective Obligations

Human interaction, as was shown in the last chapter, is naturally necessary because people are endowed with different abilities and capacities. God has made people to need one another and depend on one another, to live in community and society.

People may feel a sense of community with others of the same race and who speak the same language. They may regard themselves as a tribe or a nation. Their sense of community or nationhood is further strengthened if they live in or lay claim to a particular land. In this case racialism and linguistic nationalism is strengthened by territorial nationalism. People take pride in their groups or nations. Some go so far as to say, ‘My people or my nation, right or wrong!’ and may stick with their tribal, racist or nationalistic group under all circumstances.

It is fact that work in team word is better than work alone, whether among the same race and dialect, among those from the same locality. But such things – language, place of birth, cuisine – are not sufficient to give any group the goals or motivation for living an ethical life. The goals such a group sets are usually chauvinistic goals: your supreme struggles are for protecting or expending your language, your race, or your own economic power, perhaps at the expense of others.

Of course there is no good reason why you should not want to protect your language or your economic interests. It is natural to want to do so. But these goals do not promote your main concern as a human being, to live a life of virtue that would be in keeping with and strengthen the naturally good state in which you were created and also to help other human beings to live such a life.

As a Muslim, you may maintain an affinity with others who speak the same language, who come from the same clan or tribe and who belongs to the same geographical area. However, your primary and overriding identification is with the society or community that is welded together by faith and ethics. You identify with this community because it knowledges man’s true relationship with his Creator and because it promotes all that is good and beneficial and discourages all that is ugly and harmful for man. Such community or society works for the common good not only of its own members but for the common good of mankind as a whole. In no way are you allowed to say, ‘My community right or wrong’.

In Islam, jamaa’ah is used for community. A jamaa’ah might be s small group of three person, a congregation in a mosque, or the Muslim citizens of a state. The jamaa’ah is guided by firm principles of what is right and what is wrong based on the Qur’an and Sunnah of the Prophet. These are the sources for the moral and legal code of Islam – the Shari’ah. The Shari’ah describes what is the nature and purpose of the best communities. It sets out the conditions that are necessary for strong and stable communities. It establishes principles or supreme values which help to guide the community through changing times and conditions. It provides a range of institutions which anchor the community. It defines the roles of various people in the community including leaders, scholars, businesspeople, and others. It is an organized community with people having clearly defined obligations and inalienable rights and freedoms. We will discuss each of these in turn. (top)

Purpose of community

The purposes of the Muslim community are essentially two:

1. To establish the system of Islam (the Diin) for the service of God;

2. To protect the interests of people.

The first one, establishing the faith or system of Islam, implies among other things: inviting people to all that is beneficial, commanding all that is good and just, and forbidding evil and oppression according to the provisions of the Shari’ah. Spesifically, this involves such duties as ‘establishing’ Salaat in the community, collecting and distributing Zakaat and looking after the needy in society, applying the provisions of the Shari’ah to settle disputes or to punish crime so as to preserve the limits set by God, defending the community and so on.

The second, protecting the interests of the people, is linked to the preservation of one of the five essentials: true religion or diin, life, intellect or reason, honor, and property.There are definite norms and guidelines in the Shari’ah to determine how these values are to be protected. The protection of these values are not left to the arbitrary political or judicial powers in a state or the whims and opinions of the masses. This may happen in secular states which also profess to work to realize ‘the public interest’.

Let us look at some specific examples to show how some of these values are protected.

· Any community which has sufficient resources but where people face poverty, starvation and eventual loss of life will not be fulfilling its purpose to protect life and will be considered blameworthy.

· In order to preserve the interests of people in so far as ‘honor’ is concerned, there are fixed and serve penalties in Islam for such crimes as rape. In a secular state, a judge in an arbitrary manner may be and is often lenient in sentencing a person who has committed this barbaric act. He may merely impose a prison sentence of a few months or years after which the criminal is then let loose in society, free to commit the same act. ‘Honor’ in such a system will always be exposed to violation and women in particular will always feel vulnerable.

· In order to protect reason, honor, and indeed life, any Muslim community will be required, for example, to impose an absolute ban on the manufacture and trafficking in alcohol. No community which allows this could be said to be Muslim and carrying out its purposes. (top)

Nature of the Muslim community

Everyone in a Muslim community, regardless of the colour of his skin, the language he speaks, or the place of his birth has a duty to work for the realization of the pruposes of the community. This is not only because of narrow self-interest and need but stems from the moral duty to strive to be ‘the best community – commanding the good, forbidding evil and believing in God’, as described by the Qur’an.

The Muslim community has been described by the noble Prophet as having mutual support and compassion and acting like ‘a single body – when one part of is afflicted, the other parts feel pain and fever’. The Qur’an also describes the community of believers as forming ‘a solid well-knit structure’.

Thus, if you as an individual in an Islamic society feel indifferent to your community or society, if you do not feel concern and pain when it is hurt, you should regard yourself as a selfish sinner; your morals are in trouble, your conscience is in disorder and your faith is undernourished. You may not even be justified in claiming to be part of this community for the noble Prophet has said, ‘Whoever does not concern himself with the affair of Muslims is not one of them’. (top)