THIS modern civilisation, which has attained for man unprecedented power, progress, and prosperity, has an inherent design fault that inexorably leads to crisis after crisis since it is itself a product of violent reaction against revelation.
Whether we agree or disagree with the intellectual foundations, norms, secular ethics and values of this modern civilisation, we all are sharing and are destined to share its ultimate crisis just as we are sharing its fruits. When Descartes’ declaration that “reason can stand on its own” became the leitmotif of European civilisation, pure reason edged out religion. Thus, this Enlightenment movement triggered the Scientific Revolution, whose persistent dynamic impulse brought about the Industrial Revolution. Nascent capitalism facilitated this revolution for its own advantage and helped spread materialism that might be termed both a boon and bane of Western modernity. On the one hand, it brought unprecedented power and prosperity to humanity, and on the other hand it deprived man of his moral anchor.
Now, the hubris of modern man was about to unleash a mix of constructive and destructive capabilities. With religion reduced to a relic of the past, the advent of cannibalistic capitalism — ie, the emergence of corrupt socioeconomic structures with laissez-faire morality — was a foregone conclusion. Equipped with the faculty of creative knowledge man was destined to master the laws and forces of nature. But mastering that ‘mastery’ which comes into the purview of revelation was beyond his ken.
What could religion do to rein in man’s lust for power and self-aggrandisement? A study of civilisations shows that shorn of morality, man could be the most dangerous species on earth. His self-destructive genius puts the survival of the world and life in it at stake. Life on earth has witnessed extinction five times, the fifth time about 60 million years ago. Now we must consider of what consequence terribly excessive carbon emissions and destructive nuclear arsenals are and what havoc they are about to wreak on our planet. Noam Chomsky says: “Nuclear arsenals and climate change are an ample testimony to the fact that man is an evolutionary error.” His remark echoes a striking similarity with the divine judgement at the time of creation. “Indeed, we offered the Trust to the heavens and the earth and the mountains, and they declined to bear it and feared it; but man [undertook to] bear it. Indeed, he was unjust and ignorant” (33:72).
Shorn of morality, man could be the most dangerous species.
This “Trust” is bestowal of faculty of reason and volition on man to establish a just moral social world order. The Quran invites people of the book, ie, Jews and Christians (3:64) to share this responsibility. Hence, today we are “reaping” what was laid down in the intellectual foundations of the European Renaissance, Christian Reformation Movement and Peace of Westphalia, which alienated religion from the socioeconomic and political spheres. The ethical hollowness of modern man has rendered his vision myopic and priorities so warped and distorted that rudderless in the sea of unquenchable desires, he is probing in the dark.
Man is zeroing in on Mars while the affairs of the earth are becoming ever more complicated and dangerously intractable. Pure intellect has successfully defeated the moral purpose of life, turning modern man’s endeavours and achievements into Frankenstein’s monster. So, be it the rapid deterioration and decomposition of man’s social life and/ or ecological disasters, both are the outcome of the corrupt socioeconomic structures based on materialistic metaphysics.
The Quran offers man a complete programme for self-rectitude which is sufficient to save our civilisation. The plight of man at the advent of Islam, as portrayed in vivid imagery in the Quran, was highlighted thus: “Corruption has appeared on land and in the sea as an outcome of what men’s hands have wrought” (30:41).
Nuclear arsenals and climate challenges are the outcome of what modern man’s hands have wrought due to his unbridled acquisitiveness, self-aggrandisement and military-cum-cultural and epistemological hegemonies, with corrupt socioeconomic structures their main props. The panacea for all these maladies lies in the return of religion to socioeconomic and political affairs of the globe.
At the time of creation, God set a challenge to man that the equality which all people share in the eyes of God should reflect in the socioeconomic and political order. Failure to live up to the challenge is not only of Muslims; it is, in fact, the failure of entire mankind. Are we awake to this reality?
The writer is an academic.
Published in Dawn, March 29th, 2024
