Islam, the West and the Challenges of Modernity. Tariq Ramadan

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Название Islam, the West and the Challenges of Modernity
Автор произведения Tariq Ramadan
Жанр Культурология
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Издательство Культурология
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isbn 9780860374398



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(Qur’ān, 2:286)

      … no soul laden bears the load of another. (Qur’ān, 17:15)

      Thus is life, and this trial is the lot of all human beings from the beginning of time:

      [He] who created death and life, that He might try you which of you is fairest in works; and He is the All-mighty, the All-forgiving. (Qur’ān, 67:2)

      The conscience that the universe is given and wherein are the paths of gift, permission and trust, must come first. There is in a man a nature which is a benediction. It allows him to attain a serenity which is at the source of God’s pardon and love. Then, the conscience of limit must act and this in the inward conviction of being responsible before God and not in that of the primacy of his culpability. 21

      The whole conception of man that Islam offers, of his rapport with the universe and with others, derives from the three foundations that we have just presented. The principle of the Creator’s ownership, that of gerency, within which enters the idea of original permission are the substratum of the Islamic religion. “Submission” which is the literal translation of the word “Islam”, from the very moment when faith is expressed, is the acknowledgement of this essential order: to submit is to accept the freedom to be human and responsibles before the Creator; it is to make the limits one’s own:

      The order of the universe and the sacredness of the elements which ought to be respected, the limits that ought not to be transgressed, are in the consciousness of the faithful the rights of God on the whole creation. In Islam this consciousness is marked, from the beginning and beyond any adherence to a specific religion, by the acknowledgement of transcendence. Whosoever makes his way towards the origin will find in himself this natural aspiration (fitra) towards God:

      To make one’s life and freedom a daily witness of this acknowledgement is the responsibility of man. His manner, by memory and gesture, should be to sing the praises of his Creator with the same chanting that frees the flapping of a bird’s wings, the succession of days and nights, or a grain when it splits open giving life:

      The seven heavens and the earth, and whosoever in them is, extol Him; nothing is, that does not proclaim His praise, but you do not understand their extolling. Surely He is All-clement, All-forgiving. (Qur’ān, 17:44); It is God who splits the grain and the date-stone, brings forth the living from the dead; He brings forth the dead too from the living. So that then is God; then how are you perverted? He splits the sky into dawn, and has made the night for a repose, and the sun and the moon for a reckoning. That is the ordaining of the All-mighty, the All-knowing. It is He who has appointed for you the stars, that by them you might be guided in the shadows of lands and sea. We have distinguished the signs for a people who know. It is He who produced you from one living soul, and then a lodging-place, and then a repository. We have distinguished the signs for a people who understand. (Qur’ān, 6:95–8)

      To say that God has rights, is to say that the essence of man is at one and the same time free and responsible. Clearly, man has got the responsibility – the duty – to give an account of his freedom.

      To every one of you We have appointed a right way and an open road. If God willed, He would have made you one nation; but that He may try you in what has come to you. So be you forward in good works; unto God shall you return, all together; and He will tell you of that whereon you were at variance. (Qur’ān, 5:48)

      The differences of peoples and nations, the specificities of cultures, the particularities of customs are willed by God. It is a richness, but it is also a trial, in that it is difficult for man to conceive of and to live the difference in all its aspects. It is a fact and a challenge. The Qur’ān indicates here that the best way of pointing out and addressing this aspect of terrestrial life is to vie with one another in goodness. And this in all our acts and in the depth of our thoughts; with our gestures, words and hearts. There is no need for tolerance, for there is in everything and before everyone, in all horizons and colours, a need to witness the exigency of truth, goodness and justice.

       Notes