How different is Islam's dependence on basic unalterable...
How different is Islam's dependence on basic unalterable principles divinely dictated, germane to the inner essence of human nature in its creation, talents and destiny, and therefore those by which any sound human community must live. These are expressed in a flat, matter-of-fact pronouncement which reason comprehends and commonsense accepts as true. No propaganda —no expensive advertising—just a simple statement of a divine decree by God's Prophet (on whom be peace).
No man-pleasing—no pandering to human frailty —no eye-service — no provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof. It is not fear of punishment but love of God which keeps Muslims on the strait and narrow. No human legislation can hope to track down every wrongdoer and transgressor, let alone exact from each his condign punishment. It is easy to dodge the eye of human law. But the eye of God is everywhere at all times.
The Muslim's conscience knows this, and in reverence obeys in private as well as in public. The censor and the lawgiver is within him. The orderliness of God's creations is spread before his eyes, and he knows he should reflect a similar divine order in his private life and in the life of the society of which he is a part. The same Providence which supplies the commandment also supplies the spiritual power to put it into practice.
For He is "King of doomsday and Master of both worlds" — this present and the next. In such divinely inspired law, man finds the security which the mariner or the traveller over the trackless desert finds in the unmovable polestar. Such a law does not change with fashion or passion. It is outside and above the chops and changes of human caprice. It is the expression of a realistic assessment of man in the light of truth.
It calls him to express that truth in his living and thinking—truth which is the sustenance of the soul, eternal, impassible, transcendent over winds of change and the transports of self-will. Civilization boasts its safeguarding of "freedom"; and the West bases its government on "the public will" expressed in representative government. But "representative" of whom? As we said above, a "majority" of only 51% automatically means the suppression of the will of 49% of the people "represented".
On the principle of "one man, one vote", if the 51% are gangsters, the nation will be represented 100% by gangsters. Is there any difference between such "majority rule" and enslavement of minorities?