ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Western Civilization through Muslim Eyes Part 2: Islam's Gifts to the World Islam Islam stands for harmony and perfectibility with an unmatched depth and breadth of scope that comprises all aspects of spirit and life. It knows all the roads that lead to blessing and happiness. It has the cure for human ills, individual and social, and makes them as plain as the wit of man can devise or comprehend.

It sets out to develop all sides of each person : and therefore perforce includes every reality which impacts human existence. It has not given way, in its doctrine of man, to modern errors or corrupt institutions. It does not set man in God's place. To do so is to leave man with only himself to rely on in all his pride and egotism : or else to reduce him to the slavery of being a beast of burden for his fellows, powerless, will-less, helpless before nature's and matter's tyrannies.

This is precisely what modern heresies do with man. But Islam vindicates man's unique nature vis-à-vis all other living creatures, affirming that he is a special creation with a lofty calling all his own. Islam holds that a man's personality does not cease to exist with death, but is continuous and eternal. "Worldly" and "other-worldly" are an indivisible unity. Body and soul can therefore not be dissolved into disparate elements. Islam, on these grounds, presents both worlds in shining terms.

It both trains a man for eternity and also finds the guiding principles for its public institutions on earth in the sublime destiny inherent in man's creation. Eternity dictates universal principles, unchanging and unchangeable. These Islam proclaims as tenets, convictions, commandments, statutes, in its school of contentment, in its thrust for progress. It offers man the perfection of freedom for thought, for concern, and for exegesis of the divine law on matters of social necessity.

It reverts to first principles which provide the sure and unshifting basis of rock-bottom truth in all the chances and changes of this mortal life. Islam holds that man has certain characteristics which are his link with the material world and certain others which connect him with realities that are non-material and which motivate desires and aims of a more sublime nature. Body, mind and spirit each has its proper propensities.

Each must be duly weighed, so that what one of these indivisible elements desires does not conflict with the desire of another.