ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books The Islamic Concept and Its Characteristics Chapter I : the Wilderness and the Intellectual Rubbish Then is he who goes along with his face close to the ground [like a worm} better-guided than he who walks upright upon a straight path? (Al-Mulk 67:22).

At the advent of Islam there were in the world huge quantities of beliefs, concepts, philosophies, myths, superstitions, traditions, and Customs in which falsehood was mixed with truth, wrong with right, nonsense with religion, and mythology with philosophy. Under the burden of this rubbish, the conscience of man was groping in obscurities and speculations without finding any certainty.

The life of mankind, under the influence of this welter of confusion, was ground down by corruption and chaos, tyranny and oppression, and hardship and misery. It was a life unfit for human beings, unfit even for a herd of cattle! Life was a trackless wilderness without a guide, devoid of guidance and light, and devoid of rest and certainty.

Man was groping helplessly and hopelessly to understand his God and God's attributes, man's relationship with the universe, the ultimate purpose of his existence, the way to attain this purpose, and in particular, the connection between God and man. As a consequence of being lost in this wilder­ ness and drowned in intellectual rubbish, man's life and systems were full of evils and injustices.

It is not possible for the conscience of man to settle issues concern­ing the universe, his own self, the purpose of his life, his role in the Universe, and the relationship between the individual and society, without first settling the issues of his belief, and his concept of his deity, and doing so in a manner that produces certainty in his heart by painstakingly threading his way through that stark wilderness and by sifting through those heaps of refuse.

This matter of religious belief is not merely a medieval mode of thought, as some Western thinkers, parroted by their Eastern im­itators, have made it appear to be. Never! The matter of belief is based on two fundamental realities of the human situation, both inde­pendent of time and place. First, man, by his very nature, cannot live in this world as a detached, free-floating particle of dust.

He must relate to the world in a definite manner by formulating an idea concerning his place in the scheme of things.