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COMMENTS BY KHALAF AL HABTOOR

     On a recent trip to the Scandinavia I was impressed by the warm welcome afford me by nearly everyone I met. However, I was much more impressed by the way, in which their societies had managed to truly achieve a social system that seemed to me to have truly encompassed all the main tenants of Islamic teaching on the structure and nature of civil society and the treatment of human life.

     What make this all the more surprising are the Scandinavian people, who, while believing in God, are not Muslims and are largely ignorant of the teachings of Qur’an and the Sunnah.

     What do I mean by Muslim civil society? I mean a society that is a set of institutions that meet the needs of economic life and regulate people’s pursuit of their private affairs. It is separate from, but complimentary to the government and commercial sectors of society. It includes those entire organisations within society that support and nurture the family, reinforce a moral code, protect individual human rights, ensure democracy, promote peace and ensure freedom of worship. All these things I found in Scandinavia.

     It is something that is sadly lacking in many of the Islamic societies of the Middle East where what most people call Islam is not Islam in full, what is mainly preserved are the forms of prayer, fasting, charity, and pilgrimage; noble deeds in themselves. But what is missing are the laws and protections that enable people to live full lives within the framework of their societies for the benefit of their families. All too often political and religious leaders have ignored the true laws of Islam and exploited its teachings to fulfil their own aims and ambitions to the detriment of the Ummah.

    If we look back at Muslim history to the “Golden Age” of Classical Islamic society, we can see that the greatness of that society went beyond military victories and Shari’ah scholarship. Islam’s great achievements in the Sciences, medicine, agriculture, urban planning and international relations, were underpinned by a successful civil society made up of government, commercial interests and many independent organisations spread over a all social strata. These included independent institutions for learning and research which were independent through the establishment of charters known as awqaf the same was true for hospitals and clinics and even in some cases even roads and canals upon which the great Islamic civilisation was constructed. What are striking are the similarities between the institutions of the  “Golden Age” of Islamic civilisation and the private foundations and social organisations that give such vitality to the civil society of Northern Europe. The only difference is that many modern European institutions are democratically organised and are independent of central government.

    Muslim social structures today have ossified and become rigid with age. How can societies that do not allow their people full participation in their society, and make them frightened, criticise any aspect of their government for fear of condemnation and reprisal hope to develop into modern states underwritten by true Islamic values. All that now are the empty symbols of what was once a dynamic and vibrant civilisation.

    This repression is against all what is written in the Qur’an, which in fact exhorts people to strive for peace through their submission to God; to treat every human being equally, fairly and without prejudice. It commands a respect for the rights of the individual and guarantees his right to worship freely. Islamic society reached great heights in its “Gold Age” putting into practice these principles. The irony of course is that these are theprinciples, on which much of European civil society is based today.

    This is why I say that Islam is alive and well. The pity is that it is the societies of Northern Europe that are doing a better job preserving and propagating some of the core values of the Qur’an then some of the “Muslim” societies around the world.

     

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