The Islamic concept of a just social system
Islam and the future stage of communism
In previous commentaries, I have drawn upon the writings of Islamic Shi’ite theologians to reflect upon the significance of Islamic teachings for the unfolding worldwide process of constructing a sustainable socialist-oriented post-neocolonial world-system. I retake this theme in today’s commentary with reflections on the Islamic concept of a just social system, based on Introducción a la Cosmovisión del Islam (Introduction to the Worldview of Islam) by Mulammad Husain Beheshtí and Muhammad Yauád Bahonar, published in 1988 by Fundación Cultural Oriente in the Sacred City of Qom in the Islamic Republic of Iran. As I noted in a previous commentary, Beheshti and Bahonar dedicated their lives to the study of Islamic theology and to the Islamic Revolution in Iran, and both arrived to occupy high positions in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Both ended their lives as martyrs, in separate explosions set off by enemies of the Revolution; Beheshti on June 28, 1981, and Bahonar on August 30, 1981.
Beheshti and Bahonar maintain that throughout history, people with uncontrolled egoism have expanded their power and exploited others, and such tyrants and oppressors have been a principal cause of change in human history. Accordingly, a basic unfolding dynamic in human history has been conflict between oppressors and oppressed, between exploiters and exploited, between tyrants and the tyrannized. It is a conflict between truth and falsity, between justice and oppression, between faith and infidelity. It is a conflict rooted in the nature of human beings, who possess by nature passions and free will but also the capacity to control their passions and to discern the true and the right. It is a conflict both within individuals and between social classes.
In this historical human struggle, Islamic teachings affirm the final complete and total triumph of truth and justice. God has sent the prophets to reveal the origin and destiny of humanity, revealing the fundamental principles that ought to guide human beings as they struggle to develop knowledge and to create a more just world. The teachings of the Prophets Adam, Abraham, Moses, and Jesus are not fully understood, inasmuch as the historical record of their preaching is not fully accurate; and it is incomplete, generating misunderstandings and erroneous interpretations. These limitations were overcome by the Koran, which was revealed to Mohammad during a period of twenty-three years, recorded by his followers as he expressed the revelation in elegant Arabic, in spite of the fact that the Prophet himself was illiterate and uneducated. The Koran is a succinct and coherent expression, shorter than the Christian New Testament.
The Koran exhorts believers to live a healthy and moral life and to create a just society that would be an example for humanity. The Koran calls believers to construct a just system for the distribution of wealth characterized by equal opportunities for work and respect for the rights of all individuals. The lessons of the Koran were not revealed merely for a particular time or to a particular people; the revelation contained a message to all humanity.
But after the death of the Prophet, Beheshti and Bahonar report, the Islamic society lost this commitment to social justice. The Islamic governments gradually began to propagate the philosophy of predestination, inducing the people to believe that any unfortunate situation was the result of a predetermined destiny, and the people did not have any option but to patiently submit. These governments insisted that the people ought not make any effort to change their existing situation for the better, nor should they feel any obligation or responsibility with respect to social developments.
This attitude culminated in the total collapse of the Islamic system of government. Hereditary despotic states emerged, instead of governments headed by persons whose personal and social life was the best model of an Islamic life. Injustice and chaos prevailed; personal development, freedom of thought, the equitable distribution of wealth, and the selection of competent persons for the administration of public affairs came to an end.
Beheshti and Bahonar write that those who are inclined to self-aggrandizement, especially if they have power and influence, do not hesitate to employ all possible means to attain their goals, including the distortions of moral teachings, in order to hide their personal or class objectives. But they maintain that there remains a fundamental difference between justice and injustice, however much the cause of justice is badly used to promote injustice.
Indeed, Beheshti and Bahonar maintain that morality is profoundly rooted in human nature. The prophets and moral philosophers all formulated moral principles in defense of the interests of humanity, and not merely for the benefit of one particular class. The existence of a diversity of points of view does not negate the solid base of universal moral principles in human nature and in the human struggle for dignity.
Beheshti and Bahonar maintain that social justice will prevail when the side of rectitude and justice is stronger than the forces that privilege oppression and corruption. With consciousness raising and the correct guidance for the oppressed, truth will triumph, social justice will prevail, and the oppressors will be removed from the scene.
They further maintain that the normal course in human history is consistent with human efforts to doing the right thing and to do justice, and to develop piety and purity of the soul and the heart, accompanied by the defense of human rights and the observance of norms of human comportment. Wherever there is deviation from this normal course, our duty is to confront it and to channel human action toward the normal course. This requires the willingness of the individual to become a part of the persistent collective struggle under an appropriate leader.
The collective struggle for social change can create an environment in which the streets and highways are safe, money is earned in a legal manner, and aggression and discrimination are not common. In such an environment, the constant exhortation of the good and the prohibition of the bad creates an atmosphere of general support for what is correct, overcoming the inclination of some individuals toward indifference and complacency. The process includes the creation by the people of a strong government with authority.
For Islamic theology, the moral principles that guide the collective struggle have been given to humanity through revelation to the Prophet Muhammad, the last of the Divine revelations, and concerning which humanity possesses the most complete historical record. These principles include the duty of seeking to understand the true and the right, and the duty of contributing to the movement of humanity toward the fulfillment of its destiny to develop a world of justice and equity.
However, the correct course of action requires the implementation of basic moral principles in accordance with the needs of the epoch. To be sure, the basic moral principles provide a basis for rejecting some erroneous tendencies today, and they provide guidelines for eliminating other tendencies through a certain level of reasoning and empirical observation. However, basic moral principles do not address certain concrete questions, such as the necessary role of the state in stimulating economic productivity and in providing for the human needs of the population, or with respect to the international rules that ought to govern relations among nations. In endowing humans with a capacity for reasoning and speech, and in gifting them with a planet abundant in natural resources, God provided humans with the potential to construct a peaceful and prosperous world. But that happy result can only be attained through the collective efforts of humans themselves, on the basis of faith in themselves and in the future of humanity, constructed through commitment, determination, and solidarity.
Because the divine revelations go only so far as guidelines, the collective struggle needs appropriate leaders, educating the people with respect to correct courses of action in the implementation of the divine moral principles in differing concrete situations. For Shi’ite Islamic theologians, the appropriate leader is the Imam, who holds the reigns of Islamic government in his hands. The Imam is both a governor and a religious leader. He ought to be a person who has complete knowledge of Islam and is capable of moral leadership of the highest caliber. And he must be a just administrator of the people. He must be virtuous in his personal affairs, and he must be a tireless defender of the Islamic community. He must act justly with respect to non-Muslims under the jurisdiction of the Islamic government, respecting their right to worship in their own religious traditions, and granting them full rights in public affairs.
For Beheshti and Bahonar, Islam seeks to be a world-system, the universal possession of humanity. In this quest for the universality of Islam, “the only goal ought to be cleaning the mind of myths, breaking the chains of injustice, and freeing human beings from all forms of exploitation and ignorance.”
Although this goal is most worthy and admirable for Shi’ite clerics, it seems to me that it is an impossible goal in present world conditions, in which religious affiliation is tied to particular nationalities, and indeed, to nationalities in conflict with one another.
It seems to me that the great ideological debates of the present epoch—defined by imperialism in decadence and the birth of worldwide anti-imperialist structures—are leaving religious questions to the side, for the most part. They primarily are focused on issues related to the meaning of sovereignty, democracy, and socialism. In the current U.S. ideological context, for example, socialism is out there in the public debate, although with total confusion, widespread ignorance of real socialist struggles, and multiple contradictory definitions. In this context, the revolutionary intellectual can enter the “debate,” seeking to clarify the meaning of socialism on the basis of real struggles, reconstruct the narrative of the nation in a patriotic manner, and put forth comprehensive and well-designed platform, with the hope of arriving to a new stage of consensus and civility. In contrast, the question of the meaning and significance of Islam has not entered the public debate, although the issues that Islam reasonably addresses provide an unacknowledged background to the ideological divide.
In La Doctrina del Islam Shi‘ah (The Doctrine of Shi’ite Islam) published in 2004 by Fundación Cultural Oriente, Ayatollah Ya’far Subhani makes brief reference to “virtuous servants of God," who carry out extraordinary acts, yet make no claim to being prophets. I would like to suggest that in the context of the collective anti-colonial struggles, leaders emerged who were doing extraordinary things. They demonstrated an extraordinary capacity to grasp the essentials of human history and human knowledge. They possessed exceptional capacities for political intelligence as well as for military strategies. They have known how to explain to their peoples, and how to inspire them to collective action.
Such charismatic and exceptional leaders did not claim to be prophets, that is, they did not claim to be messengers of God. Yet they were fully committed to justice for the people, like the prophets of ancient times. Before the demands of the influential and the powerful, they demanded, in word and deed, justice for the poor and the oppressed. And like the prophets of old, they possessed and called for faith in the future of humanity.
Many of their names are legendary; they are both known and unknown by us. They are, I would like to suggest, the virtuous servants of God of our times, appropriate leaders of the collective struggle for change in fulfillment of the human destiny, announced to humanity by the ancient prophets. Their writings and speeches are the sacred texts of our times, providing teachings concerning the true and the right as well as the correct courses of action.
Humanity is in the initial moments of transition from a capitalist world-economy and neocolonial world-system to a socialist-oriented world-system. In this moment of transition, the emphasis must be on the education of the people with respect to the key themes of the unfolding ideological battle. To wit, democracy as people’s democracy and people’s power, guided by a vanguard political party, and supported by mass organizations of the various sectors of the people. Socialism not as bureaucratized state ownership or as bureaucratized big government, but as scientifically informed state direction of the economy, incorporating different forms of property, designed to increase economic productivity, seeking to provide for the basic human needs and rights of the people and to elevate the standard of living. And in addition, the true and the right as absolute yet discerned through cross-civilizational dialogue.
In the subsequent phase of communism, it possibly will be the case that all forms of knowledge will be integrated. In such a context, the importance of the heritage of Judaism-Christianity-Islam in formulating the foundational moral principles necessary for human progress perhaps would be appreciated. And perhaps it will be the case that claims of fact in the spiritual dimension would attain consensual support, in which the revelations of God would be affirmed, if not as actual facts, but as reflections of the ancient wisdom of humanity.
With appreciation for the insights of Islamic theologians, I would not want to rule out the possibility that in the final stage of human history all the world will be Muslim, as the followers of the Prophet believe. If it were to be the case that all the world will be Muslim in the stage of communism, that would be perhaps the greatest irony in human history.
Let God’s truth be known to all; but for the current historic moment, as a personal option separate from the construction of world socialism.
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