Islam Story

[maro]

The materialists maintain that man is the “perfect animal,” “I’homme machine.” The difference between man and animal is one of stage, not of quality. There is no specific human essence. There is only a “concrete historical and social concept of man” and “economic and social history is the only true history that really exists.” “Man is a system as any other in nature, subordinated to nature’s inevitable, general laws.” The evolution of man is influenced by an external objective fact – work. As Friedrich Engels put it: “Man is the product of his environment and his work.” The creation of man is represented as the result of an external biological process, determined by external, spiritual facts. The hand causes and promotes the development of psychological life. … Its ‘discovery’ and the ‘discovery’ of language mark the end of the zoological and the beginning of the human history.”​

These ideas seem quite convincing, but it is less obvious that they are at the same time a radical negation of man. ​

In materialistic philosophy, man is dissected into his constituent parts, and in the end he disappears. Engels demonstrated that man is the product of social relations, or more precisely, the result of the existing means of production. Man is nothing and creates nothing; on the contrary, he is only the result of given facts.​

Darwin takes this impersonalized man in his hands and describes his ascent through natural selection to a human being who can speak, make tools, and walk erect. Biology completes this picture by showing that everything goes back to the primeval form of life which in turn is physical-chemical process, a play of molecules. Life, conscience, and soul do not exist, and consequently, there is no human essence. ​

If we now have this sharp and understandable but dull scientific model and turn to the interior of this Sistine Chapel and contemplate Michelangelo’s famous frescoes representing man’s history from his Fall of Doomsday, we are obliged to wonder about the meaning of these pictures. Do they contain any truth about the great themes they are depicting? If so, what is this truth? More precisely, in which way are these pictures truthful at all? ​

Greek drama, Dante’s vision of heavens and hell, African spirituals, Faust’s prologue in heaven, Melanesian masks, ancient Japanese frescoes, and modern paintings – all of theses examples taken without any special order bear the same testimony. It is evident that they have nothing to do with Darwin’s man, and it is not possible to imagine them as products of the surrounding nature. What kind of feelings stand behind the idea of a religion of salvation? What does this dramatic expression mean? How could there be anything dramatic in life which consists of an exchange between being and nature? What did Ernest Neizvestni see with his mind’s eye when he drew Dante’s Hell? Why is there fear among everything living, if man and life are the fruit of mother nature? ​

These questions make us wonder if the picture sketched by science is even complete. Science does give us an exact photograph of the world, but it lacks an essential dimension of reality. Science is characterized by natural misunderstanding of the living and the human. In its strict logical analysis, it makes life devoid of life and man devoid of humanity. ​

Science about man is possible only if he is part of the world or a product of it – that is, if he is a thing. Conversely, art is possible only if man is different from nature, if man is a stranger in it – that is, if he is a personality. All art is a continuous story of man’s foreignness in nature.
So, in the question about man’s origin, science and art are on a complete and irrevocable path of collision. Science enumerates facts leading inexorably to the conclusion of man’s gradual evolution from animal to human. Art shows in exciting pictures man coming from the unknown. Science refers to Darwin and his gigantic synthesis; art refers to Michelangelo and his grandiosecharter on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.​

Darwin and Michelangelo represented two different conceptions of man and two opposite truths about his origin. Neither of them will ever prevail over the other for one is supported by so many irrefutable facts while the other is held in the hearts of all men.

It is only around man that two contradictory truths can exist. Only together can they give us the complete and true picture about him.

The statement that man, as a biological being, has an animal nature came from religion before Darwin and de Lamarck. Religion claims that the animal is an aspect of man. The difference lies only in the scope of this claim. According to science, man is nothing more than an intelligent animal; according to religion, man is an animal endowed with personality. ​

Let us notice that the word “human” has a double meaning in our mind. “We are human” means that we are sinful and weak. “Let us be human” is an appeal to remind us that we are something superior, that we have higher obligations that we have to be unselfish and humane. “You think only of the human,” Jesus reproached Saint Peter, giving preference to the divine.
Humanism and humanity are both derived from the word man and have a huger moral connotation. This double meaning of ideas connected to man’s name is a result of man’s double nature, one of them originating from the earth and the other from heaven. ​

The materialists always directed our attention to the external aspects of things. “The hand is not only an organ of work,” writes Engles, “but also a product of it. Only through work…the human hand attained that high degree of perfection in which it could produce Raffaello’s paintings, Thorvaldsen’s statues and Paganini’s music.”​

What Engles is talking about is the continuation of biological and not spiritual development. Painting, however, is a spiritual, not a technical act. Raphael created his paintings not with his hands but with his spirit. Beethoven wrote his best compositions when he was already deaf. Biological development alone, even if stretched out indefinitely, could never have given us Raphael’s paintings nor even the crude prehistoric cave pictures. Here we are faced with two separate aspects of man’s existence. ​

A human being is not the sum of his different biological functions, just like a painting cannot be reduced to the quantity of the paint used or a poem to its syntax. It is true that a mosque is built from a given number of stone blocks of definite form and in definite order, from a certain quantity of mortar, wooden beams, and so forth: however, this is not the whole truth about the mosque. After all, there is a difference between a mosque and military barracks. It is possible to write a perfect grammatical and linguistic analysis of a poem by Goethe without coming anywhere near its essence. The same goes for the difference between a dictionary and a poem in the same language. A dictionary is exact but has no plot; a poem has a meaning and an unattainable essence. Fossils, morphology, and psychology describe only man’s external, mechanical, and meaningless side. Man is like a painting, a mosque, or a poem rather than the quantity or quality of the material of which he is made. ​

Man is more than all the sciences together can say about him. ​

To be continued.....​

 

[maro]

According to the theory of evolution, the ancestor of the most primitive type of man was the most developed type of animal. If we compare primitive man with the most developed animal, we find that there is an essential and inseparable difference. On one side, we see a flock of animals searching for food and struggling to survive; on the other side, we see primitive man, frightened and confused by his strange taboos and beliefs, or absorbed in his abstruse mysteries and symbols. The difference between these two beings cannot be only in their different stages of development. ​

We say man has developed, but that is true only for his mortal, outer history. Man was also created. At once, he has become aware that not only is he not animal, but that the meaning of his life is to be found in the negation of the animal inside himself. If man is a child of nature, how is it possible that he started to appose it? If we imagine developing man’s intelligence to the highest degree, we find that his needs will only increase in number as well as in kind; none of this will disappear – only the way he satisfies them will become more intelligent and better organized. The idea to sacrifice himself for the sake of others or to reject any of his wishes or to reduce the intensity of his own physical pleasure will never come from his brain. ​

The principle of animal existence is utility and efficiency. This is not the case with man, at least with his specific human quality. Animal instincts are the best examples of the principle of efficiency and usefulness. Animals have a good sense of time – better than man’s. For example, starlings stop eating an hour before sunset. Bees organize their workday with a surprising degree of exactness. Most flowers give their nectar only a few hours daily and only at exact times. Bees collect the nectar at the most favorable time and from the best places. For their direction, bees use different signs on the ground and the position of the sun. When it is cloudy, they orient themselves with the help of polarized lights, and so forth. These abilities are of this world. They help and enable the species to survive. ​

On the contrary, moral principles – both in primitive and in civilized society – reduce man’s efficiency. Given two species with the same intelligence, the one with moral principles would soon be exterminated. Man has compensated for this deficiency of power which is a result of his ethics with his superior intelligence and other parallel abilities.​

Intelligence, however, has a zoological and not a human origin. “Let us open a collection of anecdotes about the animal intelligence. Beside many behaviors which could be explained as imitation or as automatic association of picture, we can see as well many which we will not hesitate to admit as intelligent. In this, we may especially take into consideration, all those in which a certain manufacturing idea is manifested, whether the animal makes a rough tool or uses an object made by man…”
A chimpanzee will use a stick to reach a banana, a bear a stone to get at its prey, and so forth. Much material has been collected on how bees, geese, and apes receive and transmit different information through conversation or pantomime. Dr. Bler, director of the New York Zoo, has collected many interesting observations on the intelligence of animals and their ability to use objects near them. His general conclusion was that all animals are capable of thinking. ​

Language also belongs to the natural and zoological rather than the spiritual side of man. We find a rudimentary form of language with animals. Linguistics – contrary to art – can be analyzed scientifically and even by strict mathematical methods. This given it the characteristics of science, and the subjects of science can be something external only.
There is an analogy between intelligence and nature and between intelligence and language. As intelligence and matter helped to “create each other” so, in a similar way, did intelligence and language. Language is “the hand of the brain” and, as Bergson states, “the function of the brain is in limiting out spiritual life to what is useful for us in practice.”​

Generally speaking, there is nothing in man that does not also exist in higher stages of animals, vertebrates, and insects. There is consciousness, intelligence, one or more means of communication, the desire to satisfy needs and join in societies, and some form of economy. Looking from this side, man may appear to have something in common with the animal world. However, there is nothing in the animal kingdom which resembles – even in a rudimentary form – religion, magic, drama, taboo, art, moral prohibitions, and so forth, with which the life of prehistoric as well as civilized man is surrounded. The evolution of animals may appear to be logical, gradual, and easily understood, compared to the evolution of primitive man, who is possessed by strange taboos and beliefs. When an animal goes hunting, it behaves very logically and rationally. No animal will let an opportunity pass. There is no superstition or the like here. Bees treat their useless members in a most cruel way: they are simply thrown out of the beehive. Bees are the best example of a well-organized social life which completely lacks what we usually call humanism: protection of the weak and disabled, the right to life, appreciation, recognition, and so forth. ​

For animals, things are what they seem to be. For man, things have also an imaginary meaning which is sometimes more important for him than the real one. It is easy to understand the logic of an animal struggling to survive. What about primitive man? Before they went hunting, the primitive hunters and often their families too had to submit themselves to different taboos, fastings, prayers; to perform special dances; to have certain kinds of dreams; to observe special signs. When the game was within sight, other rituals had to be performed. Even the women at home were subject to many taboos. If they broke them, the hunting expedition might not be successful and the lives of their husbands endangered…” We know that primitive men depicted the animals they hoped to kill before they set out hunting. They were convinced that this would have a decisive influence on their hunting success (so-called “hunting magic”). Young men were accepted among the hunters after complicated ceremonies. Hubert and Mauss describe these ceremonies as consisting of three phases: the ritual of acceptance. While man painted or prayed, animals went about their task “logically”; they explored the ground, listened carefully, and followed their prey from behind.
As such, the animal was an excellent hunter. Primitive man was the same, but he was at the same time the tireless creator and “producer” of cults, myths, superstitions, dances, and idols. Man always looked for another word – authentic or imaginary. This is not a difference in developmental stages but in essence. ​

One of the strongest things in development of human society is that the idea of sowing was associated with the idea of human sacrifice. H.G. Wells writes in his Short History of the World: “ It was entanglement, we must remember, in the childish, dreaming mythmaking primitive mind; no reasoned process will explain it. But in the world of 12,000 to 20,000 years ago, it would seem that whenever seedtime came around to the Neolithic peoples, there was a human sacrifice. And it was not the sacrifice of any mean or outcast person; it was usually of a chosen youth or maiden, a youth more often, who was treated with profound deference and even worship…” “These communities displayed a great development of human sacrifice about the process of seed-time and harvest…” or a little further in the same book: “The Mexican (Aztec) civilization in particular ran in blood: it offered thousands of human victims yearly. The cutting open of living victims, the tearing out of the still-beating heart, was an act that dominated the minds and lives of these strange priesthoods. Public life, national festivities – all turned on this horrible act.”​

In his book, Salammbo, Gustava Flaubert describes how the Carthaginians, when they prayed for rain, threw their own children into the glowing mouth of their god Moloch. On the basis of these horrible examples, it would be wrong to conclude that men were beasts. We find nothing similar among animals. It may sound like a paradox, but the given examples are typically human behavior. It has to do with man’s suffering and wandering, both of which are repeating themselves even today in a drama of mankind where nations and individuals act unreasonably, led not by their instincts but by authentic human prejudices and errors. ​

 

[maro]

Sacrifice has existed in all religions without exception. The nature of sacrifice has remained unexplained and even absurd. Sacrifice is a fact of another order, of another world. In primitive religions, sacrifice sometimes assumes terrible forms. As such, sacrifice represents a powerful, tangible, and painfully visible borderline between the alleged zoological, and the human era. It represents the appearance of a principle that is contrary to the principle of interest, benefits, and needs. Interest is zoological; sacrifice is human. Interest is one of the basic concepts in politics or political economy; sacrifice is one of the basic principles of religion and ethics. ​

Primitive man’s irrational way of thinking sometimes took on unbelievable forms: “One of the strange things that appeared in the later Paleolithic and Neolithic ages was the self-mangling of the body. People began to mutilate their own bodies, cutting off noses, ears, fingers and the like, and giving to theses acts different superstitious meanings. … No animal does the like,” concludes Wells. Compare this with the fox which, when caught in a fox trap, bites off his leg. This is an act of reason. The irrational self-mutilation of primitive man is completely extraneous to animals.​

From this, we might wrongly conclude that this is an anomaly in evolution. It seems that evolution has regressed and that appearance of an animal with idealistic prejudices prevents further development. ​

This phenomenon of vacillation at the very top of evolution which makes animal look more advanced than humans, we call “the primitive man’s complex.” Even if this may sound strange, this complex is the expression of that new quality which is typically human and which is the source of all religions, poetry, and art. The phenomenon is important because it points out, in its own way, the originality of man’s appearance and many of the paradoxes which are connected with it. ​

These facts could easily lead us to conclude that animals have hade more favorable changes in their ascent up the evolutionary ladder while primitive man, starting at the sky and entangled in moral obligations, had all the preconditions needed to be trampled underfoot. This is almost unavoidable impression of the superiority of the zoological over the human during the dawn of the human era will be repeated later in the call to destroy idealism for the sake of progress. ​

During this long period of man’s emancipation from the animal world, it is alleged that the external differences (walking erect and the development of speech, and intelligence) were for a long time very small and hardly noticeable. It is not clear whether a being who resembled a man as well as an ape and used a stick to prolong his arm to reach food, or uttered inarticulate sounds to communicate with his fellows, was a man or an ape. The presence of any kind of cult or taboo will, however, disperse any doubts. Animals waited to become humans until the point in time where they began to pray. Whatever the merits of such a view, the decisive difference between man and animal is neither a physical nor an intellectual one. It is above all a spiritual one, manifesting itself in the presence of some religious, ethical, and aesthetical conscience. From this standpoint, the appearance of man should not be acknowledged as the time when he started to walk upright or from the development of his hands, speech, or intelligence, as science teaches us, but from the appearance of the first taboo cult. Ironically, primitive man, who 15,000 years ago enjoyed looking at flowers and the profiles of animals and then painted them on the walls of his cave, was – from this point of view – nearer to true man than the modern epicure who lives only to satisfy his physical pleasure and daily thinks of new ones, or the average modern town dweller who lives isolated in his concrete cage deprived of all elementary aesthetical feelings and sensations. ​

In his book The First Law, Atkinson writes that different kinds of prohibitions existed among primitive people everywhere in the world. The constant need for “purification from evil” and the constant dwelling on things forbidden to the touch or even to the sight, is found everywhere and this has enabled us to acquire some knowledge about the existence of primitive being. The other universal idea which dominated the minds of primitive men was the idea of banishment.​

In this way, a whole system of prohibitions was created which covered different aspects of primitive life. These were later called taboos. The taboo was originally a prohibition of ethical character among early mankind.​

Man does not behave as a child of nature but rather as a stranger in it. His basic feeling is fear but not the biological fear that animals feel. It is spiritual, cosmic, and primeval fear bound to the secrets and riddles of human existence. Markin Heidegger called it the “eternal and timeless determinant of human existence.” This is a fear mingled with curiosity, astonishment, admiration, disaffection – the feelings that perhaps lie at the basis of all our culture and art.​

Only this position of primitive man in the world could explain the appearance of different prohibitions and concepts of “impurity,” “sublimity,” “damnation,” “holiness,” and so forth. If we were children of this world, nothing would seem either impure or holy to us. These concepts are contradictory to the world we know. They are evidence of our other origin, of which we cannot have any memory. Our inadequate reaction to this world, as expressed by religion and art, is the negation of the scientific concept of man. Why did he always express his fear and disappointments through religion? Why and from what did he seek salvation? This side of man we are talking about (good, evil, the feeling of wretchedness, the permanent dilemma between interest and conscience, the question of our existence, and so forth) remains without a rational explanation. Obviously, man did not react to the world around him in Darwinian way.​

Not even in the most developed species of animals can we find any traces of cults or prohibitions. Wherever man has appeared, religion and art have followed. Science, on the other hand, is relatively new. Man, religion, and art were always bound together. Not enough attention has been devoted to this phenomenon which might contain the answer to some decisive questions of human existence​

To be continued...​

 

[maro]

From the materialistic point of view, the history of mankind seems to be process of progressive secularization. Still, no one has ever explained why primitive man’s life was filled with cults, mysteries, prohibitions, and beliefs. Why did he attribute life and personality to all things surrounding him such as stones, stars, rivers, and so forth? Why, on the contrary, does civilized man try to reduce everything to the inorganic and the mechanical? Already for thousands of years, we have been trying to get rid of primitive man’s nightmares, without understanding their nature and origin.

This phenomenon of inner life or staring at the sky, which is typical of man and alien to all animals, remains without a logical explanation and seems to have descended literally “from the sky.” As it is not a product of evolution, it stands principally above or outside evolution. After studying the paintings of Neanderthal man in France, Henri Simle concluded that the psychological life of primitive man differed very little from that of modern man. “Even the cave man of 70,000 years ago suffered from ‘the metaphysical giddiness,’ the illness of modern man.” Obviously, this is not the continuation of biological evolution, but one more act of the drama which was started by the “prologue in heaven.”

During the so-called zoological era, before the appearance of human beings, there is nothing that gives us any hint of the coming period of cults and primitive ethics. Even if we imagine this period to be prolonged indefinitely, the appearance of cults and taboos does not seem possible. The evolution of animals does not go toward physical and intellectual perfection, and from there toward super-intelligence and super-animal, toward Nietzsche’s superman – in fact, the perfect animal. Nietzsche’s vision of the superman was inspired by Darwin. Evolution – zoological and external in its essence – is stretched out beyond man, but this zoological evolution remains simple and logical because it stays within the limits of nature. Super-animal is the result of evolution and as such it is a creature without inner life, without humanity, drama, character, heart, and so forth. It is the Homunculus, the creation out of the test tube, which Dr. Faust produced in his laboratory, as did nature, although through a slower process.


Doubtless, the Soviet poet Voznesenski had a similar picture in mind when he wrote: “The future computers will theoretically be able to do everything that man is doing, except two things: to be religious and to write poetry.”


As animals have no idea of the holy or the devil, they have no idea of the beautiful. The opinion held by some scientists that apes could paint, based on the “paintings” apes had done, proved to be quite wrong. It has been confirmed that apes only imitate man. So-called “ape art” surely does not exist. On the contrary, the cave men from Cromganon onward knew how to paint and carve. Their drawings have been found in caves of the Sahara, in Spain at Al-tamira, in France at Lascaux, and recently in Poland at Mashicka. Many of these pictures are thought to be more than 30,000 years old. Some time ago, a group of Soviet archeologists discovered a set of musical instruments, made 20,000 years ago, near the town of Chernigov in the Ukraine.


Man’s desire to adorn himself is older and stranger than his need to cover and protect his body. This fact can be traced from prehistoric times up today. Our clothes are not only a protection; they also reflect the times in which we live and the group to which we belong. Our costume becomes a picture and poetry. The furs and feathers of animals may be very beautiful, but behind this beauty is always a function. In primitive man’s songs and drama, it is not possible to distinguish between art and cult. The first stone sculpture was an idol. Religious inspiration, wrongly oriented, created those fantastic sculptures of gods and masks found in Oceania, Mexico, and on the Ivory Coast and which today are good examples of impressionistic art. All so-called plastic art is idolatrous in origin, and this is how Islam’s intolerance – and that of some less personalistic religions – of this form of art should be explained. It seems that we have to go back to prehistory to understand the roots of art in religion, and how they, together with primitive ethics, have a common source: man’s longing for a lost world.

This dissimilarity from animals can also be seen in man’s revolt. An animal does not revolt against his animal fate. Only man revolts, the only animal who refused to be so. This type of revolt is essentially human, and we also find it in well-developed societies, where civilization – zoological in its origin – tries to implement some inhumane standards of existence (order, depersonalization, general leveling and uniformity, dress of the masses, the rule of society over the individual, and so forth).

Johan Huizinga discovered yet another phenomenon: playing. Animals play, but they always have some biological need for it such as sexual play, teaching their young ones, and so on. Their play is instinctive and functional; man’s play is free and unconcerned. It always includes a consciousness of play that gives a spiritual meaning: seriousness, solemnity, “aimless purposefulness.”

A special kind of play is potlatch, a universal phenomenon of all primitive cultures. By its nature, it is typically an irrational and uneconomical (anti-utilitarian) phenomenon in the same sense as primitive art is of primitive ethics with its prohibitions, taboos, and ideas of good and evil. In the aforementioned book, Huizinga writes extensively on this subject. He finds a typical form of potlatch with the Kwakiut Indian tribe and describes it as a great festivity in which one of two groups prodigiously donates to the other. The single and therefore the necessary reciprocal favor is that the other group within a certain period of time repeats the festivity and repays the donation. The spirit of donation permeates the whole life of the tribe: their cult, their common law, their art. In a potlatch, the superiority is not manifested by the simple donation of the goods, but more strikingly by destroying them to prove that it is possible to live without them. The action always promotes a form of competition: if the chieftain breaks a little copper kettle or sets fire to a heap of blankets or breaks his cane, he rival is due to destroy some object of at least equal value, if not a higher one. Such competition, whose pinnacle of excess is in calmly destroying one’s own goods, is to be found throughout the world. Marcel Mauss described the same custom among the Malay people. In his book, Essai sur le Don, he proved that similar customs existed in the ancient Greek, Roman, and old Germainc cultures. Granet identified competitive donation and destruction of goods in Chinese traditions as well.

We find the practice of potlatch in pre-Islamic Arabia under the name of muaqara, and Mauss maintains that the Indian epic Mahabharata is nothing but the history of a giant potlatch. …It is not a world concerned with everyday life, benefits, or the acquisition of useful goods. As far I know, ethnology looks for an explanation of potlatch mostly in magic and mythical images. …Material benefit is also not in question. To destroy goods, to show indifference to useful material things, to prefer principle to things – be it only feigned – is typical for human beings. Nothing similar – not even a trace of it – can be found among animals.

 

[maro]

For some time, Darwin’s theory was considered to be the final explanation of man’s origin, just as Newton’s cosmos theory was once thought to be final as regards the universe. But in the same way that Newton’s mechanical conception had to be disputed because it could not explain some phenomena in the universe, Darwin’s theory also has to be revitalized. The theory of evolution can neither explain in a satisfactory way the first religious phase of mankind nor the same phenomena in modern times. Why are men psychologically less satisfied when they are better off materially? Why do the number of suicides and mental diseases increase with increases standards of living and education? Why does progress not mean humanization as well?

The human mind, having once accepted the clear-cut visions of Darwin and Newton, finds it difficult to reject them. Newton’s world is stable, logical, and continuous, as Darwin’s man is simple and one dimensional: he struggles for survival, he satisfies his needs and aims for a functional world.

Nonetheless, Einstein destroyed Newton’s illusion and pessimistic philosophy, and the failure of civilization does so with Darwin’s image of man. Man is inexplicable, unsatisfied, tormented by fear and doubts – Einstein would say “curved.” The philosophy of man, which for a long time has been under the influence of Darwin’s straight-lined vision, now is waiting for its Einsteinian overthrow. The new conception of man, as compared with that of Darwin, will be the same as the relation between Einstein’s and Newton’s universe. If it is true that we rise through suffering and sink through enjoyment, it is because we are different from animals. Man is not tailored according to Darwin, nor is the universe tailored according to Newton.

 

[maro]

Life

Are we able to and will we forever be able to produce life? The answer is: yes, if we can understand it. Can we understand life? ​

Biology is not a science about the essence of life, but a science about the phenomenon of life – about life as an object, as a product.
The same incongruence that we established earlier between animal and man is met again, but one degree lower, on the level of “matter” versus life. On one side, we see homogeneity, quantity, repetition, causality and mechanism; on the other side, we find originality, quality, growth, spontaneity, organism. Life does not manifest itself as a continuance of matter – neither mechanically nor dialectically, nor as its most organized and most complex form. Looking at some of its qualities, life is contradictory to our conceptions and understanding of matter in its very definition. The nature of life is the opposite of matter. ​

According to biologists, entropy is the crucial point in the definition of life. All laws of nature go back to entropy, which means universal disorganization, the ultimate state of inert uniformity. On the contrary, the basic characteristic of living organism is the state of “anti-entropy,” its ability to create the complex out of the simple, order out of chaos, and to maintain a system – even temporary – on a higher level of energy. Every material system moves toward a higher degree of entropy, and every living system follows the opposite direction because “life is a movement against the wind of mechanical laws,” as Kuznjetzov, a Russian scientist in the field of cybernetics puts it. ​

Not being a biologist, I will confine myself to quoting some authorities in this field. The failure of biology to explain life is a fact which cannot be passed over in silence. I would like to point out that this comes as no surprise. ​

In 1950, André George put only one question to biologists, doctors, and physicist: What is life? All the answers he received were indefinite and cautious. We may take the answers by Pierre Lapin and Jean Rostand as typical examples. “The mystery remains complete. Our lack of knowledge makes every explanation of life less clear than our instinctive knowledge of it.” “So far, we do not know what life is. We are not even able to give a complete and exact definition of the phenomenon of life.”​

Due to its ability to evade quick decomposition to an inert state of uniformity, the organism shows itself so mysterious that people from the most ancient times believed that a special nonphysical and supernatural force (vis à vis, entelecheia) acted in the organism. In what way does a living organism fight against its decline? Each process, or event, or development in the world, all that happens in nature means at the same time an addition of entropy… The organism can retain that process – that is, survive – only by the constant taking of negative entropy from the outside… Therefore, the organism feeds on the negative entropy.”

French paleontologist Teilhard de Chardin writes very similarly: “Indeed, in spite of many obstacles, the curve running from the big molecules toward polycell organisms continues incessantly: this is just the one along which the indeterminations, self-arrangements, and consciousness emerge… Hence the question: is there a connection between this mysterious movement of the world toward states more and more complex and internal and the other movement (better studied and better known) which pulls the same world toward the more and more simple and external states? … The essential secret of the universe might be formulated in this question.”​

“The spontaneous ability of cells to create the organs and social behavior of some insects are among the basic facts which we learned by means of observation. We cannot find an explanation of them in the light of our present understanding.”​

Karl Jaspers, in his General psychopathology writes about the aforementioned inverse character of the living as follows: “Psychic facts appear as quite new and in a fashion that cannot be understood. They are coming one after another and not one from another. The phases of psychic evolution of a normal life, as well as of an abnormal life, give such unintelligible successions in time. So, a longitudinal cross section of the psychic cannot be understood, even approximately in its emergence. The psychic facts cannot be studied from outside as the natural facts cannot be from inside.”​

In the same book, Jaspers also points out the difference between “to comprehend” (verstehen), which can be achieved by psychological penetration, and to explain (erklaren), which means to uncover the objective connection between cause and effect by natural science. Jaspers concludes: “Here we are talking about the ultimate sources of our knowledge which deeply differ one from another.”​

Louis de Broglie, the French physicist and Nobel Laureate, said in 1929: “We cannot explain life with our present knowledge of chemistry an physics.”
The Swiss biologist Guyenot maintains that there is an essential difference between physio-chemical relations and life:​

Physicists must realize that although we biologists have worked hard to explain life in physical and chemical formulas, we have come across something that we could not explain. That is life. Life has found an organized form. And not only once, but a million times during billions of years. Here we are faced with a constructive ability which can be explained neither physically nor chemically.​

André Lwoff, the French biologist and Nobel Prize winner in 1965, well-known for his work on the genetical mechanism of viruses and bacteria, said:
Life can be defined as a quality, or a manifestation, or a state of an organism. An organism is an independent system of mutually dependent structures and functions which is able to reproduce itself… It has often been said that a virus is the connection between organic substances and living matter. In reality, living matter does not exist. One element of a cell, such as albumen, an enzyme or nucleic acid, is not a living substance. Only an organism is alive, and this organism is much more than the sum of its parts. We have succeeded in creating a synthesis of viral nucleic acid. On the basis of this, we cannot talk about a synthesis of life, because in all these experiments one substance lent to the virus, which is genetical matter specific to the nucleotide, takes part… ​

Sometimes life is born spontaneously. It is easy to synthetically produce some parts of albumen or nucleic acid, but up to now it has not been possible to create an organism… To reproduce one single bacteria – that is still beyond out reach…​

The famous Russian psychologist and experimenter Ivan Pavlov expresses similar skepticism:
Already for thousands of years, mankind has been investigating psychological events, phenomena of spiritual life, the human soul, and not only are psychologists and specialists working on this question, but also all forms of art and literature – these mechanical expressions of mankind’s psychological life – deal with this problem. Thousands of pages have been filled with descriptions of man’s inner world, but so far we have not been successful in this effort. We have not been able to find any law that regulates man’s psychological life.​

Alexis carrel doubts man’s ability to understand fully the life within the cell:
The methods which are used by the organs in their own construction are strange to the human mind… All this material emerges from one single cell, which would be like a whole house being produced from a magic brick, which would then spontaneously produce the other bricks… The organs develop in a way which has been used by fairies in children’s fables… Our reason can by no means find itself in that world of inner organs.​

​

 

[maro]

Also, somewhat further:​

So far, we have not been able to reach the secret of the organization of our body, its food, or its nervous and spiritual energy. The laws of physics and chemistry can be fully applied only to dead matter and only partly to man. We should free ourselves completely from the illusions of the nineteenth century and Jacques Lobe’s dogmas – those childish physio-chemical theories about human beings which, unfortunately, many physiologists and doctors still believe in.”​

Life is a miracle rather than a phenomenon. Look, for instance, at the human eye. The human eye is lying in a cavity filled with fat. It is protected by an upper and lower lid, eyelashes, eyebrows, mucous membranes, and the conjunctiva. The movement of the eye in all directions is made possible by motor muscles, two straight ones and two oblique ones, and it is aided by the tear apparatus which consists of the lachrymal gland, the lachrymal sac, and the tear canal which keeps the eye humid and protects it from infections. The eyeball consists of three coats. The outer one is the compact and nontransparent white of the eye, which is transformed into the transparent cornea on the front side. The vascular net lies under the white of the eye and through it flow the blood vessels which nourish the eye.

For the function of the eye, the most important part is the third layer, the retina. This is where the sensory cells are situated – the rods and cones, connected with bipolar cells and fibers that collectively form the optic nerve. The interior of the eyeball is filled with an elastic, transparent, and watery fluid. The crystalline lens attached to the iris and connected with the ciliar body lies in the front part. When rays of light pass through the cornea, they change their shape to enable focusing at the back of the eye and an upside down picture is transmitted to the optical center of the brain.

Each eye receives the image from a different angle. These nerve impulses from both eyes travel over the optic nerve. Collective impulses arrive at midbrain junctions on either side of the brain and travel over fibers which ramify to the occipital lobe where the impulses are “seen.” For the functioning of the eye, tears are very important, they are produced by the lachrymal gland, and they keep the cornea wet. Among other substances, tears contain lysozyme, an antibacterial substance which protects the eye from infections. The flow of the tears is controlled by the seventh cranial nerve, the nervus facialis. As a bactericide, the human tear is more effective than any pharmaceutical product and is supposed to destroy more than 100 different kinds of bacteria. This ability is retained even when diluted up to 600 times. ​

Likewise, the liver has several different functions. As a gland, it produces bile which helps in food digestion. The liver is an incomparable chemical plant. It can modify almost any chemical substance. It is a powerful detoxifying organ, braking down many kinds of toxic molecules and making them harmless. It is a blood reservoir and a storage organ for some vitamins and for digested carbohydrates (in the form of glycogen) which is released to sustain the blood sugar level. It is a manufacturing site for enzymes, cholesterol, proteins, vitamin A, blood coagulation factors, and other elements. Under some circumstances, it can even resume its embryonic function of red blood cell production. ​

Our blood transports nutriments to the different parts of the body, carries oxygen from the lungs to the cells, and carbon dioxide away from the thirty trillion cells of the human body. Moreover, it transports the hormones and antibodies which form our internal defense. Blood also influences the regulation of body temperature. The white blood cells destroy, digest, and ingest invading bacteria as well as nonbacterial particles. ​

The brain consists of the cerebrum which is divided into two hemispheres: the thalamus, including the medulla oblongata and the spinal cord. The brain is protected by three coats: the hard, the soft, and the connective tissue. The mass of the brain consists of grayish-white substances. The gray tissue contains nerve cells, and the white is the end station of the motor and sensory fibers. The medulla oblongata forms the relay and reflex center and connects with higher brain centers via the pons. The cerebellum is concerned with equilibrium, muscular coordination and the automatic execution of fine movements. The “seeing center,” known as the occipital lobe, is located in the back part of the brain. Areas for hearing and smelling are located in the temporal lobe at the side of the head. The most conspicuous part of the brain is the massive cerebrum. Its outer rind, the cerebral cortex, is a grayish layer of nerve cells. Beneath is white tissue, at the base of which is an extra small center of gray substance called the basal ganglion. “Gray matter” is not necessarily superior to white, or vice versa; it is concerned with the distribution of impulses across selected synapses while white matter sees to impulse conduction along fibers. Together they enable the creation of main psychological functions and conditional reflexes. The average weight of a human brain is about 1,300 to 1,450 grams, and it contains about 14 to 15 billion cells. ​

Animals possess apparatus which are often stronger and more perfect than tools manufactured by man. There are many examples: the lights of some birds, the violin of grasshoppers, the cymbal of crickets, and whole sets of traps, nets, snares, glues, and so on. André Tetry has written a whole book on this subject. Les Qutils chez les êtres vivants. It is evident that evolution did not progress blindly or mechanically as Darwin thought. Evolution seems to have followed the principle of usefulness, the direction which was helpful for the individual. This point to a certain idea which cannot be found in materia.​

The rattlesnake has an extraordinary ability to feel infrared rays. Scientists at Colorado University in the US have proved that this infrared detector is placed on the head of the snake, and that it consists of very thin nerves with specific cells which change while the light shines on them. Experiments have shown that within 35 milliseconds after the rays are sent, the snake reacts. This is a record reaction time for any biological system known so far.​

In a similar way, sharks have a very sensitive electric antenna on their nose which enables them to find food hidden in the sand on the sea bottom. All organisms in the sea transmit weak electric waves which sharks intercept with the help of their sensitive antennas. ​

Dr. Alexander Gorbovsky, a member of the Soviet Academy of Science, readopts the old idea which, Einstein among others, supported that there are some enigmatic traits in the structure of the cosmos and matter. I will quote here some interesting instances from his work:
Many thousands of termites cooperate to build a termite hill. When completed, it is a very complicated construction with an area of more than a hundred square miles of channels, storage for wood, rooms for eggs, and so on.​

The following test was performed: a termite hill, the construction of which had just been started, was partitioned into two parts so that the termites would be completely separated from each other. In spite of this, the construction continued successfully and all passages, channels, rooms, and stores were built identically in both parts, and they even had common connections…​

We might think that every termite was very well informed of his neighbor’s work in the other part, as they had worked in exactly the same way. However, he had no knowledge of his neighbor’s work, for he could not communicate with him. Let us try to explain this phenomenon…
It is obvious that the individual termite does not possess all the information on the construction of a termite hill. Each individual ‘know’ only a part of the complete process in which he is involved. Accordingly, we may conclude that only the population as a whole has the complete knowledge. In other words, only individuals as members of the group have the ‘great knowledge.’ Individually, they do not possess it…​

For a long time it was thought that flocks of migratory birds on their way to warmer regions were guided by older and more experienced birds, but this has not been confirmed by facts. Professor Jamoto Hirosuke, a Japanese ornithologist, has found that a flock of birds has no guiding bird. If there happens to be a bird in front, it is not necessarily guiding the flock. Sometimes, a very young and even featherless bird is in front. It is evident that such a bird ‘does not know’ the traditional route and cannot direct the others who know their way very well.​

 

[maro]

Gorbovsky continues:

It is a known fact that, from the biological point of view, the relation between newborn males and females is equal. If this normal relation is upset, a spontaneous process of adjustment occurs. If there are less females in a society, there will be more females born, but if we have less males, their number will increase successively. This process will continue until the balance is reestablished…

It is obvious that the individual independent organism cannot influence the sex of its offspring. In other words, again we have phenomenon with laws of its own. We are again confronted with an influence coming from outside of each individual organism…

This is a phenomenon well-known to mankind. Demographers call it ‘the phenomenon of war years’. During and after wars many men are killed, but very soon after a war the number of men born always increases until the balance is reestablished.

The preceding examples are taken from the first biology textbook that was at hand. These true miracles in nature are explained by religion as acts by the Highest Reason – God. All scientific explanations can be summarized as miracles created by themselves. Is it not the greatest superstition intruded on the human mind? To ask one to accept that something as perfect and complex as man’s eye and brain were created by chance, by themselves, is to ask one to accept Greek mythology as truth. Let us conclude, therefore, with the words of the great Islamic philosopher Muhammad Al-Ghazāli that all miracles are natural and all nature is miraculous.

What then about ‘self-organizing mater’ and ‘the self-creation’ of all these very complex systems of which the living world is full?
Let us look at the self-organizing (creation by accident) of one molecule of albumen which is the basic material of all living organisms known to us.

The Swiss physicist Charles Eugene Guye has tried to make a probability count of the accidental creation of one molecule of protein. It is known that a molecule of protein consists of at least four different elements. To simplify the count, Guye assumed that a molecule of albumen consists only of two elements of 2,000 atoms with atomic weight of 10 and with the molecule dissymmetry of 0.9. With these simplified preconditions, the probability that protein could be created accidentally amounts to 2.02 x 10 – 231 according to Guye’s calculations. If we consider this result within the age and size of our planet, the creation of such a molecule would take 10243 billion years under the condition of 5.1014 vibrations per second. Consequently, there is no possibility that life could have been created accidentally during the 4.5 billion years the earth is supposed to have existed.

The count was repeated by Manfred Eigen of the Max Plank Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen, Germany, a Nobel Prize winner of chemistry in 1968. he has proven that all the water of our planet is not sufficient to accidentally produce one molecule of protein. Even if the whole universe were full of chemical substances which were permanently combining with each other, the ten billion years since the creation of the universe would not have been enough to produce any type of protein. Faced with this fact, Eigen formulated the hypothesis of evolution before life – that is life before life as this theory is called – because he admitted that nucleic acid has a kind of life capability. A principle of order, selection and adaption is all at once attributed to matter – a principle which by no means enters the definition of matter.

When two British scientists, Fredric Hoyle, the former President of the Royal Society of Astronomy, and Chandra Vikrama of the University of Cardiff, studied the same problem, they defined the hypothesis that life was not created on earth but was imported with the help of cosmic dust clouds from the depth of the cosmos. According to them, the biological activity in the cosmos must have started before the creation of the earth.
The Russian scientist Balandin writes: ‘if a million laboratories on earth worked for a few million years combining chemical substances, the probability of creating life in a test tube would be minimal. According to Holden’s calculations, the chance is one to 1,310.” This is how things stand with the self-organizing of one molecule of protein which, compared to a living organism, is as one brick compared to the completed building.

Science, especially molecule biology, has managed to reduce the huge gap between living and dead material to a very small space, but this small space has remained unbridgeable. To underestimate it would be scientifically unsound, but this is a tendency of the official materialism.
How can the following paradox be explained? If, in an archeological excavation, we find two stones put in a certain order or cut from some purpose, all of us would surely conclude that it is the work of a man of older times. If, near the same stones, we fined a human skull incomparably more perfect and complex than the stone tools, some of us would not think that it is the work of a conscious being. They look upon this perfect skull or skeleton as being created by itself or by accident – that is, without the intervention of a brain or consciousness. Is not man’s negation of God sometimes capricious?

Modern man’s narrow-mindedness is best shown in his belief that there is no riddle before him. His wisdom is the sum of his knowledge and his ignorance, of which he is not aware, he accepts it as knowledge. Even in the face of the greatest mystery, he behaves self-consciously and conceitedly. He does not even see the problem. It is in this that the true measure of his ignorance and prejudice is manifested. In autumn, the swallows fly from Europe to Africa. In springtime, they return to the same roof where they set their nest. How do they know that they have to go and when they must leave? Coming back, how are they able to find the same roof among thousands of roofs in a big town? To this question, our conceited man answers that it is instinct which leads them, or that it is a question of natural selection – only the birds which “understood” that they had to move to warmer regions survived. The others who did not “understand” this died out. Their instinct to migrate is the result of the accumulated knowledge of thousands of generations.

The problem does not lie in this empty answer. It lies in the fact that our disputant thinks that he gave an answer at all: he eliminates questioning which is the first condition for exploring the truth. The appearance of the general theory of relativity is due to the fact that Einstein saw a problem where everything seemed clear ad defined.

The meaning of art, philosophy, and religion is to direct man’s attention to riddles, secrets, and questions. It sometimes leads to a certain knowledge but more often to an awareness of ignorance or to transforming our ignorance of which we are not aware into ignorance of which we are not aware. This is the dividing line between the ignorant and the wise. Sometimes both of them know very little about some question, but the ignorant, contrary to the wise, takes his ignorance as knowledge and behaves accordingly.

He is simply blind to the problem and, in our case, blind to the miracle. This situation sometimes has tragic consequences in practical life: ignorant persons are very sure of themselves, while the wise behave in a Hamletian way, which gives the first group obvious advantages. This state of affairs is the exact opposite of the state of meditation. No meditation is needed of the so-called “mass-man.” This type of man does not litter his mind with any riddles or secrets. He does not wonder nor admire when confronted with the unknown. If a problem arises, he terms it and goes on living, believing that the problem has been solved in this way. Such terms are “instinct,” “self-organizing matter,” “complex form or highly organized matter,” and so forth.

We cannot explain life by scientific means only because life is both a miracle and a phenomenon. Wonder and admiration are the highest forms of our understanding of life.
​

 

[maro]

The Meaning of Humanism
​

To strive for enjoyment and to flee from pain – with this lapidary sentence, two great materialistic thinkers, Epicurus in antiquity and Holbach in modern times, defined the basic principles of life, not only of human life but also that of animals. Materialism always stresses what is common to animals and humans, while religion stresses what makes them different. The meaning of some cults and religious prohibitions is only to underline these differences. In its effort to emphasize the animal nature of human beings, materialism sometimes shows more than a common concern for truth.

Darwin did not make man an animal, but he made him aware of his animal origin. Out of this “awareness,” the others continued to draw the “appropriate conclusions,” both moral and political: a human society is a flock in civilized form, and civilization is the human awakening which goes accompanied with the rejection of prohibitions, power over nature, living with the senses instead of the spirit, and so forth.

By establishing the unity (or continuation) between animal and man, evolution abolished the difference between nature and culture. Starting from a quite different point religion reestablished this difference.

Therefore, from the act of creation, man – and all culture with him – inexorably has opposed the whole development of human history. The divergence between culture and civilization began here. While Camus indicated that “Man is an animal which refuses to be so,” Whitehead saw in this negation the essence of the religious attitude, “this great rejection.”

Religion seems to say: look what the animals do, and do the opposite; they devour – you should fast; they mate – you should abstain; they live in flocks – you should try to live alone; they strive for enjoyment and flee from pain – you should expose yourself to difficulties. In a word, they live with their bodies, but you should live with your spirit.

Rejection of this zoological position, this “negative desire” which cannot be explained by Darwinian and rational theories, is the crucial fact of human life on this planet. This fact may be the human damnation or privilege, but it is the only specific quality which makes one a human being.

In reality, there exist both a complete parallelism and an absolute incongruity between man and animal. We find conformity in the biological, constitutional – that is, the mechanical aspect, but on the other hand, there is actually no parallel since an animal is innocent, sinless, and morally natural like a thing. Man is never so and from the moment “animal became humanized,” from the dramatic “prologue in heaven,” or from the famous “fall on earth,” man cannot choose to be an innocent animal. Man was set “free without the option to return,” and so every Freudian solution is excluded. From that moment on, he could no longer be an animal or a man; he could only be man or non-man.

If man was simply the most perfect animal, his life would be simple and without mysteries. Still, since he is not so because he was created, he is a disharmonious being, and Euclid’s harmony is not possible. Not only our fundamental truth but also our sins and vices are based on the fact of the creation.

There we find our human dignity, moral striving, and tragedies as well as our dilemmas, dissatisfaction, damnation, cruelty, and malice. An animal knows none of them and in this lies the meaning of this epoch-making moment.

The question of creation is really the question of human freedom. If one accepts that man has no freedom, that all his actions are predetermined – either by what is inside or what is outside him – one may consider that God is not necessary for an explanation and understanding of the world.

However, if one gives man freedom, if one considers him responsible, one recognizes the existence of God, tacitly or openly. Only God was able to create a free creature, and freedom could only arise by the act of creation. Freedom is not the result or product of evolution. Freedom and product are disparate ideas. God does not produce or construct. He creates. We used to say the same for artists, for the artists who constructs does not create a personality but rather a poster of man. A personality cannot be constructed. I do not know what a portrait could mean without God. Maybe, sooner or later, during this century or after a million years of continued civilization, man will succeed in constructing an imitation of himself, a kind of robot or monster, something very similar to its constructor. This human-looking monster may look very much like a man, but one thing is certain: it will not have freedom, it will be able to do only what it has been programmed to do. In this lies the greatness of God's creation which cannot be repeated or compared with anything that has happened before or after in the cosmos. In one eon of eternity, a free being started to exist. Without a divine touch, the result of evolution would not have been man, but rather a more developed animal, a super-animal, a creature with a human body and intelligence but without a heart and personality. Its intelligence without moral scruples might even be more efficient but, at the same time, more cruel.

Some people imagine this type of creatures as coming from a far planet in the universe; others see it as a product of our civilization on some high level of development. There is such a creature in Goethe’s Faust, but it is a quasi-man – a homunculus. It should be noted that there is no analogy between this cruelly indifferent creature, homunculus, and the worst criminal. Man can choose to go against the moral laws, but he cannot, as a monster, stay out of the moral sphere, beyond good and evil. He cannot “switch off” himself.

Practical moral experience shows man’s greater inclination to sin than his striving to do good. His ability to fall deep into sin seems to be greater than to soar up into the heights of virtue. Negative personalities always seem truer than positive ones, and the poet who describes negative characters has an advantage over the one who describes heroes.

Anyhow, men are always good or bad but never innocent, and this could be the ultimate meaning of the biblical story about the fall, the original sin.

From the moment of the expulsion from paradise, Adam (man) could not rid himself of his freedom, nor escape from the drama, to be innocent as an animal or an angel. He has to choose, to use his freedom, to be good or evil; in one word, to be man. This ability to choose, regardless of result, is the highest form of existence possible in the universe.

 

[maro]

Man has a soul, but psychology is not the science about it. There cannot exist a science about the soul. Psychology deals with some forms of apparent inner life. This is why it is possible to talk about psycho-psychology, psychometry, psycho-hygiene, and the physics of the psyche. The possibility of quantitative psychology confirms the thesis of the outer, mechanical, and quantitative, that is, the soulless nature of thought and feeling. Animal and human psychology may complement each other, for psychology has nothing to do with the soul, only with the psychological manifestations.

John Watson writes: “Human psychology, as understood by behaviorism, must be built upon the example of the objective and experimental psychology of animals, borrowing from its way of examining, its method, and its aim. As such, there do not exist two types of psychology (human and animal), separated from each other; by an iron curtain, not knowing each other; having basically different objects, methods, and aims; but only one psychology which takes its place among the natural science.” This quotation needs no comment.

If we use Islamic terms, we may say that psychology is the science of the nafs and not of the rūh, that is, a science on the biological and not on the personal level. There are three circles (the mechanical, the biological, and the personal) which correspond to the three degrees of reality (matter, life, and personality). This way of thinking leads to the application of the scientific method, which always implies an absolute causality, and this by itself means the negation of freedom which is the essence of the soul. Our attempt to “study” the soul in psychology brings us necessarily to the negation of the “subject of this study.” There is no way out of this bewitched circle.

 

[Sahar]

Maro, this is a very good thread, one of the best in Islam Forum if not the best.

 

[maro]

The equality and brotherhood of people is possible only if man is created by God. The equality of man is a spiritual and not a natural, physical, or intellectual fact. It exists as a moral quality of man, as the human dignity, or as the equal value of the human personality. On the contrary, as physical, thinking, and social beings; as members of group, classes, political groupings, and nations; people are always very unequal.

If man’s spiritual value is not recognized – this fact of religious character – the only real base of human equality is lost. Equality, then, becomes a mere phrase without a base and content and, as such, it will soon retreat, faced with the evident facts of human inequality or with the natural human desire to rule and to obey and thus to be unequal. As soon as the religious approach is removed, the empty room is filled by different forms of inequality – racial, national, social, or political.

Man’s dignity could not be discovered by biology, psychology, or by any other science, Man’s dignity is a spiritual question. After “objective observations,” it is easier for science to confirm the inequality of man, and so, “scientific racism” is quite possible and even logical.

The ethics of Socrates, Pythagoras, and of Seneca were not inferior to the ethics of the three revealed religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) even though there remains one clear distinction only the ethics of the revealed religions postulated clearly and without ambiguity the equality of all men as God’s creatures. Even Plato accepted it as necessary that men were unequal. On the contrary, the cornerstone of the revealed religions is the common origin, and therefore the absolute equality, of all men.

This idea has had a fundamental impact on all later spiritual, ethical, and social development of mankind. Moreover, the history of ethics seems to prove the connection between the idea of the equality of men and the idea of immortality – a topic which has not yet been studied enough. Religious and moral systems which do not recognize or otherwise have a confused idea about immortality, do not recognize this equality either. If there is no God, men are obviously and hopelessly unequal.

Nietzsche claimed that religions were invented by the weak to delude the strong. Marx maintained the opposite. If we accept that religions were imagined, Nietzsche’s interpretation seems more convincing because only on religion could the weak base their demand for equality. Science and everything else except religion have confirmed their inequality.

Why are there so many handicapped people around the mosques, churches, and temples which we enter? Only the houses of God have opened their doors to the ones who have nothing to show and to prove, who are poor in health and wealth, who are shut out from all the feasts of this world where one is asked for name, family, talents, and knowledge. The sick and the uneducated remain in front of the factory door too, while the healthy and educated enter. In the house of God, a poor and blind man can stand by the side of the king or a noble and he may even be better than they are. The most important cultural and human meaning of the temples lies in this recurring proof of equality.

The utmost meaning of art is to discover the human equality in men who have been degraded by life and to find human greatness in the small, forgotten people – in a word, to reveal the human soul of the same value in every human being. The lower the social status of a man, the more striking is the discovery of his dignity. In the lies the true value of classical Russian literature. French literature equally featured this in such personages as Quasimodo, Fantine, and Jean Valijean.

Humanism is not charity, forgiveness, and tolerance, although that is the necessary result of it. Humanism is primarily the affirmation of man and his freedom, namely, of his value as a man.

Everything that debases man’s personality, that brings him down to a thing, is inhuman. For instance, it is human to state that man is responsible for his deeds and to punish him. It is not human to ask him to regret, to change his mind, to “improve,” and to be pardoned. It is more human to prosecute a man for his beliefs than to force him to renounce them, giving him the well-known chance called “taking into consideration his sincere attitude.” So, there are punishments which are human, and pardonings which are most inhuman. The inquisitors claimed that they burned the body to save the soul. Modern inquisitors do the opposite: they “burn” the soul as the compensation for the body.

To reduce a man to the function of a producer and a consumer, even if every man is given his place in production and consumption, does not signal humanism but dehumanization.

To drill people to produce correct and disciplined citizens is likewise inhuman.

Education, too, can be inhuman: if it is one-sided, directed, and indoctrinated; if it does not teach one to think independently, if it only gives ready-made answers; if it prepares people only for different functions instead of broadening their horizons and thereby their freedom.

Every manipulation of people, even if it is done in their own interests, it is inhuman. To think for them and to free them from their responsibilities and obligations is also inhuman. Our quality of man obliges us. When God gave man the ability to chose and threatened him with severe punishments, He confirmed in the highest way the value of man as a man. We have to follow the example set by God: let us leave man to struggle for himself, instead of doing it for him.

Without religion and the concept of man’s ever-striving spirit, as stated in the “prologue in heaven,” there is no authentic belief that man as man is at all possible and that he really exists. Atheistic humanism is a contradiction because if there is no God, then there is no man either.

Also, if there is no man, humanism is a phrase without essence. The one who does not acknowledge the creation of man does not understand the real meaning of humanism. Since he has lost his basic standard, he will always reduce humanism to the production of goods and their distribution according to need. To make sure that all people are fed is of course a matter of great concern, but knowing affluent societies of today, we cannot be sure that in this way we would get a better and more humane world. It would be even less humane if the ideas of some people about general leveling, uniformity, and depersonification were put into practice. In such a world, as described by Aldous Huxley in Brave New World, there would be no social problems, and evenness, uniformity, and stability would reign everywhere. Nonetheless, all of us consciously or instinctively reject this vision as an example of general dehumanization.

` “Man is a product of his environment” – this basic postulate of materialism served as the starting point of all subsequent inhuman theories in law and sociology, and of the practice of manipulating human beings, which in our time reached monstrous proportions during the time of Nazism and Stalinism. All other similar seductive theories of society’s priority over individuals, of man’s obligation to serve society, and so forth, belong here as well. Man must not serve anybody; he must not be a means. Everything must serve man, and man must serve God only. This is the ultimate meaning of humanism.

 

[maro]

Source (of the last 12 posts) : The book ,Islam between east and west , by Alija_Izetbegov

 

[maro]

Islam tells a story that I think is worth my listening to and perhaps becoming a part of and through which my thinking mind might reconcile itself with being

After reading this beautiful post lately ,i remembered this thread and i thought it deserves a chance to be read again .
and Inshallah i might resume posting in it soon

 

[maro]

I am better than him

76. (Iblis) answered: "I am better than him. You have created me from fire and him You have created from clay."20 (Quran)

According to Iblīs, honor and goodness lie in physical origin or matter. His attitude is typical of materialism and a lack of correct understanding. He saw only the material origin of humankind and ignored their spiritual dimension that originated in being breathed into out of God’s Spirit.
The other point to mention here is that Iblīs judged God’s order according to his own knowledge and understanding, and opposed His explicit order based on his own judgment. He demonstrated that, out of arrogance, he would fulfill God’s orders only when they conformed with his desire or understanding, not because he believed all of these orders to be truth in themselves and that therefore they must be obeyed. So are those who act in the same way aware who it is that they follow and whose pupils they are?

 

[maro]

But you are not unmarketable with Allah.

Anas (may Allah be pleased with him) said,

“There was a man from amongst the Bedouins whose name was Zahir bin Haram. Whenever he came to Medinah for a need, he brought something for the Prophet (saw) as a gift, like cottage cheese or butter. Likewise, when the Prophet (saw) would prepare something to give to him whenever he wanted to leave, such as dates and so on.
The Prophet (saw) used to love him and say, “Zahir is our Bedouin and we are his city dwellers.”
Zahir was not very good looking. One day, Zahir (may Allah be pleased with him) left the desert and came to Allah’s Messenger (saw) but did not find him. He has some merchandise to sell so he went on to the market place.

When the Prophet (saw) found out about his arrival, he went to the market place looking for him. When he arrived, he saw him selling his merchandise with sweat pouring down from his face. He wore Bedouin clothers which did not smell good either. The Prophet (saw) hugged him tightly from behind, while Zahir was unaware and could not see who it was.
Zahir became scared and said, “Let me go! Who is this?!” But the Prophet (saw) remained silent. Zahir tried to release himself from his grip and started to look right and left. When he saw the Prophet (saw) he relaxed and calmed down, placing his back against the Prophet’s chest. The Prophet (saw) began to joke with him, saying to the public: “Who will buy this slave?! Who will buy this slave?”
Thereupon, Zahir looked at himself and thought of his extreme poverty, for he had neither wealth or good looks.
He said, “You will find me unmarketable, O’ Messenger of Allah.”
The Prophet (saw) said, “But you are not unmarketable with Allah. You are very precious to Allah.”

 

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The first Murder

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vclxLw-ONUI

 

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Man...between Existentialism and Islam

Existentialism

As existentialism is one of the most well‑known contem*porary schools of philosophy which has devoted much of its attention to man, we must study its doctrines in order to have a clear idea about the prevalent theories about man. For this purpose we propose first to reproduce some of the views of the thinkers and the commentators of this school and then to make our comments on them:

Existence of man precedes his essence, and hence, firstly there exists no purpose, plan or destiny con*cerning him prior to the emergence of his personality or his existence; and secondly, as free agents we can choose and change our essence at will. Jean Paul Sartre

I emerge alone and faced by the commotions and anxieties go forward and backward. That is what gives shape to my existence. It is I who can overcome all hurdles and provide value to my existence. Nothing other than me can give satisfaction to me. I have severed my relations with the world. I fight my own basis, that is the non‑existence, which I am myself. It is my duty to bestow reality on the meaning of the world and of myself. I alone take a decision. Principles of the Philosophy of Existentialism

As far as `disappointment' is concerned, that means that we confine ourselves to depending on what is within our will or within the total possibilities, which make our action possible. We sever our relations with everything else and cherish no hope. When Rene Descartes said: "Subdue yourself, not the world", he actually meant that we should work without cheri*shing a hope. Sartre

The conception of man is synonymous with a mixture of anxiety and encouragement. When a man makes a commitment and determines that by his action he is not only deciding about himself and choosing what he shall be, but is also giving a law for all mankind, at that moment he cannot avoid feeling complete and deep responsibility. Sartre

Those who bear such a responsibility as that of a military commander who undertakes to launch an attack, know well the anxiety with which we are concerned. Sartre

In respect of `bad intention' and `self deception', which must be avoided, Sartre says:

As the human beings are free and independent beings and they themselves invent their moral standards, the only thing which they may be asked to do is to be loyal to their own standards and values.

The assertion that man is a free agent, necessarily means that human beings are not a plaything in the hands of gods or any power other than themselves. They have absolute freedom, and are `released', `independent', not interrelated and `not interconnected'. In short, `they axe what they axe'.

Quoting Dostoyevsky, who wrote: "If God did not exist, everything would have been permissible", Sartre says: This is the starting point of this school. Really if God does not exist, everything is permissible. Consequently man feels dejected, for he finds nothing to depend upon either within himself or outside himself.

Man is condemned to be free. I say "Condemned", because he has not created himself. Still he is free, and from the moment he is dropped into this world, he is responsible for all his actions.

In respect of the views of this school in regard to man, the following points may be deduced from what has been cited above:

(1) In contrast to other natural beings which have a definite and ready‑made essence, man has no particular essence. His essence is that which he makes himself.

(2) Man is a free agent and has power of choice.

(3) No will, principle or law restricts the range of man's freedom.

(4) It is man himself who is responsible for his own making. His destiny rests exclusively on his personal choice. He is also responsible for making his social environment and bringing about changes in his natural surroundings, and that too on the basis of the principles which he formulates himself.

(5) For this very reason he is always agitated and he feels uneasy because he can have no guidance or support from outside and the choice he makes is not easy.

(6) Man feels lonely and detatched from everything. As he has to depend on himself alone, he feels disappointed.

(7) The uneasiness and constructive `disappointment' that induce him to `action', are like everything else the outcome of his own `action'.

As for the belief in God, it may be said that this philosophy does not necessarily amount to atheism.

Sartre says:

There are two types of the existentialists. On the one hand there are Christian existentialists, among whom I name Karl Jaspers and Gabriel Marcel, both of whom confess to be Catholics. On the other hand, there are existentialists, who are atheists, like Martin Heidegger and I. The only thing common between these two types of individuals is that they generally believe that existence of man precedes his essence.

At another place Sartre says:

In the philosophy of existentialism the conception of atheism does not involve the denial of the Creator. It only means that nothing would be upset even if the Creator did not exist. Man should himself find out and know that no means of his deliverance exist anywhere.

He again says:

If the existentialist is greatly disturbed at the idea of the non‑existence of God, that is because in that case the possibility of finding `values' in perceptible Paradise disappears totally. Further, obviously no virtue can exist, for no conscience is so perfect and infinite that it should think of every virtue. It is not written anywhere that the virtue has a definite existence and is always judged rightly.

We observe that the existentialists who hold atheistic views do so because they imagine that man can have absolute freedom only if there is no outside `will' behind him to determine his action.

Sometimes they expressly say: Should there be a God who destines everything or at least knows everything, all future events will necessarily take place as anticipated by Him. For this reason the denial of an Almighty Creator is a logical pre‑condition of the absolute freedom of man.

We propose to analyse this point while making a compara*tive study of Islamic and existentialist view‑points.

 

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Islam

(1) Essence of man


Man has an inborn essence. He has a nature which is terres*trial and celestial at the same time. He has various tendencies and instincts and various capabilities and desires. But he has to develop his individual essence through his personal efforts and will. His tendencies and talents provide a ground on which he has to build his essence and decide what he should be.


(2) Human freedom and Divine destiny

Man is a free agent, but this freedom has been given to him by Allah. In the words of some contemporary writers, man is destined to be free.

No school of thought asserts that it is man himself who has given freedom to him. All agree that freedom has been given to him and imposed on him from outside. If it is so, why should we not admit that it has been bestowed on him by Allah [36] and it is a Divine gift.

It may be said that such a belief leads to predetermina*tion, which amounts to the negation of man's freedom and his free will.

We know that according to the religious outlook, if there exists any Divine compulsion in respect of man, that compulsion is in regard to his having volition and freedom, and if there is any predetermination by Allah, that means that man should exercise his choice with consciousness and freedom. Hence divine will necessarily implies the freedom of man and not his predestination.

(3) Sphere of choice and role of guidance

We know that natural urges, Divine guidance and even environmental conditions affect man's choice and his freedom. But their role is not compelling. They only create a tendency and pave the way for taking action. It is always man's own free will which gives a definite shape to these tendencies and modifies them. It is up to him to identify the truth and take advantage of the guidance with insight. We have already said that Divine revelation is a guidance which is enlightening, instructive and helpful. It is a blessing of Allah which guides man to the right path.

(4) Man has a purpose

The universe has not been created without a purpose and in vain. Man and life also cannot be without a purpose. He has been created to make an evolutionary progress in all the dimensions of his existence and ultimately to make a journey towards Absolute Perfection

(5) Man is responsible

It is man who is responsible to make himself and his environment. But responsible to whom?

Some schools of thought give no answer to this question, for they maintain that beyond man there is no conscious authority to question him. But in Islam there exists a responsibility and that too towards the Almighty, the Wise and the All‑knowing, who will call every one to account, and recompense him.

The holy Qur'an says:

"You will indeed be questioned about what you used to do" . (Surahal‑Nahl, 16:93).

"By Allah! You shall indeed be called to account for what you have been forging". (Surah al‑Nahl, 16:56).

`Detain them for they are to be interrogated". (Surah al‑Saffat, 37: 24).

`Allah cannot be questioned as to what He does, but they will be questioned". (Surah al‑Anbiya, 21:23).

Such a responsibility can produce a great effect, and may work as an incentive.

(6) Vigilance and anxiety

A man who has received training in Islamic ways, is vigilant. In other words he feels anxious and uneasy, because he is responsible for making the right choice. He is responsible for his salvation, for his well‑being and for the well‑being of his society. Similarly he is accountable for his fall and his decadence. Every action of his is lasting and produces a result. Therefore this anxiety and vigilance axe constructive, add to his responsibility and affect his choice.

(7) Man is not without a refuge

In Islam man's free will does not mean that he has no refuge and that he has to depend on himself alone totally. He is blessed with Divine protection and favor. If he makes effort and moves in the right direction, he receives Allah's help. [37] He is not alone; Allah is with him. [38] You may say that everything is in the hand of man. If he really establishes relation with Allah, the doors of clear thinking, knowledge and power are opened to him. [39] He feels encouraged and a spirit of new zeal is infused in him.

(8) Self‑dependence, fear and hope

Islam recognizes a particular sort of `disappointment'. One must not depend on the deeds of others. [40] Family position, children and wealth can save none. [41] Everyone is self‑made and has to depend on his own deeds.

Thus man is a mixture of fear and hope, [42] and yearning and apprehension. His fear is such that it saves him from making mistakes and falling into sin. It is not that kind of fear which may. frustrate him and lead him to inertness.

His hope inspires him to good deeds and renders him neither haughty and selfish nor lazy and sluggish.


The Philosophy of Islam

 

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Nihilism....an Islamic perspective

by : Alija Izetbegovic


“ Nihilism isn’t the denial of Divinity as much as it’s a protestation to the fact that the Man is Uncreated and Cannot exist….This situation is surrounded by a Religious view and not Scientific one towards the Man and the World. For Science exclaims that the Man is possible and can exist but in the final analysis we find that what is possible in Science’s point of view is empty from Humanity” says Izetbegovic, he later continues and adds “ Because Materialism rejects Teleology in Science, it eventually disposes the dangers of Frivolousness and Worthlessness …..Because the World of Materialism and it’s Human have certain Practical purposes and Functional ones….Let it be Animalistic Function….So be it…doesn’t matter “.

and then later, Izetbegovic comments on Sartre’s sentence were he describes Man as a sort of Worthless Emotions so that he (Begvic) eventually says ” It’s a Religious word in it’s essence and it’s Logic at the same time……It shows that the Man and the World have no Harmony , and this extreme situation towards the Materialistic World was the beginning of all Religions ” and then he goes on saying ” Worthlessness according to Sartre and Nihilism according to Albert Camus are the purpose for the search of meaning and goal, and it’s a search different from the Religious one because for them, the search ends with failure …….For Nihilism is a disappointment because of the absence of Good in the World, Everything is Worthless as long as we are going to die forever…..Nihilism is a Religious worry…..Man is different from this World according to Nihilism or in the Religion’s point of view. The difference between the both that Nihilism considers the Man lost without hope, but Religion believes in a hope for salvation”.

Alija Izetbegovic assures that we cannot understand Albert Camus’s thoughts unless we considered him a disappointed believer, and Izetbegovic cites one of Albert Camus’s quotes were he says ” In a World where illusion faded out and luminance burn out the Man feels alienation…For there are no memories there nor home….and no hope to reach the promised land….Everything’s possible as long as the Man dies and God doesn’t exist “. Alija Izetbegovic says ” In this quote, the last sentence has no common ground between itself and the abstract certain Atheism that you find in the mind of the Logical free thinker, It’s the opposite; It’s a silent scream of a Soul that was exhausted by the search of God and didn’t find him…..It’s the Atheism of the desperate “.

It’s a humane situation that’s being repeated across the centuries and ages as long as the Man takes a deep look into his life and his fate without considering a source of guidance that points him to the road of salvation, and in here the Wisdom of Quran’s words manifests itself through the words that Alija zetbegovic tried to explain in his book.

“Did ye then think that We had created you in jest, and that ye would not be brought back to Us (for account)?” – Quran, Surat Al Mo’menun (The Believers ) verse 115.