1. ISLAM'S GIFTS TO THEWORLD

1.

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Islam stands for harmony and perfectibility with an unmatched depth
and breadth of scope that comprises all aspects of spirit and life. It
knows all the roads that lead to blessing and happiness. It has the
cure for human ills,individual and social, and makes them as plain as
the wit of man can devise or comprehend. It sets out to develop all
sides of each person: and therefore perforce includes every reality
which impacts human existence. It has not given way, in its doctrine
of man, to modern errors or corrupt institutions. It does not setman
in God's place. To do so is to leave man with only himself to rely on
in all his pride and egotism: or else to reduce him to the slavery of
being a beast of burden for his fellows, powerless, will-less,
helpless before nature's and matter's tyrannies. This is precisely
what modern heresies do with man. But Islam vindicates man's unique
nature vis-a-vis all other living creatures, affirming that he is a
special creationwith a lofty calling all his own.
Islam holds that a man's personality does not cease to exist with
death, but is continuous and eternal."Worldly" and "other-worldly" are
an indivisible unity. Body and soul can therefore not be dissolved
into disparate elements. Islam, on these grounds, presents both worlds
in shining terms. It both trains a man for eternity and also finds the
guiding principles for its public institutions on earth in thesublime
destiny inherent in man's creation.
Eternity dictates universal principles, unchanging andunchangeable.
These Islamproclaims as tenets, convictions, commandments, statutes,
in its school of contentment, in its thrust for progress. It offers
man the perfection of freedom for thought, for concern, and for
exegesis of the divine law on matters of social necessity. It reverts
to first principles which provide the sure and unshifting basis of
rock-bottom truth in all the chances and changes of this mortal life.
Islam holds that man has certain characteristics which are his link
with the material world and certainothers which connect him with
realities that are non-material and which motivate desires and aims of
a more sublime nature. Body, mind and spirit each has its proper
propensities.Each must be duly weighed, so that what oneof these
indivisible elements desires does not conflict with the desire of
another. Islam takes all theelements and facets of human nature into
account and caters for the compound essence of man's combined material
and spiritual propensities. It draws him upward towards the highest
without cutting his roots in the material. It demandsabsolute purity
and chastity without denying the flesh and its needs. Its current
flows from pole to pole over a network of livewires - convictions and
regulations which preservethe integrity of all the innate human
instincts while rejecting the Freudian doctrine of total freedom which
treats man as nothing but animal.
Islam is not a mere set of ideas in the world of metaphysical
speculation : nor did it come into being simply to order man's social
living. It is a way of life so comprehensively meaningful that it
shapes education, society and culture to heights none other ever aimed
at. It forms a supreme court of appeal and rallying-point for East and
West alike, and offers them an ideology which can answer their
divisive materialisms. It can replace their inequities and
contradictions with a more universal, more perfect and more
powerfulidea.
Islam does not concede priority of any kind to material affluence or
to hedonistic comfort as basicfor happiness. It finds its principles
in an analysis of man's true nature. With these principles it
constructs a plan for individual , social and international living,
framed by fixed and all embracing moral standards, aimed at a goal for
humanity far loftier than the modern world' s limited materialist
aims.
Islam does not imprison man in the narrow confines of the material and
the financial. It sets him in a spacious and expansive air. There
morality, principle and the spirit reign. Its statutes arethose which
spring from the nature of man himself. They encourage mutual help and
team-work. They pursue values outside the straitened boundaries
imposed on individual andon community by the petty pusillanimous
pedestrian patterns of materialist purposes. Instead it yokes man's
strength and striving to the change, advance, progress and perfecting
inherent in his creation.
Islamic training sets out torefine and enhance humanqualities and to
harness them to right and reasonable objectives which direct and
dictate every forward step to the desired end. It focuses a man's
motives, which arisefrom his natural desires and basic needs, in such
a concentrated and streamlined beam that each talent is called in to
exercise its function in duesuccession and order. Impetuous
uncoordinated impulses are thus controlled so that no single instinct
overrule commonsense nor momentary urge
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