Social System of Islam
“We have made you (the true Muslims) a balanced nation, so that you could be an example for mankind” (Surah al-Baqarah, 2:142).
What the Qur`an expressly desires is that the Islamic society should be a model for all those who want to lead a healthy and happy life. It should be a living testimony for the exalted principle that the way to live a healthy life and secure justice and fair play is not closed to human beings. It is they themselves who should find it and follow it with consciousness, faith and persistence. Society Man is a being that has for long been social and has been living a collective life. A group of persons living together is called society. Society may be defined as a group of individuals whose life is correlated with each other because they have common desires or common interests for the realization of which they work together. The formation of such a group is sometimes accidental and sometimes intentional. In the former case it is technically called Accidental Society and in the latter Intentional Society.
Accidental society
Suppose you go out to see the museum or to have a walk in the public garden of your town. You find that there are many other people also who have come there for the same purpose. You and they practically form a group having a common object.
However, it is evident that the individuals forming such a group had no prior intention to form it. Every one of them left his house without having had any intention to do so. Such a group is called Accidental Society.
Intentional society
If you want to set up a social, financial, political or educational institution and you do not have the intellectual, physical and financial potentialities necessary to undertake such a project, you try to find some other persons who may co-operate with you in the undertaking. Thus a group or a small society comes into existence, whose members joins each other and work together with prior intention to do so. Such a group is called Intentional Society.
Characteristics of Accidental Society
In this type of society there is co-existence, but there is no co-operation except that of a very superficial nature and that too partial and of short duration.In this sort of get-together the members of the group do not choose each other. That is why they do not consider it necessary to have any previous acquaintance with one another to be a member of that group. For example, a passenger of a bus, a train, an airplane or a ship normally does not feel any necessity at the time of purchasing his ticket to make inquiries about the moral character of other passengers, their views and their motives of journey. Normally such inquiries are not even possible. He and other passengers are interested only in using a particular means of transport for going from one place to another, and no deep and extensive acquaintance is required to achieve this end.
Characteristics of Intentional Society
This tie is lasting within the limits of the objective of the society and continues to exist until the group is dissolved for one reason or the other.
As this type of society comes into existence with the intention of co-operation for the realization of a particular object, therefore, in this case co-existence is coupled with co-operation and mutual and reciprocal responsibility.
In this type of get-together members of the group select each other, and as the way of thinking and doing of each one of them affects the destiny of the others, they contemplate certain rules and criteria for the membership of their group.
The co-existence and co-operation between the members of the group and their mutual relations are based on the principles and rules accepted by each member consciously and after careful study. Members of the group work whole-heartedly for its growth and development.
A definite example of an intentional society is a family, which in its Islamic form is a model for every other such society. It has all the characteristics of an ideal intentional society, such as:
The husband and wife choose each other intentionally and willingly; With a view to lead a common life, With common responsibility, With reciprocal rights and obligations based on a definite social system accompanied by whole-hearted co-operation to secure a better and more developed life for themselves and their children.
Individual and society
Man is a gregarious and social being. There can be no doubt that the conditions of his life depend on the conditions of the society in which he lives. But how and to what extent? Is this dependence such that it does not in any way curtail the independence of an individual to mould his life according to his own choice? Or is it such that it makes him absolutely subservient to his social environment? Or is it neither this nor that but has some intermediate position?
These are three different views regarding the relation of an individual with his social environment. We propose to explain them further. It is the individual who is important. According to this view, the main factor in molding the life of every person is he himself and not the society, for the society is nothing but a collection of individuals, who have learnt by experience that their desires will be better fulfilled if they co-operate with one another, and consequent to this experience they have been attracted to collective life. Hence their incentive to lead a collective life is actually their interest in the fulfillment of their personal desires.
All the social systems have been devised by the individuals to safeguard their own interests. Hence everywhere the hand of the individual is uppermost and it is his desire and action that play the basic role. The corruption of society also originates from the corruption of the individuals. If every individual reforms himself, the whole society will automatically be reformed.
It is the society which is important
According to this view the truth is diametrically opposite to what is maintained by those who say that it is the individual who is important. The exponents of this view hold that it is the society and the social man which are the material reality in this world and not an individual independent of others, for what we find on the face of the earth is only a collection of men mutually correlated and that is what is society. As in the world of nature every natural being is subservient to a general and universal system of nature and is not absolutely independent, similarly in the society an individual is only a part of it; such a part that follows the whole unhesitatingly and is governed by its over-all system. Even the ideas of an individual, his way of thinking, his desires, his aspirations and his will are only a reflection of his natural and social environment and the economic conditions of his society and class.
Those who hold that it is the society which is important, maintain that an individual is just like a cell in a living body. A cell cannot be independent of the whole body and its complex system, nor can it develop fully irrespective of the fact whether the whole body is in a healthy and sound state or not. Similarly an individual cannot be independent of the social system in which he lives. He will have to go the way towards which the powerful social and economic forces dominating the society will push him.
Some contemporary social schools have gone to such an extent in their reliance on the importance of society as explained above, that it appears as if man is a being totally dependent on society or his class and has perforce to follow the way shown to him by social and class environment without having the least possibility of exercising his own will and choice. As the result of this view, the principle, that everybody should reform himself so that the whole society is reformed, gives place to another principle, which says that it is the social system which should be changed and reformed so that the individuals are automatically reformed.
It is the mixture of the individual and the society which is important. According to this view it is the mixture of the individual and the society which is important. The individual is a being who is neither fully independent of nor fully dependent on society. He has an intermediate position. There is no doubt that the overall educational, economic and political system of the society leaves its impression on the individual, his ideas and his personality. It evokes certain desires. in him and suppresses certain others. It moulds his life and guides his will. Nevertheless its impact is not so strong as to make the individual totally subservient to his social environment.
It is similar to the impact of the natural environment on him. Unlike other existing things man is not also totally subservient to his natural environment. In many cases he rules over nature, and using his self-consciousness and harnessing his latent inner forces tries to change his natural environment or to bring it under his control. He stands in the same relation to his social and class environment also. He does not completely submit to it. He tries to understand the sociological laws and with the help of his knowledge and his hidden powers tries to control and change his social environment to his own advantage. He is not always reconciled with the existing social system.
Hence, though the social changes have their own laws and trends and most of them are due to the factors working inside society as a whole, an appreciable amount of them takes place as a result of the ceaseless efforts of self-conscious and enthusiastic individuals also.
Thus neither the individual is exclusively important, nor the society and the social system. What is important is a mixture of the two.
An overall study of the Islamic teachings shows that they are based on this third view, that of the real importance of a mixture of individual and society.
We find that the Islamic teachings stress, on the one hand, the responsibility of an individual in regard to self-making and environment-making, and on the other emphasize the inevitable effect of the social atmosphere in giving shape to the ideas, intentions, morals and actions of man to such an extent that it may be said that all men are largely interdependent in shaping their destiny. That is why the Qur`an wants everybody to find and tread the path of righteousness and not to put up the corruption of environment as an excuse for his own deviation.
“When the angels take away the souls of those who are wronging themselves, they ask them: hi what circumstances were you They will say: We were oppressed in our land. (The angels) will say.’ Was not Allah s earth vast enough for you to migrate2 It is they whose abode is hell. What a bad fate!” .(Surah al-Nisa, 4:97).
Imam Ali (a.s) says very emphatically: “You people must not be deterred and discouraged by the paucity of those who are going on the right path .
At the same time man has been reminded that he should not be contented with his being on the right way himself and must not neglect his duty of improving his social environment. The fall of society leads to the ruin of the good and the bad alike.
Imam al-Baqir (a.s) says: Then the wrath of Allah reaches its height. His retribution overtakes all. The virtuous are ruined along with the wicked, and the young in the house of their elders.
That is why a Muslim, while holding his individual responsibility, is a collectivist also. Whatever he seeks from Allah, he seeks for us’ and not for me’. Look at the supplication we make to Allah in our daily prayers: “You alone we worship and You alone we ask for help. Guide us to the straight path”. Also look at the ritual blessing at the end of the prayers: “Peace be on us and on the virtuous bondmen of Allah “.
The stress laid by Islam on exhortation to good’ and restraining from evil’ being the reciprocal responsibility of all the members of the society, whatever be their position, the drawing of attention to the deep effects of the purity and the pollution of the social environment and the emphasis on other factors touching faith and morality such as the economic conditions, are some other signs which clearly show that the doctrines and injunctions of Islam are based on the principle of the importance of a mixture of the individual and the society.
From what has been stated above briefly, we come to the following conclusions:
- Islamic society is an intentional and not -an accidental society. It has come into existence by the will of the people on the basis of the choice of a definite goal of life.
- It is a society all the systems and laws of which pay full heed both to the individual and to the relative role of his will and conscious choice as well as to the social system and the educational, political and economic conditions of the environment and their inevitable role in moulding and building the individual character.
In our opinion to pay attention to these two points is essential for the correct understanding of the social economic, moral and devotional teachings of Islam, and their difference from what is preached by other schools of thought.
Social System
In every society, especially an intentional society, there always exists a sort of method or system which determines:
The general ways and customs of society;
· The way of its administration;
· Mutual relations of its members, and
· Thee relations of every member with the whole society;
· The rights and obligations arising out of these relations.
For an example take the case of a trading or an industrial concern. From the very beginning it is necessary that its aim, the method and the means of the realization of this aim, the way of the administration of the company, the functionaries responsible for the ~working of each section of it, the rights and powers of every share-holder, every office-bearer and the general body and all such other questions should be decided in advance, and that the company from its very establishment should work accordingly.
Is it possible that a company is established or run without deciding all these details? Obviously not. The same applies to a society also. From a small professional union to the world society every organization requires a system and fixed rules and regulations for its working.
The sum-total of the rules, the system and the basis according to which a society works, is called the social system.
