A Reminder of Old Truths
Haleh Anvari, On the Road
The Qur’an is a reminder of old truths already known to us all: for humans to live together successfully society must practice compassion, justice and equity. This insight lies at the root of political Islam.
Instead of the preeminence of the market, to which other social and community objectives are subordinated, the making of a society based on compassion, justice and equity becomes the overriding objective – to which other objectives, including markets, are subordinated.
It is revolutionary in another aspect: Instead of the individual being the organizational principle around which politics, economics and society are shaped, this Western paradigm is inverted. It is the collective welfare of the community in terms of such principles – rather than the individual – that becomes the litmus of political achievement.
Islamists are reopening an old debate – one at the root of both Western and Islamic philosophy. Posed by Plato, that debate questions the purpose of politics. Some Westerners are troubled that after 200 years of settled opinion, the Western paradigm is being questioned anew. One American conservative commented to me recently that with Descartes, the West had discovered “objective truth” through science and technology. It had made “us” rich and powerful and Muslims could not bear that. They knew that ultimately they would be forced to acquiesce to Western “truth.”
But the Islamist revolution is more than politics. It is an attempt to shape a new consciousness – to escape from the most far-reaching presuppositions of our time. It draws on the intellectual tradition of Islam to offer a radically different understanding of the human being, and to escape from the hegemony and rigidity of the Cartesian mindset.
The Islamist revolution is a voyage of discovery to a new “Self” that is far from complete. It has many shortcomings, but its intellectual insights offer Muslims (and Westerners) the potential to step beyond the shortcomings of Western materialism. This is what excites and energizes.
48 comments on the article “A Reminder of Old Truths”
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Anonymous
Man. Your answer deserves to be in place of that article because original text utterly failed to convey the thought as I see from comments.
Anonymous
Man. Your answer deserves to be in place of that article because original text utterly failed to convey the thought as I see from comments.
annoying anon
He is a member of the Establishment - and that says everything. He made his decision, and I've made mine. If he really is a 'revolutionizer' for the 'true self', first things first: GTFO of the Establishment.
annoying anon
He is a member of the Establishment - and that says everything. He made his decision, and I've made mine. If he really is a 'revolutionizer' for the 'true self', first things first: GTFO of the Establishment.
Aliarzuza78@gma...
The word Islam actually means "to submit", submitting to the will of God. Not to the will of these extremists or so-called Muslims inundated with egoic motivations who practice the heinous acts you present, which by the way, have nothing to do with Islam and are a product of cultural residue.
If you actually take to heart the teachings of the Qu'ran and Sunnah, this discovery of the self becomes actualized. When you allow yourself to accept what is, or the will of God, something deeper comes to light, and self-aggrandizing sarcasm becomes obsolete.
Aliarzuza78@gma...
The word Islam actually means "to submit", submitting to the will of God. Not to the will of these extremists or so-called Muslims inundated with egoic motivations who practice the heinous acts you present, which by the way, have nothing to do with Islam and are a product of cultural residue.
If you actually take to heart the teachings of the Qu'ran and Sunnah, this discovery of the self becomes actualized. When you allow yourself to accept what is, or the will of God, something deeper comes to light, and self-aggrandizing sarcasm becomes obsolete.
Anoq
Ahem, submitting, but to the will of men who consider they hear fro mgod.
You can't prove the supremacy of any god independent of the supremacy of that culture. Cultures come and go, so as their gods. The reason your shariah is near to world domination is because exactly in the industrialized world arab immigrants make 2+ children and most of them live from social help, rather than the countrymen who work a lot (they aren't immigrants to get social help) and barely can raise a kid.
Anoq
Ahem, submitting, but to the will of men who consider they hear fro mgod.
You can't prove the supremacy of any god independent of the supremacy of that culture. Cultures come and go, so as their gods. The reason your shariah is near to world domination is because exactly in the industrialized world arab immigrants make 2+ children and most of them live from social help, rather than the countrymen who work a lot (they aren't immigrants to get social help) and barely can raise a kid.
Anonymous
Is it somehow Arab's fault that your state is such a failure to deliver to its countryman?
Anonymous
Is it somehow Arab's fault that your state is such a failure to deliver to its countryman?
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