In Islam, man’s entire individual
and social life is an exercise in developing and strengthening his relationship
with Allah Almighty. Man, the starting point of our religion, consists in the
acceptance of this relationship by man’s intellect and will; Islam means submission
to the will of Allah Almighty in all aspects of life. The Islamic code of
conduct is known as the Sharia’s. Its sources are the Qur’an and the Sunnah of
the Prophet Muhammad SAW.
The final Book of Allah Almighty
and His final Messenger stand today as the repositories of this truth. Everyone
who agrees that the concept of Reality stated by the Prophet, and the Holy Book
is true, should step forward and surrender himself to the will of Allah
Almighty. It is this submission which is called Islam, the result of Man in
actual life. And those who of their own freewill accept Allah Almighty as their
Sovereign, surrender to His Divine will and undertake to regulate their lives
in accordance with His commandments, are called Muslims.
All those persons who thus
surrender themselves are welded into a community and that is how the ‘Muslim
society’ comes into being. It is an ideological society, radically different
from those which are founded on the basis of race, color or territory. It is
the result of a deliberate choice, the outcome of a ‘contract’ which takes
place between human beings and their Creator. Those who enter into this
contract undertake to recognize Allah Almighty as their Sovereign, His guidance
as supreme and His injunctions as absolute Law. They also undertake to accept,
without question, His word as to what is good or evil, right or wrong,
permissible or prohibited. In short, freedoms of the Islamic society are
limited by the commandments of the Omniscient Allah. In other words, it is Allah
Almighty and not man whose will is the primary source of Law in a Muslim
society.
When such a society comes into
existence, the Book and the Messenger prescribe for it a code of life called
the Sharia’s and this society is bound to conform to it by virtue of the
contract is has entered into. It is, therefore, inconceivable that a real
Muslim society can deliberately adopt any other system of life than that based
on the Sharia’s. If it does so, its contract is ipso facto broken and it
becomes ‘un-Islamic’.
But we must clearly distinguish
between the everyday sins of the individual and a deliberate revolt against the
Sharia’s. The former may not mean a breaking up of the contract, while the
latter most certainly would. The point that should be clearly understood is
that if an Islamic society consciously resolves not to accept the Sharia’s, and
decides to enact its own constitution and laws or borrows them from any other
source in disregard of the Sharia’s, such a society breaks its contract with Allah
Almighty and forfeits its right to be called ‘Islamic’..
