The series "The Caliphate and the Imamate in Islamic Thought"
By the writer and thinker Thaer Salama – Abu Malik
Thirtieth episode: How Islam addresses human problems in a way that does not change across time and place – Part 1
Praise be to God, Lord of the Worlds, and the outcome is for the righteous, and blessings and peace be upon Muhammad, the guiding and faithful Prophet.
Here, we will establish the Islamic method of addressing the problems that humans encounter in life, a radical and comprehensive treatment for all their problems.
The Islamic Sharia has developed solutions to people's problems as humans driven by vital energy, represented by instincts and organic needs, to satisfy these needs and instincts in a way that ensures good satisfaction. A person either satisfies the instinct or organic need in a correct, wrong, or abnormal way. Each individual manifestation of these organic needs or instinct can be satisfied in one of these three ways, and does not go beyond them. For example: one of the manifestations of the procreation instinct is sex. This manifestation can be satisfied either through marriage, adultery, or perversion, or not satisfied at all by refraining from it and turning to another manifestation of the procreation instinct, such as turning away from the wife to the mother's affection. These are the possibilities through which this manifestation of the procreation instinct can be satisfied, and there is never any other. Here, the Sharia came and clarified that the correct satisfaction is only through marriage, and marriage is the relationship between a man and a woman who is foreign to him. It prohibits marriage between relatives, and prevents satisfying the instinct through perversion with the same gender or with animals, and prevents satisfaction through adultery. Islam details the rulings of all of this, and sets a punishment for adultery, whether the adulterer is married or not, and sets punishments for those who commit perversion. Thus, the legislation addresses the problem from its roots, regardless of whether it relates to Zaid or Obaid. Consequently, every person in the world faces motives that push them to solve the problem of sex, so this is the problem and this is its solution. Such a solution does not change with the change of time or place, and it alone is correct because it is from One All-Knowing and All-Wise. God Almighty said: ﴿Does He who created not know, while He is the Subtle, the Acquainted?﴾!!
Similarly, a person always needs to satisfy his hunger, so Islam came and permitted all things in the universe, and excluded certain categories from this permission, detailing them, including carrion, blood, and pork, and so on. He detailed what He forbade us in a comprehensive manner: ﴿And why should you not eat of that upon which the name of Allah has been mentioned while He has explained in detail to you what He has forbidden you, excepting that to which you are compelled. And indeed do many lead [others] astray through their [own] desires without knowledge. Indeed, your Lord - He is most knowing of the transgressors.﴾ [Al-An'am: 119]. Wherever a person goes or travels, pork is forbidden to him and alcohol is forbidden to him, it does not change or is affected by time or place.
Islam has taken into account the abnormal situations that people go through, such as famines and being on the verge of death, and permitted what is forbidden to us in a state of necessity if a person thinks he will die if he does not eat the forbidden. But if he strongly believes that he will die and is on the verge of it, then he is required to eat from the forbidden, according to the legal rule that the means to the forbidden is forbidden. Thus, Islam has closed every gap and addressed every situation accompanying a person in his journey in life, whether he is on the verge of death lost in the desert or on the verge of it while he is in his home or in the era of the Companions or in the future, the ruling does not change.
On the economic level, for example, while we see capitalist thinkers not distinguishing between the economic system and the science of economics, for them economics is what examines human needs and the means of satisfying them. They make the production of goods and services, which are the means of satisfying needs, along with the distribution of these goods and services to the needs, one study; therefore, the distribution of goods and services is included in their study of the production of these goods and services.
Based on this, they look at the economy as one view that includes the economic material and how to acquire it, without separating them and without distinguishing one from the other; that is, they look at the science of economics and the economic system as one view without difference between them, even though there is a difference between the economic system and the science of economics.
The economic system is what clarifies the distribution of wealth, its ownership, and its disposal, and the like, and in its clarification it proceeds according to a specific point of view in life.
Unlike the science of economics, it researches production, improving it, and finding and improving its means, and this is universal among all nations and is not specific to one principle over another, like other sciences. When Islam addresses economics, it separates between the economic system and the science of economics, and therefore does not restrict human thinking in their creations in the science of economics and the way to improve production, for example. The invention of the production line, for example, by the American Ford, sped up and facilitated the process of producing cars a lot. This is a universal matter and is not derived from the point of view in life, so Islam takes it as it takes Pythagoras' theorem in mathematics because it is not derived from the point of view in life, so it is not specific to the Greeks.
Unlike the economic system, public ownership, for example, and dealing with usury, or transactions that entail financial rights must be regulated based on the point of view in life, that is, on the Islamic faith. From here, the Islamic economic system has set rules in which it addressed the distribution of wealth, its ownership, and its disposal, and the like, in a fixed system that falsehood does not approach from before it or from behind it from One All-Knowing and All-Wise.
From here, the doubt that revolves in the minds of some Muslims about Islam's position regarding the progress of mankind on earth scientifically and industrially disappears. Islam does not restrict minds and does not prevent creativity in the field of material, industrial, and scientific forms.
