Search for a purely psychological foundation of human unity
Becomes possible only with perception that all
Human life is spiritual in its origin.
(Allama Muhammad Iqbal)
Spiritual Democracy
The Ultimate Aim of Islam
By, Mirza Iqbal Ashraf
Abstract
According to American poet laureate Walt Whitman (1819-1882) since the notion of spirituality embraces the presence of God in Nature—including human being’s inner as well as outer nature—it can be asserted that Spirituality is a science of God. At the same time, recognizing God in every one’s nature—that we all come from God and every human being is naturally embedded with Divine spiritualty—binding the whole mankind with a common strand of spirituality reflects this notion as a truly democratic concept. We are, therefore, impelled to believe that Spiritual Democracy as a science of God must by necessity begin and end with mankind’s inner as well as outer nature. Above all the dynamism of Spiritual Democracy exposes the deeper historical and spiritual meanings of life related to racial and gender equality, marriage and economic equality, and laying greater emphasis on sociopolitical justice. (Walt Whitman)*
* Spiritual Democracy: North Atlantic Books, Berkeley, California, 2014
By, Steven Herrmann.
As a cultural movement, Islam rejects the old static view of the universe, and reaches a dynamic view, based on emotional system of unification, rejecting the blood-relationship as a basis of human unity, recognizing the worth of the individual. Considering blood relationship is earth-rootedness, the search for a purely psychological foundation of human unity becomes possible only with the perception that all human life is spiritual in its origin. . . It demands loyalty to God, not to thrones. Since God is the ultimate spiritual basis of all life, loyalty to God virtually amounts to man’s loyalty to his own ideal nature. Humanity needs three things today—a spiritual interpretation of the universe, spiritual emancipation of the individual, and basic principles of a universal import, directing the evolution of human society on a spiritual basis. . . Islam is non-territorial in its character, and its aim is to furnish a model for the final combination of humanity by drawing its adherents from a variety of mutually repellent races, and then transforming this atomic aggregate into a people possessing a self-consciousness of their own—a collective will in heterogeneous mass. . . Let the Muslim of today appreciate his position, reconstruct his social life in the light of ultimate principles, and evolve, out of the hitherto partially revealed purpose of Islam, that spiritual democracy is the ultimate aim of Islam. (Allama Muhammad Iqbal)*
*The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, Lahore, Pakistan 1940:
By Allama Muhammad Iqbal, the poet philosopher of the East.
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