The movement was to rehabilitate the socioeconomic equilibrium of society as monotheism and socioeconomic justice were deemed the panacea to the twin malaise of polytheism and socioeconomic disequilibrium in Makkah. The scale of social reforms required assumption of political power, so a protracted war with the Makkan oligarchy was a foregone conclusion.
The Quran equipped Muslims with positivism and collectivism to see their mission through. Positivism means scientific diagnosis and treatment of social malaises by the moral vectors of the Quran, and collectivism refers to the collective struggle of the community for the execution of the task since there is arguably no ‘personal salvation’ in Islam. The Quran offers only the idea of success (falah) or failure (khusran) in building a moral social order for which ‘the people of the Book’ are welcomed to share the burden. So, ‘personal piety’ oblivious to this obligation and Sufism neutral to social reality have no roots in the Quran.
At Madinah, the Quran established Muslims as a ‘median community’ against the rigid formalism of Judaism and the liquidity of Christianity. Thus, characterised as the ‘best community’, it was tasked to build an ethical sociopolitical order. The internal structure of the community was egalitarian and open, smacking of no elitism. Internal life of the community was based on goodwill and cooperation. Decision-making was premised on universal enfranchisement — every voice matters. The Quran tolerates neither elitism nor secret cliques of the influential.
With these arrangements in place, the Quran promulgated their task to establish a moral order in order to secure the socioeconomic equilibrium of society, with the assurance that God is going to have mercy on them and help them build such an order (9:71). So bright was the light lit by the Quran that against all odds, the Prophet never lost hope. To Shah Waliullah, ‘The completion of favours’, ie, political control of Arabia, was the fulfilment of the same promise.
The Quran doesn’t tolerate elitism or secret cliques.
After the Prophet, collectivism worked both in thought and practice of the early community. To them, Sunnah was an interpretive activity subject to revision and renewal, as was ijma, or consensus of the community. No ijma carried the status of finality; it could be substituted. Hence, Sunnah, ijma-ijtehad’s ongoing democratic process worked well for three centuries. Then, the Hadith movement set in, and since then, the static view of Sunnah and the finality of ijma reign supreme.
So embedded in and accustomed to collectivism was the early community that, amidst early religio-political wars, they struggled under the banner of jama’a (community). Then, dictators crushed the practice of jama’a. This resulted in the expulsion of collectivism from the thought and practice of the community. With Ghazali’s legitimation of ‘personal salvation’, religion took leave from public life. Ibn al-Arabi’s explanation of the conflict of good and evil in terms of waves which arise from the sea, collide with each other and then fall back into the same sea appeared to render faith redundant.
Ibn Taimiyya’s exhortation for Quranic positivism and collectivism fell on deaf ears. Later, Sheikh Ahmad Sirhindi strengthened his thesis with mystic-intellectual fervour and deflated Ibn al-Arabi’s monism. Shah Waliullah and Mohammad bin Abdul Wahab brought fresh blood in the veins of the community. However, encounter with the imperial West stimulated Islamic reformers to judge their tradition by the normativity of the Quran to elevate the moral and intellectual standards of their community. It was a comprehensive venture to think of Islam in terms of the socioeconomic and political life of the community. The development rekindled hopes and led to freedom movements.
The positivistic and collectivistic approach of Indian Muslims established Pakistan to create an egalitarian order with equal participation of all without gender and class bias. But many in the secular elite, in alliance with orthodoxy, seem to have defeated the purpose Pakistan was created for. To be a silent spectator is not a choice — the sins of omission are as bad as the sins of commission. Nations and civilisations, as per the Quran, are destroyed by natural political process rather than natural disasters. Are our moral and sociopolitical woes not inviting our collective political will for course correction?