Life Of Muslims

1 Pages 363 Words

The faith of Islam is founded on the belief that there is One Compassionate, All-encompassing God; that the purpose of His creation is to know Him; and that the approved existential behavior is sustained only in order to arrive at that knowledge. Man's primary and most urgent business is the knowledge of God, and the transformation that naturally follows. Every other human pursuit is secondary.

In this chapter we look at how Islam transformed people's outlook on life and how it shaped the way they lived. What were the unifying factors that gave Muslim culture its cohesion? How did Islam affect business and trade? What was the relationship between rulers and the ruled, and why was it that they did not produce a stable 'civil service' independent of the ruler's person? These and other questions are addressed by focusing on specific aspects of the life of Muslims, which because of limitations of space is by no means comprehensive.

As a complete system of life-transaction the Din of Islam affects every aspect of human experience. It permeates the person at the physical, material, mental, intellectual and spiritual levels, and therefore percolates into individual, familial, social and every other aspect of civil and cultural life. It is for this reason that we find such strong symmetry amongst racially, culturally and geographically diverse Muslims. A familiar thread weaves its way visibly from the life of a Muslim in China to the life of a Muslim in West Africa. There always have been and always will be localized elements of indigenous custom and cultural expression, but this diversity reflects geographically inherent differences and sometimes inherited pro-Islamic behavior.

On the whole wherever Islam spread it purified the existing culture from past inhuman, unjust or unnatural habits and conditioning. Those customs that were found to permissible, or indeed improved by Islam, were allowed to continue. While Islam suffused the ...