Who is Roger Garaudy?
Roger Garaudy was a prominent French writer, thinker, and philosopher. In his youth, he embraced Marxism but later abandoned communism, authoring a book criticizing it after realizing its fallacy. He returned to Christianity in search of truth, but eventually exposed the deception of Christianity and its ties to Zionism. After careful study, he embraced Islam and authored over 20 books addressing issues of Islam and Western civilization, tirelessly promoting Islam as the optimal solution for humanity's problems.
About the Book
This book is derived from a lecture delivered by Roger Garaudy in Paris in 1986, where he discussed the potential spread of Islam in the West. Garaudy noted that when Islam first emerged, the world was smeared in chaos and degradation. Islam restored people's confidence and faith in their humanity, along with its divine source, leading them to reshape their social lives.
Garaudy poses the question, “Did Islam not present to humanity the idea of a supreme authority?” Not to mention the concept of community and working for the benefit of society in a world that had forgotten divine power and turned towards individualism.
The Results of Western Civilization
After five centuries of Western dominance, the results of its civilization can be summarized as follows:
- Socially: In 1982, the West spent $650 billion on armaments, while 50 million people died that same year in Third World countries due to hunger and malnutrition.
- Economically: The West focuses on increasing production regardless of its benefits or harms.
- Politically: International relations are based on violence and the struggle of classes and nations.
- Culturally: There is a lack of meaning and purpose.
- Ideologically: The notion of divine control is lost, and people are oblivious to their own humanity.
The Path of Western Civilization
Garaudy asserts that Western culture leads to decline, separation between means and ends, and the transformation of all truths into distorted concepts, rendering life meaningless, as it emphasizes individualism and denies divinity.
Western Denial of Islamic Thought and Heritage
The West believes that Islamic culture is borrowed from Greek and Roman cultures, ignoring the Arab Islamic influence. To the West, Islam is not suitable as a precursor to Western renaissance and offers nothing new, thriving only in the past.
Garaudy argues that Islamic thought was not merely a translation of Greek thought. For instance, Greek mathematics relies on the finite, while Arab mathematics relies on the infinite. Greek logic was theoretical, while Arab science was experimental. Arab science was not a precursor to Western science but reflected a philosophy that believes in determinism. He emphasizes that Western renaissance began in Spain, thanks to Arab and Islamic science and culture, not in Italy as commonly believed. Today, the world witnesses a struggle between two great powers, the United States and the Soviet Union, both based on ideologies devoid of meaning or value, similar to the conflict between the Byzantine and Sasanian empires during the days of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ. Therefore, Garaudy believes that Islam is the only solution that can offer the world a true meaning of life.
Some Features of Islamic Culture and Civilization
Islam is characterized as a religion of unity, free from division and fanaticism. The Quran teaches us to view the universe as an integrated whole, affirming that forgetting the Creator renders life meaningless. It also teaches us to see everything as a sign and symbol of Allah's existence. Humanity uniquely possesses the will to fulfill Allah's will, making a person a Muslim by choice when they remember what gives their life meaning. This human response to divine messages is evident in prayer, where one joins the cosmic order in its movements. The unification of the qibla represents comprehensive unity, and the changing times of prayer according to latitudes allow continuous worship around the earth.
The West's Need for Islam
The West needs Islam more than ever to give life meaning and purpose and stop separating between means and ends. The West focuses on science and technology for control and securing the interests of individuals and groups, while Islam makes humans Allah's successors on earth, combining science and faith in an integrated unity under Allah's dominion. The definition of ownership and rights in Islam differs from Western civilizations, aiming for objectives beyond individual benefits. This highlights the contrast between individualism in the West and community in Islam. By declaring Allah as the sole ruler, Islam excludes the rule of kings and democracy based on individuals or parties. The call “Allahu Akbar” (Allah is greater) is a call for true freedom, as humans can break free, through will, from their past, instincts, and habits, returning them to divine power.
The Responsibility of Muslims Today
Muslims today must bear the responsibility for their history and the divine trust they inherited. Allah says, “Indeed, we offered the Trust to the heavens and the earth and the mountains, and they declined to bear it and feared it; but man [undertook to] bear it. Indeed, he was unjust and ignorant.” (Al-Ahzab: 72)
There are two types of freedom: animal freedom to satisfy basic needs and divine freedom that emphasizes the meaning of our lives and deaths. This distinguished the society established by Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, which consisted of a divine power and an Islamic community based on a shared creed, a model needed by the West today.
However, there is a common objection raised by Western thinkers: if this divine law was revealed definitively in the Quran and Muhammad is the last prophet, does Islam not condemn society to a state of stagnation and rigidity?
In response, Garaudy explains that Shariah is divinely sourced and that the Quranic ayahs revealed by Allah are of unlimited value. The Quran itself is based on movement and life. Every revelation was a divine response to a specific issue, but this did not prevent Islam from extending to other eras of civilizations facing various problems. Prominent jurists attempted to interpret divine words to address new situations. However, it was not possible to derive from these Quranic ayahs and divine laws a different state from the government of Medina, unlike “Bossuet” in his political book derived from the Bible, whose conclusions aimed to provide a legitimate justification for the absolute monarchy of Louis XIV.
The Inevitability of the Islamic Solution
Garaudy concludes his lecture by reminding us that specialization for the sake of specialization, science for the sake of science, and art for the sake of art without goals or results are useless. The purpose of these endeavors is to lead us to the remembrance of Allah. Islam can revive hope in our Western societies affected by individualism. By relying on Quranic revelation, we can find solutions to the problems imposed by modern life without needing to imitate Western models. Islam is not responsible for the backwardness and regression that has afflicted Muslims today; rather, it is the “rejection of ijtihad” (independent reasoning) and adherence to outdated models that prevent us from solving our current problems.
