In the first article, we discussed the meaning of the "Neglection of the Qur'an" and some of its implications in the lives of Muslims. In this article, we will address some of the manifestations of the loss suffered by the nation from the neglection of the Qur'an and the neglect of its role in thought and action.
Loss of Civilizational Independence in Favor of Dependence and Submission
The Qur'an, in its essence, focuses on educating its followers towards a framework of civilizational independence and freeing them from all forms of dependency on anyone other than Allah. It emphasizes:
1. Individual and Social Responsibility: “Every soul is responsible for what it has earned” (Qur'an 74:38).
2. Freedom: “The freeing of a slave” (Qur'an 90:13).
3. Human Dignity: That is subject only to one God.
4. Honor and Dignity: “And to Allah belongs [all] honor, and to His Messenger, and to the believers” (Qur'an 63:8). This is achieved through sincere adherence to its teachings and laws.
5. Strength: Independence—where civilizational strength is necessary—requires power, which the Qur'an commands and considers essential for the independence and witness of the nation and its moderation. Allah says: “And prepare against them whatever you are able of power and of steeds of war” (Qur'an 8:60). Power here is understood broadly, including knowledge, physical strength, military, cultural, and intellectual preparation.
6. Principled Action: “And say, ‘Do [as you will], for Allah will see your deeds, and [so will] His Messenger and the believers’” (Qur'an 9:105), and “Eat of the good things and work righteousness” (Qur'an 23:51).
These meanings, which are abundant in the Book of Allah, affirm the essence of civilizational independence for the nation and the necessity of relying on its own resources to meet the needs of its contemporary generations, and even to save for future generations, rather than the opposite.
However, in the absence of the Qur'an from the movement of the nation, many of our Arab countries, and the Muslim world in general, have sunk into the clutches of the capitalist system and its vices through processes of dependency and submission. They are now reaping the consequences of this submersion, suffering from social and civilizational afflictions. Countries endowed with natural resources have not achieved any civilizational benefits from their wealth; instead, they remain consumers of technology, relying on Western products and technologies.
Non-oil-producing countries have been unable to benefit from the human resources and intellectual potential that Allah has endowed them with. This potential could have transformed their civilizational trajectory, as was both a Qur'anic and civilizational duty. Instead, this human power is now reflected in unemployment, poverty, and need statistics! This contrasts sharply with the Chinese model, for example, which has reached almost every home in the world, including Muslim households, with its labor force.
This situation arose because the nation succumbed to the fires of the capitalist political system and the tentacles of the old-new American Western materialistic global system. This model resembles Qarun, who sees money as the ultimate goal and interest (usury) as the means to wealth, promoting the principle of luxury consumption which enriches this flawed system and its monopolistic control over agriculture, trade, and labor, exploiting the human capacities of weaker or weakened nations to ensure dominance and exploitation.
The Qur'an warned against this capitalist system: “So that it will not be a perpetual distribution among the rich from among you” (Qur'an 59:7), knowing its destructive effects on humanity. This system only allows growth for its institutions and its European partners, while the rest of the world—what Huntington referred to as "the rest"—has only a role in consumption and importing Western products and brands, enriching multinational companies that control the global economy. It also restricts access to technological secrets, which are exclusive to it and those working within its sphere, considering profit and loss.
The nation abandoned an economic system based on the Qur'anic principles of valuing private and public ownership, the rights of people and the poor, and societal rights, which the Qur'an considers to be the rights of Allah. This economic system relies on productive work as the only way to obtain capital, rather than using money itself to generate more money (usury), which leads to idleness, unemployment, and associated social and moral crimes.
With the exclusion of the Qur'an and its financial regulations from the reality of Arab and Islamic economic policies, the Muslim world has the highest rates of poverty and hunger, despite having significant wealth relative to its population. This surplus could cover the needs of poor Muslims and even people in other nations, freeing them from debt and new colonial slavery.
What is said about the economy also applies to politics. The nation has oscillated between dependency on the East and the West, forgetting that it has a unique political system: the Shura system (“and whose affair is [determined by] consultation among themselves” (Qur'an 42:38), “So pardon them and ask forgiveness for them and consult them in the matter” (Qur'an 3:159)). This system could have been developed independently of the socialist and democratic myths that did not grow in the nation's reality but turned into retaliatory ideas against the people and their resources, and their political independence. The freedom promised by democracy and liberalism has turned into a unique form of oppression, encompassing every aspect of society under the threat of assassination or restricted freedom.
Similarly, in the military and defense sector, the nation ignored the Qur'anic directive: “And prepare against them whatever you are able of power and of steeds of war to intimidate the enemy of Allah and your enemy” (Qur'an 8:60), and instead adopted the approach of “import what you can from them,” i.e., replacing the superior with the inferior.
Instead of reflecting on the Surah "Iron" and Allah’s statement: “And We have sent down iron with great military might and benefits for the people” (Qur'an 57:25), the nation neglected compliance and the benefits of manufacturing its own security and defense tools. It continued to import and stockpile weapons rather than producing them, leading to a decline in weapon manufacturing technology and related technologies. This could have achieved self-sufficiency and self-development in weaponry. Instead, several Arab and Islamic countries occupy top positions in global arms imports, despite not using them. They have either signed treaties with their enemies (at the end of wars) or rented Western military bases to secure their borders, with the imported weapons always being much older and less advanced than those possessed by their enemies in the Arab region.
The Absence of the Qur'anic Approach to Psychological and Social Reform in Contrast to the Empowerment of Conflict in the Self and Society
Muslims, and indeed the contemporary world, have lost significantly with the removal of the Qur'an from their social, cultural, and educational lives. They failed to present a tangible model of the Qur'an in modern life, showcasing its uniqueness in reforming societal dynamics, cultural movements, educational approaches, and developmental philosophies.
Modern humans have lost a methodology where material and spiritual life are integrated, without the need to incite conflict between them or experience tension or hesitation in choosing between them. The Qur'anic approach offers a way where individuality and collectivism can coexist without sacrificing one for the benefit of the other.
This person has lost a methodology that harmonizes the worldly life with the Hereafter, without needing to disregard one for the sake of the other.
Modern humans have lost a Qur'anic approach where the witnessed and the unseen are seamlessly integrated, where the absolute and the empirical coexist without contradiction, and where the normative and the practical align without logical or emotional discord.
The alternative to the absence of the Qur'anic model in the cultural and social realms has been the empowerment of the principle of conflict in individual and social life. This has been established by the contemporary Western model, which is an offspring of Darwinian Zionism. This model has led to the proliferation of mental health issues at the individual level and social conflicts at the societal level, such as class struggles, generational conflicts, and cultural clashes, as promoted by Samuel Huntington. Conflict has thus become the defining characteristic of the contemporary world, which lacks a Qur'anic model for others to emulate.
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