The Problem of the Nation’s Backwardness and the Charge of Moving Away from God

Chapter Fourteen

There is no doubt that the Arab and Islamic nation in general lags behind in the progress of its civilization and suffers a weakness in its influence and status among nations of the world. Muslims differ in the way they read this regrettable situation. Some insist on linking this situation, with all its components, to the distance between the nation and God, while others believe that backwardness and progress are contingent upon a nation’s competence, skill, and material abilities. Each group has its own arguments and rationalization concerning what they believe. I will try in this chapter to tackle this problem in the following manner:

first, we have to begin with a definition of the concept of backwardness and weakness, and of that of progress and strength, and

second, we have to determine the place of religion in human life.

In my belief, the strength and progress of a nation are based on two major factors; the first is ethical and the second, material. If you prefer, you can call them a cultural factor and a civic one. If, however, you prefer details, you can say the strength and progress of a nation have two components:

· a component of values, principles, and modes of behavior, and

· a component of material elements, means, and skills.

On this basis, it can be said that nations can lag behind in one of these components and advance in the other, lag behind in both, or advance in both. There are nations which are materially or technologically advanced, but they are backward in values and ethics; there are other nations that are advanced in both the ethical and material aspects; and there are others that are backward in both the ethical and the material components. To deal with our own case, that is the case of the Arab and Islamic nation, we have to determine precisely our position in regards to these two factors and determine precisely where the cause of the nation’s backwardness and weakness lie. Is it in its ethical performance? in its material performance? or in both?

Of course the promoters of the claim that a distance keeps the individuals of the nation away from God believe the nation is behind in both the ethical and the material fields, or it is backward in its values and skills, or it is lagging behind in its behavioral and its technological performance. They attribute this to, or explain it by, the nation distancing itself away from God. This means that, according to them, closeness to God would be the source of revival of this nation’s power in its performance as regards to values and behavior, the same way that it would for its performance as regards material and technological affairs. This, to me, is a link that lacks objectivity. It even contradicts the divine rules in administering the scales in this life on earth. Yes, closeness to God, holding tight to His firm rope, and commitment to His values, principles, and moral standards – all this is, without any doubt, a basic source for the nation’s ethics, cultural identity, refined manners, and civilization performance among nations. Nor is there any doubt of the positive effect that closeness has in bestowing a blessing on business activities or of its help in the improvement of material performance. Yet, purely material activities, purely scientific and scholarly qualifications, the building of skills, and the use of instruments are not related to the closeness to or remoteness from God, the Most Sublime, because, as God’s wisdom and justice would have it, all these things are available to believers and unbelievers. God bestows the gifts of this world to the dutiful and the dissolute, as mentioned in the Prophet’s traditions. God, the Most Sublime, says:

Those who care for earthly life and its embellishment, We shall pay them for their work in it, and they will not be underpaid there. ◘ Those are the ones that will have nothing in the Hereafter but Hellfire. What they have done will miscarry there, and invalid will be their deeds (Hood XI: 15-16).

This means the criteria of this world are different from those of the Hereafter. God has made the world for all creatures, without distinction between a believer and an atheist, or between a Muslim and a non-believer. In life’s fields of toil, they are all equal, and the only things that distinguish one from another is the amount of effort, the extent of learning, the type of competence, and the refinement of skill. This is confirmed by the words of God, the Most Sublime:

It is He Who made the Earth submissive to you. So, walk around its regions, eat of His provision, and to him is the resurrection (Al-Mulk LXVII: 15).

Of course, most of those who charge the nation of being at a distance from its Lord and explain thereby its backwardness and weakness do not accept to be included in that charge. They apply it to some party in the nation, or the speaker means someone other than him, probably one person or more of his listeners, or an absent party at some other location. Naturally, the other or absent party, when stating the same charge of the nation distancing itself from its Lord, is most often referring to the first speaker and his companions in the first location, because he himself is, as he believes, innocent of the terrible charge and cannot accept it to be applied to him, though it is legitimate and deserved when applied to someone else. Thus, the whole nation is accused, and the whole nation is innocent, according to its own statements. Imagine with me, dear readers, this terrible situation, when the whole nation is accused and innocent at the same time. Of course, an innocent person bears no responsibility, and all responsibility falls on the accused. Everyone clears himself from the responsibility for the nation’s backwardness, and he, as he claims, will meet God on good grounds because he is innocent. He dies while the concerns of the nation has kept him sleepless and worried, and he believes this sleeplessness and worry are a form of jihad (may God help us all). Since the whole nation is innocent, having rejected the charge of being distant from God, it is all well. It is waiting for an unknown party to change on the inside so that God may change the condition of the nation!

Therefore, we have, dear readers, to get ourselves out of this disgraceful condition by reconsidering our interpretation of the mission of religion in our lives and get ourselves of the situation where the religious and secular are confused with each other. “You know your worldly affairs better,” was how God’s Messenger, peace and blessings be upon him, addressed his Companions at one point, establishing therewith that notions should not be confused, laying the foundation of the principle of organizing the relationship between religion and daily life, and canceling the condition of faulty overlapping of the religious and worldly functions.

With its values, principles, ethics, laws, and objectives, religion sets out to form a good, normal human being, with clean actions, proper speech, wholesome heart, and alert conscience and affection. This human being loves to work, hates laziness, and diligently pursues learning. He is ambitious, creative, alert, gentle, free, and proud. He is proud without haughtiness and modest without lowliness or submission. He is easy going, straightforward, truthful, faithful, honest, and moderate. He does not lie, act treacherously, betray, or act greedily. He builds and does not destroy, advises and does not scandalize, loves good and hates evil, is peaceful and does not initiate enmity, is merciful and does not harbor a desire for vengeance, and is useful rather than harmful to others. He is compassionate with the poor, stands for the oppressed, maintains close ties with and is dutiful to his kin and neighbors, avoids blunders, forgives errors, places the interests of his nation before his own, favors others over himself and never monopolizes. He honors human beings and shows mercy to animals, which he considers as subjected to human beings. He loves justice and charity, and hates injustice and tyranny. In short, religion raises a human being who is godly and pious, and fears God in matters of this world and the Hereafter, and his ethical performance in the fields of life is satisfactory.

This is then the mission of religion: to prepare a normal human being for a great, grave, and divine task, which is the settlement of the earth and the maintenance of justice in all its parts. Scientific and material qualifications, expertise, instruments, skills, and methods of technological creativity are another thing. They are worldly matters which God, the Most Sublime, holds open for competition among every human being, without consideration of his nationality, race, religion, gender, color, or status. This is a sign of God’s absolute justice, so that all people will participate with their toil and efforts in settling the earth.

It is also a sign of his justice that he made all matter and all non-human creatures, though they are believers, neutral in their performance in civilization. They respond to every person who is learned, experienced, or skilled, and who is diligent, persistent, and ambitious. They do not distinguish between a believer and an atheist, a Muslim and an unbeliever, or an Arab and a non-Arab. Nor do they distinguish between colors. They also make no distinction between feminine and masculine, poor and rich, or strong and weak. They are available to everybody, and respond to each person in accordance with his skill, the extent of his learning and experience, and his creative potential and ability to improve. They turn their back only on ignorance and the ignorant, the lazy, the dormant, the inattentive to life’s affairs, and the neglectful of the responsibilities of the task of settling the earth.

In the fields of scientific and technological creativity, there is no favoring of a person, a religion, a group, or a culture over another. All are equal as far as the opportunity to explore, deduce, develop, and improve in the fields of material life is concerned. When the qualifications, skills, experience, and instruments of creativity and production are equal among nations, it is the turn of ethical and behavioral performance to determine a standard for distinction among them. This stresses the role of religion and its values and principles in formulating the ideal behavior and the safest approach in dealing with the products of creativity and research and technological efforts. Thus, and on such a basis, nations and civilizations through history gain distinction.

The role of religion is basic in formulating and shaping human affective, ethical, and behavioral performance. It is not, however, an indispensable condition for the possession of abilities, skills, and experience for scientific and technological production and creativity, as some Muslims imagine. On the basis of this imagined notion, some people relate the scientific and technological backwardness of the nation to religious and devotional causes. This is the source of the charge against the nation of a distance keeping it away from God; it is used to explain the state of backwardness and weakness in the fields of science and technology. If these people, however, reflect upon the verses of the Glorious Qur'an and texts of the Prophet’s traditions, as well as the reports and implications they have, they will realize their mistake and illusion in making a direct link between religion and technological creativity.

The Glorious Qur'an relates many stories of groups and nations which do well in tilling the land and exploiting the resources of the earth, and build monuments of civilization that are acclaimed in the Glorious Qur'an and described with the praise it deserves. The Qur'an itself, however, draws our attention to the reason that such civilizations do not last and mentions the cause of their decline and the end of the authority of their populations and makers. It says that they fall because of their flawed ethical and behavioral performance, of the injustice and tyranny of their peoples, and of the absurdity and corruption of the course they follow on earth.

The Qur'an tells us the stories of the people of 'Aad, Thamood, Lot, Pharaoh, and others. God, the Most Sublime, says:

Have they not gone through the land and seen what the end of earlier nations was, who were mightier than they and tilled in the land and built it up even better than these are doing. Their messengers brought them all evidence of the truth, for God would not wrong them. It was rather they who wronged themselves (Al-Room XXX: 09).

That is in general. For particular cases see, for example, what God says about the people of 'Aad:

As for 'Aad, they behaved arrogantly on earth, with no justification. They said, “Who is mightier than we?” Have they not seen that their Creator is mightier than they. They used to deny our revelations. ◘We sent them a howling wind for some ill-omened days, to let them experience the pain of disgrace in life on earth. The punishment in the Hereafter is more disgracing, and they receive no support ₍Fussilat XLI: 22).

As for contemporary history, we are faced with three constructional scenes.

1. The first is a constructional scene represented by a great atheist empire, the defunct Soviet Union, which did not believe in God and religion. It used to declare officially that it disbelieved in religions and regarded religion as the opium of peoples. It affirmed its belief in dialectical materialism and its belief that life is matter. On that basis, it established its scientific and technological monuments. This blatant atheism that was deep-rooted in its ideology did not keep it from becoming the first nation on earth to reach the surface of the moon and to be the first world power in the amount of its industrial and technological production, its nuclear stockpile, its possession of the greatest number of intercontinental ballistic missiles, and the number of troops in its armed forces, as well as the quality of its arms, training, and competence.

2. The second constructional scene is represented by a great secular empire, the United States of America, which separates religion from the state and declares all day long that religion has nothing to do with the course of its political, scientific, and social life; that it is a non-religious state, and that religion is a personal thing and has no place in life and its requirements and responsibilities. On the basis of that belief, it established its scientific and technological monuments, as well as its administrative and economic structure. Here it is now, the greatest power on earth, spreading ifs authority and might in every direction with no competition.

3. The third constructional scene is the one which the Islamic nation speaks of, affirming that – thanks to its belief in its Lord and adherence to Islamic Law, values, and principles – it was able to set up the best and greatest civilized empire in the history of mankind. People near and far testify to its merit, justice, and greatness and many Western wise and fair people admit that their progress and civilization owe a lot to the products and crops of Islamic civilization.

These are scenes of civilization that people have seen and experienced. Nobody can deny them or ignore the reality of their existence. The problem, however, is that of interpretation, of the way to understand the reality of their rise in spite of the differences and contradictions between their cultural and religious approaches.

At the outset, in reading these three scenes and trying to define their common ground, I have to assert that the strength and progress of nation is based on two factors:

1. a factor of ethics, values, and principles, and

2. a factor of material things, instruments, skills, and experience.

Or it can be said that, in the advance of nations, power and progress are represented by two things:

1. superiority of technological production, and

2. superiority of ethical performance.

We have to admit, and even stress, that the source and motive of technological superiority is advance in research, experience, and skill, and that the source of ethical superiority is religion, culture, customs, and conventions. Therefore, we have to admit and to be certain that technology does not make morality the same way that morality does not make technology, but neither can do without the other. Each supports the other. Technology without morality is exposed to tampering and destruction and morality without technology is no more than an adornment that gives no substantial satisfaction.

By the same token, religion does not produce any scientific progress or technological superiority. Yes, it does call for learning, encourage research and exploration, and stimulate creativity and progress in the fields of production, development, and growth. All of this, however, is contingent on the individual'’ response and adherence to such instructions, as it is contingent on the will to meet the challenges and demands of life, and on one’s understanding of the right and objective mission of religion in the course of his life. This point has already been discussed in detail in our earlier discussion of this problem.

The mission of religion is to purify the soul, cleanse the conscience and affection, prevent the commission of vile action and the utterance of vile speech, and maintain proper conduct and good behavior with people in life’s various fields. Religion is not a distinction in the fields of science, industry, and technology. It gives no advantage that enables desires, dreams, and wishes to be realized without effort and sweat or without work at late night hours, constant toiling, bright alertness, and unceasing competition.

Religion is not a privilege so that prayers to God would achieve for a person what he wishes to be achieved and keep away from him what he wishes to be kept away, without work and toil on his part. It is not a privilege to realize what a person wishes from God, the Most Sublime: to conquer, defeat, or route whomever that person hates, and to reinforce, support, give long life to, and improve the fortunes of whomever that person likes and approves of. It is not the wish of God, of the Blessed Names, nor is it part of His absolute justice to make belief in Him and unconditioned servitude to Him a bargain by which He grants believers what they wish and desire at the expense of the effort, expenditure, knowledge, skills, and experience of non-believers. Far be it that God would accept or decree such a thing, for he is the Lord of all creation, the Lord of believers and atheists, Muslims and unbelievers, monotheists and polytheists, honest people and hypocrites, and the dutiful and the dissolute. His justice is for them all in this world without any discrimination. Life on earth, with its adornments and benefits, is available to everybody, with no preference of one party over another except through good deeds.

Therefore, the advocates of the proposition that relates the question of scientific and technological backwardness to religious failure or decline in belief need to reconsider their interpretation and view. There is no doubt that religious failure and deviations in ethical performance have a basic relationship with abuse of scientific and technological production and applications. It has, however, no direct relationship with the scientific production process or with technological superiority. Again and again, we have to distinguish between production process and performance ethics.

It might be said, however, that my claim that belief and unconditional servitude to God, the Most Sublime, is not a bargain between believers and their Lord by which God achieves for them what they wish explicitly contradicts the Qur'an, where God says:

God has purchased of believers their lives and their property, offering them Paradise: they fight in God’s cause, kill, and get killed. It is a true promise of God in the Torah, the Gospel, and the Qur'an. Whoever keeps his promise better than God? So rejoice at the transaction you have made. That is the great triumph (Al-Tawbah IX: 111).

Certainly there is no contradiction. In fact the phrasing of this verse confirms what I say. Does this divine contractual relationship that the glorious verse describes not make Paradise, with all its wonders and glory, the price God offers in the Hereafter in return for a great sacrifice in this life, which is forfeiting their lives and property in the fields of jihad? The price of offering their lives and property in obedience to God in this life is paradise in the Hereafter, rather than a guarantee of victory over the enemy in the fields of battle. Victory is, first, from God for criteria that He, the Glorious and Magnificent, determines. It is not a price for worship that is offered to Him.

Second, we are discussing here the fields of life on earth only, which, as it is known, are made by God, the Most Sublime, available to all with no discrimination:

Those who care for earthly life and its embellishment, We shall pay them for their work in it, and they will not be underpaid there. _◘ Those are the ones that will have nothing in the Hereafter but Hellfire. What they have done will miscarry there, and invalid will be their deeds (Hood XI: 15-16).

The Messenger, peace and blessings are upon him, says that “God gives worldly things to the dutiful and the dissolute.” The second of the well-guided caliphs, Omar Ibn Al-Khattab, may God be pleased with him, says, “It rains neither gold nor silver.”

Of course, when it is combined with efforts and action to the utmost ability, belief plays a role in good performance. It also has a basic role in making the outcome of work and toil an investment for the Hereafter and part of its rewards. “So, walk around its regions, eat of His provision, and to him is the resurrection” (Al-Mulk LXVII: 15). This is a basic difference between the effort in this world of a believer and that of a non-believer. The effort of the former is related to the Hereafter, if his intention, when he pursues his and his family’s needs and strives to improve his situation, is the worship of God, the Most Sublime, and obedience of His commands. While the work of a non-believer is restricted to this life and has no ties with the Hereafter. This is because his work is done with the intention of serving his and his family’s interests and maintaining life. Servitude and absolute obedience of God is not included in his intention, because, after all, he is a non-believer.

On the basis of this criterion, God’s absolute justice makes believers and non-believers equal in the yields of this life when they have equal abilities and skills. Otherwise, distinction between them in the various fields of life continues to be based on the distinction in qualification, instruments, and skills. The one who does well and excels gets a great reward in this life. As for the Hereafter, it has its own criteria and a rule in accordance with God’s will and decision.

Yes, by themselves, religion and ethical values bring neither material progress nor technological superiority, unless religion is combined with adoption of the means to accomplish scientific progress and industrial and technological superiority. Yet, it should be remembered that efforts for the settlement of the earth and maintaining life and adoption of the means to do so, is weighed in God’s scale as acts of worship. On the basis of this understanding, I have divided worship into two parts:

1. spiritual worship, and

2. constructional worship.

Spiritual worship includes the performance of everything that God has made obligatory for Muslims, whether it is an action, a ceremony, or a rite related to faith, the foundations of belief, or the five pillars of Islam. It includes prayer, zakat, fasting, and pilgrimage, as well as compliance with all what God has ordered and avoidance of everything that He has forbidden. It includes belief in death, resurrection, accounting, reward, punishment, paradise, hell, and other things which it would take long to mention and elaborate on.

Constructional worship includes compliance with God’s command to settle the earth:

“My people, worship God; you have no other god! He it is who brought you into being out of the earth and settled you therein. Seek His forgiveness and then turn to Him in repentance. My Lord is ever near. He answers all” (Hood XI: 61).

It includes every effort made to maintain life:

Believers, respond to the call of God and the Messenger when he calls you to that which will give you life (Al-Anfaal VIII: 24).

It also includes every step taken to realize interests and make one’s living:

So, walk around its regions, eat of His provision, and to him is the resurrection.

It includes, as well, every effort made to ward off corruption of the earth and bring benefits to people.

And had it not been for God using people to check each other, the Earth would have been corrupted. God is limitless in His bounty to all the worlds (Al-Baqarah II: 251).

Cooperate in charity and piety and not in sin and aggression, and fear God; God is severe in His punishment (Al-Maidah V: 2).

All this and other assignments of maintaining life and realizing everything that protects human dignity and sustains environmental safety come under the heading of duties performed to meet the responsibilities of the great divine assignment embodied in the statements of God, the Most Sublime, “I am appointing a vicegerent on earth (Al-Baqarah II: 30)” and “He it is who brought you into being out of the earth and settled you therein (Hood XI: 61).” The mission of vicegerency on earth, settling it, and exploiting its resources for the benefit of human life and dignity is what we refer to as constructional worship.

On the basis of this belief in the need for the integration between spiritual worship and constructional worship, full worship of God, the most sublime, in this life is based and is attained. Any failure of flaw in either or both of the two components of this worship has implications for the nation in the form of backwardness and weakness in its material and technological progress or in its ethical performance. Within the framework of this belief, or this interpretation of the meaning of worship in Islam, one can understand the statement of God, the Most Sublime, “God does not change the fortune of people unless they change inside (Al-Ra'd XIII: 11).” The phrase “unless they change” has to be understood as valid in both directions, that is from good to evil, strength to weakness, or progress to backwardness, or else from evil to good, weakness to strength, or backwardness to progress. Likewise the word “inside,” meaning their way of life and their approach, has to be understood as covering two possibilities, good and evil, strength and weakness, or progress and backwardness. The “fortune of people” indicates that when a nation goes through one of these possibilities of good and evil, it will be undoubtedly in one of two situations: either it is in a situation where if copes well with one or both of the components of worship, the spiritual and constructional, or a situation where it deals badly and fails with one or both of these components.

A nation may be advanced in constructional worship, but withdrawn or lanky in spiritual worship. On the contrary, it may excel in spiritual worship and be, at the same time, weak or backward in or completely absent from, the fields and niches of constructional worship. According to Islamic standards, it is in a state of weakness and backwardness in both cases. Material progress with ethical backwardness is absurd and destructive, and ethical refinement with material backwardness is a state of inferiority and humiliation. Traditions of the prophet confirm and clarify this rule. God’s Messenger, peace and blessings are upon him, told his companions, may God be pleased with them:

“Nations will almost call each other against you [i.e. against your future Muslim brothers] as eaters call each other to a bowl.”

Someone asked, “Will we [i.e. Muslims] be too few then, God’s messenger?”

God’s Messenger, peace and blessings be upon him, said, “No, You will be numerous on that day. But you will be scum, like the scum of a flood.”

The cause of this humiliating weakness, then, is not the small number of Muslims and their poor belief and connection with God, as it is diagnosed by some people in explaining the situations of Muslims today. The cause is rather their light weight and skinny figure among nations when it comes to material things. The conversation of God’s Messenger, peace and blessings be upon him, with his Companions, concerning what will befall Muslims in future days, continued, and what is said, I am convinced, describes well our situation today. He said:

“God will remove [because of this inferiority] from the hearts of your enemies all fear from you. He will cast [because of this weakness and humiliation] feebleness into your hearts.”

He was asked, “What is feebleness, God’s Messenger?”

He said, “Feebleness is love of this life and hating to die.”

In other words, feebleness is cowardice, horror, and humiliation. How can a weak and skimpy person avoid experiencing such fright and humiliation?

This tradition is very clear and specific in pointing out that the problem of the Islamic nation is in its life, rather than its belief or compliance with God’s commands. The problem is in its lagging behind in the fields of life, its weakness in the fields and niches of constructional worship. If it desires to change its conditions and be in a situation of strength and dignity, it has to get rid of its scientific backwardness, industrial illiteracy, technological ignorance, and alienation in the areas of research, exploration, and meditation of the signs of the universe and walks of life.

Say, “Look to see what the heavens and earth contain!” But of what benefit could all signs and warnings be to people who will not believe? (Yunus X: 101).

We will show them Our signs in the horizons and in themselves, until the truth is evident to them (Fussilat XLI: 53).

At one time, I had a conversation with the great Muslim creative thinker Mr. Malik Ibn Nabi, may God have mercy on him, and about this particular question after a lecture he gave on “The Concept of Civilization” at the auditorium of King Abdul Aziz University in Jeddah in 1971. He stressed in his lecture that civilization was the outcome of interaction between human beings and the soil and that all civilizations were the same, with nothing that distinguishes one from another. He was, in saying so, answering the outstanding and famous Muslim thinker Sayyed Qutb, may God have mercy on him, who used to insist on a different statement in which he stressed that “Islam is civilization,” which meant that in the absence of Islam and its values, there is no civilization. To support his hypothesis that civilizations are identical, Malik Ibn Nabi cited the chemical formula:

Hydrogen + Oxygen + a spark = Water

He then commented that the reaction of hydrogen and oxygen took place when the spark acted as a catalyst. “This reaction produces the water that you know and drink,” he said, and I think he used the expression “life water of life.” He went on to say that the formula of civilization was similar, but its elements were different:

Soil + Human beings + Time = Civilization

Naturally since the first formula produced water, which is an element unlike any other, the second formula, according to Malik Ibn Nabi, produced one and the same civilization for all human beings.

By virtue of my specialization in chemistry, I found that such simplification (Soil + Human beings + Time = Civilization) is extremely deficient. The process was much more complex. At the end of the lecture, I asked for and was granted his permission to comment. I said:

This chemical reaction that you have cited is one case of the reaction between hydrogen and oxygen. Undoubtedly, ordinary hydrogen in reaction with ordinary oxygen, under specific circumstances, produces ordinary water, water of life, as you have put it. But if we change the conditions and replace hydrogen with one of its isotopes, the result of the reaction will change. It might be either what is called “oxygen water” or “heavy water.”

I wrote on the board the following formulas:

· Oxygen + ordinary hydrogen under ordinary conditions produces normal water, good for life.

· Oxygen + hydrogen isotope 1 under different conditions produces something called oxygen water, which is undrinkable but serves other purposes known to specialists.

· Oxygen + hydrogen isotope 2 also under different conditions produces what is called heavy water, which is undrinkable but serves other, industrial purposes.

Thus, in reaction with hydrogen under different circumstances and with various types of hydrogen used, oxygen produces three kinds of water, all of which are useful, but only one, ordinary potable water, has all the properties needed for life. Therefore, let us follow the example this reaction with the reaction of human beings and the soil, or rather with matter because soil is only one type of matter and there are other types, such as water, air, other gases, and other types. Let us, [I told him,] modify the formula to become:

Human beings + Matter + change in method civilization variety

Since the method is what determines human behavior and determines his competence and skill in coping with matter. There are a normal human being and an abnormal one, a correct one and a mistaken one, a responsible one and an irresponsible one, and a learned one and an ignorant one. There are an experienced scientist and an inexperienced one, a skillful one and an unskilled one, and a creative one and a traditional one. With this variation of attributes, it is the human being that will in the end determine the outcome of the formula. It is he who will determine the nature and identity of its civilization outcome. Yes, there is a civilization variety. I am with you and I support your view that every human reaction with matter produces a civilization outcome, but the outcomes are not the same. There are benevolent civilizations and more benevolent ones. On the other hand, there are malignant and corruptive civilizations. There are also brilliantly creative civilizations, civilizations with a variety of creativity and production, and ones that are limited in their creativity and production.

I wanted to show him by this that I disagreed with Sayyed Qutb in his claim that there is no civilization without Islam, and I disagreed with him, Mr. Nabi, in his claim that civilizations are identical. I said, “Yes, I am with civilization variety; there is a common ground that civilizations share, but they are not identical.” He was very furious and slammed the desk he was standing behind while giving his lecture. He said, “This is a nonsense philosophy. Civilizations are identical and have no differences between them. I resorted to silence, being surprised by his fury. The audience was divided into two groups, each supporting one of the two opinions.

This was the beginning of my interest in civilization. I wrote later an article entitled “The Chemistry of Civilization,” and it was my first on the subject. I dealt with the chemistry of civilization within the human soul and in society. I began to be interested in the concept of civilization. Later, I read some books by Mr. Malik Nabi and discovered that he had changed his mind and started to write about the variety of civilizations, stating that religion remains the main influence in forming sound civilizations. I supported that view of his and wrote a paper on the subject, which ended as book called The Complementarity of Civilizations. In it I introduced a formula for civilizations based on the following definition: civilization is the outcome of every effort made for the settlement of the earth and the maintenance of life according to a certain culture. Since cultures are varied and not identical, civilizations then are varied and not identical. I illustrated that with the following compound formula:

Atheist approach corrupt civilization

Human beings + matter + approach of faith secure civilization

Secular approach unstable civilization

This formula illustrates that it is culture that steers towards a certain type of civilization and produces the ethical civilization performance. The more positive a culture is – the more congruent with human dignity and security, and with international justice, security, and peace – the more secure, stable, and constant in its rise and growth the civilization is.

The formula also makes it easier for us to read the scenes of civilization mentioned earlier in this chapter, which are,

1. the scene which was represented by the atheist empire, i.e. the fallen Soviet Union, and the followers of its approach;

2. the secularist scene represented today by the United States of America and the followers of its example; and

3. the scene that the Islamic empire represented, which is trying to revive itself today, rise, and go forward in the international procession of civilization building.

On the basis of an understanding of the civilization formula above, based on the belief that civilization is founded on two essential factors;

· a material factor, and

· an ethical factor,

It is clear that the scene of civilization of any nation has two vantage points:

· an industrial and technological one, and

· A human behavioral one, a vantage point of values.

The strength and survival of any culture and the continuity of its contribution and rise are contingent upon full complementarity between the strength of its technological production and the firmness and refinement of its ethical and methodological performance. Technological performance requires ethical performance if the civilization outcome is to be positive and safe. If, however, technological performance is accompanied by poor ethical and methodological performance or no such performance at all, the civilization outcome will be negative and perhaps destructive. If, on the other hand, ethical and methodological performance is accompanied by poor technological performance or no such performance at all, the civilization outcome will only be romantic dreams and hopes, and the formulation of false theories.

These are facts that we should fully grasp and understand, and we should also deal with them seriously and objectively. They are part of the nature of the motion of the universe and the progress of life, determined by the Will of the Creator of all universes, the Lord of Creation. The Glorious Qur'an and the immaculate Sunna confirm and emphasize this. Ancient and modern histories testify to it and support it. History tells us of civilizations that started and were creative according to the conditions of their time, but they declined and disappeared due to a flaw in their performance and a decline of their values. Examples include the civilization of Hammurabi as well as the Babylonian, Confucian, Manu, Ancient Egyptian, Persian, Greek, and Roman civilizations. The Glorious Qur'an tells the stories of 'Aad, Thamood, and others that established great civilizations and unique architectural monuments, but they were unjust, oppressive, and corruptive of the earth. Therefore, their states collapsed, their monuments fell down, and they themselves became extinct. Nothing is left of them, other than the remains of a rock or a stone tablet that tells generations some aspects of their history. God, the Most Sublime, says:

As for modern history, it provides us with statements spoken by well-known leaders, who assert that the worst threat for humanity and its progress is flawed civilization performance and a flawed relationship between the process of technological creativity and the value and behavioral performance. Former U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt says on the problem of performance:

It is not what we have that will make us a great nation; it is the way in which we use it.

John Foster Dulles says:

It is not a matter of material things; we have the greatest production of material things in the world. What we lack is sound, strong faith, without which all what we have remains too little.

He stresses that the power of nations is not only in the industrial and technological production they have, or the nuclear stockpiles they have hidden in the ground; the real power is in the belief and values needed to control that enormous material power.

Former President Mikhail Gorbachev of the defunct Soviet Union deals with the same subject in his book Perestroika, which I believe all of you have read. Here are samples of what he says:

§ Our rockets may reach Halley’s Comet and fly to Venus with astounding accuracy. But beside these scientific and technological advances, we find an evident shortage in the competence to use scientific achievements for economic needs. Moreover, many Soviet house appliances are of poor quality. Unfortunately, that is not all. A gradual decline of our ideological and moral values has started. Corruption has invaded public ethics, and the rate of alcoholism and crime is rising, and we will determinedly continue the struggle against intoxicants and alcoholism (pp. 18-19).

§ Our main mission today is to enhance the individual’s morale, respect his privacy, and give him moral power. We are striving to make the intellectual abilities and all the cultural potential of society work to create a socially-active, spiritually-rich, straightforward, conscientious individual. Every individual must know and feel that there is a need for his contribution, that his dignity will not be molested, and that he will be treated with trust and respect. When he sees all this, he will be able to achieve a lot (p. 29).

§ Through the years of our heroic and brilliant history, however, we failed to give attention to the special rights of women and the needs arising from their roles as mothers and housewives, and from their educational function which children cannot do without. While women work in research, on construction sites, and in production and services, and while they contribute to creative activities, they no longer have the time to perform their daily household duties, i.e. housework; educate their children; and establish a healthy family atmosphere. We have discovered that many of our problems – in the behavior of our children and young people, and in our morale, culture, and production – are partly due to the decline of family relations and of the lax attitude we have towards family responsibilities. This is a result opposite to our sincere and politically-justified desire to have women equal to men in everything. Now in the Perestroika process, we have started to control this situation. For this reason, we are having hot debates in the press, in public organizations, at work, and at home, over what we should do to ease another problem, which is the employment of women in strenuous jobs that are hazardous to their health. This is the heritage of the war in which we lost huge numbers of men. Now we are beginning to cope seriously with this problem. One of the most pressing social problems for us and most serious missions is the campaign against intoxicants, which will reflect on the improvement of family health and the augmentation of the role of the family in society (pp. 138-39).

§ It is crystal-clear that in the world in which we live, the world of nuclear weapons, any attempt to use these weapons to solve Soviet-American problems will mean suicide. I do not believe American politicians are unaware of this fact. Moreover, now a really paradoxical situation has developed. Even if one of the two countries works hard on continuously increasing its weapons, while the others do nothing at all, the side that is arming itself will gain nothing. The weaker side might simply detonate all its nuclear loads, even if on its own land. This will mean suicide for it and slow death for the enemy. Therefore, any effort for military superiority will mean going around in a vicious circle. This cannot be pursued in a realistic policy (p.265).

§ The major part of nuclear weapons is centered in the Soviet Union, and at the same time, ten or even one per cent of their potential is sufficient to make irreparable damage to our planet and to human civilization as a whole (p. 272).

How ironic! Will we need to destroy and damage the earth more than once? That is if destroying it becomes one day a joint goal and end. Whose interest, then, is served by this absurd increase of nuclear weapon production so much that it's nine times more than is needed to explode the whole earth? Is it not absurdity, or rather compound absurdity, in the performance of technological production? Some harness nuclear technology to manufacture death, destruction and misery, instead of harnessing it in the interest of life, construction, development, and prosperity. Then they go to an extreme in their depravity; they exaggerate and produce the product of destruction many times more than needed at the expense of food, medications, and clothes, and at the expense of hundreds of millions who live below the line of poverty and destitution. It is even at the expense of dealing with the causes of deprivation, unemployment, and disease, which are suffered by millions of the population of the very countries of nuclear inflation and stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction, which are forbidden by all the values of heaven and all traditions of the earth. We are, then, facing a technological absurdity, as well as an absurdity in utilization and application.

This technological absurdity is what controls the progress of civilization today, which confirms the danger of a flawed relationship between the process of technological production and the ethics of civilization behavior. There is great instability in the relationship between science and values. We sit on the throne of material, industrial production, but in utilizing this industrial production in the fields of life, we, regrettably, suffer horrifying backwardness in ethical and behavioral values.

Faced with this horrible disorder, Gorbachev tries to forestall the consequences and listen to reason, to deal objectively with the serious and painful reality which his country, as well as the whole world, has come to. He cautions and warns people, telling them the only chance they have is to be up to the collective responsibility that would keep them from the threat of drowning and destruction which everybody faces. He says:

§ In spite of all the contradiction in the world today, the variety of social and political systems it has, all the different options on which countries have been founded through the ages – this world is one entity, and all of us are passengers on the same vessel, the Earth. We must not allow it to sink, for there will be no second Noah’s ark.

Having reviewed selected passages from the testimony of President Gorbachev, the leader of the fallen monument of civilization – a testimony from contemporary reality concerning the flaw in the delicate relationship between the factors of true civilization, a flaw that is represented in the flawed relationship between faith, science, and work, or between the cultural and the material sections of civilization – I will review now selections from the testimony President Richard Nixon, former president of the United States, which is another monument of civilization, ready to fall, unless its leadership acts before it is too late or the divine grace rescues it with guidance and rationality. The selections are chosen from his famous book Seize the Moment, in which he says:

§ The United States will lose its economic and technological edge if it fails to perform better in getting young Americans ready for the duties that await them on the occasion of moving from industrial economy to that of sophisticated technology. More than 25% of the American people fail to graduate from high school. Many of those who do graduate are so lacking in skills, such as mathematics and science, and our young people rank behind students of all other industrial countries. It is true that some of our public schools are performing well, but many of them are less effective than schools in many countries of the world. Most of the content of school curricula is so easy that students no longer feel the need for hard work. That is why two thirds of school students spend one hour or less at home in preparing for their classes, reading ten lines or even less. Then they watch at least three hours of mind-stupefying television programs.

§ America is now moving downward in a vortex towards scientific and technological illiteracy, not because Americans have lost their ability to learn, but because part of the knowledge they receive has been bypassed by time. We are raising – whether in the heart of cities or within the Middle and Upper Classes in the suburbs – a new generation which can be called the MTV generation. The amazing ignorance of many members of this generation does not result from the limited intelligence of young people, but from the failure to exploit their intelligence. They live in the world of loud music, which is played at such a volume that it pierces the ear, and of television that displays fast-changing images that can hardly be followed by the eyes, and successive, sexually arousing scenes. Mottoes, which used to be displayed as stickers on bumpers, are now printed on shirts, but they are still as hollow” (p. 259).

§ The richest country in the world cannot possibly accept that its drug consumption is almost equal to the consumption of all the countries of the world together, although its population is not more than one twentieth of the world population. The richest country in the world cannot have the highest crime rate in the world , nor can it accept that the number of people who die in America is twenty times the number of those killed in the Gulf War over the same period” (p. 267).

§ The richest country in the world cannot possibly accept to have a class of villains that make our major cities so unsafe that life becomes unbearable.

§ Our most serious social problems are crime – drugs, and dependence on others in education – revolve around the values of attitudes and behavior. Such things do not depend on dollars or on the programs planned to cope with them, which are calculated in dollars and often lead nowhere. The need is not for dollars as much as for a set of values and rules which are accepted and self-imposed by society (p. 168).

While in his book 1999: Victory without War, President Nixon says:

§ In the twenty-first century, Man is going to reshape the world, and we have to undertake a pivotal role in this great project. Materially, we will reshape the world by virtue of an eruption of technological inventions. We have to try to reshape the world politically through a strategy that aims at the realization of real peace. At the same time, we should not neglect to cope with the question of the spiritual human dimension (p. 325).

§ While we are changing the material world, we should strive to reshape the world politically. In the twentieth century, our technological progress took a few steps ahead of our political progress, and that is something we should not allow to happen in the next century. Our material progress has reached the point where if it is not combined with political progress, this might lead to total destruction. If we want maximum material progress in the twenty-first century – not to serve our interests alone, but the interests of all humanities, we have to reach for the means that would make our scientific conquests combined with a political one, thus we reduce the chance of war and enhance the participation in the benefits of peace (p. 327-28).

§ The might of the sword in Moscow cannot defeat the might of the spirit in the West. One day Stalin, mockingly and with contempt, questioned the Church power in influencing world events, saying, “How many brigades are under the Pope’s command?” This comment shows his failure to understand the world and what drives it. Ultimately, history is determined by ideas not arms. This is particularly true when politicians, who know the world and how it works, are armed with strong principles (p. 331).

Within the same context the great Indian poet Tagore said in a conversation with a Western thinker, “It is true that you have been able to soar in the air like birds and to dive in the sea like fish, but you have not managed to walk on earth like human beings.”

American novelist John Steinbeck says, “America’s problem is in its wealth. It has too many things, but it does not have an adequate spiritual message. We need a blow on the head to make us wake up from our wealth. We have conquered nature, but we have not conquered ourselves.”

The well-known former U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles says, “It is not a matter of material things; we have the greatest production of material things in the world. What we lack is sound, strong faith, without which all what we have remains too little.”

Alexis Carrel, a scientist and Nobel laureate, says in his book Man the Unknown: “Our knowledge of life and of how a human being should live is a far distance behind our knowledge of material things, and this lagging behind is what makes us suffer.”

Professor Judd, head of the Department of Philosophy at London University, says, “Physical sciences have given us a power that is worthy of the great, but we use it with the mentality of children and beasts. This discrepancy between our amazing scientific conquests and our embarrassing social infanthood is something we face at every turn in our lives.”

Mr. Eden, well-known in contemporary history as a former British prime minister, says, “It is absurd that countries and nations spend millions of pounds to protect themselves from a lethal machine that frightens them, but they spend nothing to control it.”

Former U.S. President Roosevelt says, “It is not what we have that will make us a great nation; it is the way in which we use it.”

I conclude these quotations by citing once more the statement of former U.S. President Nixon that “In the twentieth century, our technological progress took a few steps ahead of our political progress, and that is something we should not allow to happen in the next century, in order to reduce the chances of war and enhance the participation in the benefits of peace.”

Through these quotations, I want to emphasize that historical evidence and current reality support my argument that the strength and progress of a nation have two components,

§ a component of values, principles, and modes of behavior, and

§ A component of material elements, means, and skills.

Moreover, historical and contemporary evidence confirm that the continuity of a nation’s power and the superiority of its civilization is contingent upon the complementarity between the quality of its material and technological advance and its ethical and behavioral one, or in other words, between the quality of its material production and the honesty of its performance in life. Based on this, I assert that the material rise of any nation is based on the resources of scientific research and the creativity and skill in industrial production. The opportunity to achieve this is made available by order from God, the Most Sublime, to all people equally. The aspect of values and ethics gives no nation a privilege over another in the fields of technological production and creativity, for God, the Most Sublime, says:

Those who care for earthly life and its embellishment, We shall pay them for their work in it, and they will not be underpaid there (Hood XI: 15).

On this basis stands the idea of distinction between civilization production and civilization performance of nations, as well as the idea that it is not correct to link the question of scientific and technological production, or material civilized progress, in principle, with the question of values and ethics, or belief and unbelief. Scientific production and technological advance, or material civilized progress, are the outcome of human effort in the fields of research, skill discovery, and creative talent cultivation in rising generations. It is also the outcome of the stimulation and integration of the productive spirit among individuals in a certain society, as it is clear in the words of God, the Most Sublime:

We promoted some of them in ranks, so that they would use each other in service (Al-Zukhruf XLIII: 32).

Again, the superiority of values or ethics does not give any nation a privilege over other nations that allows it to advance materially without meeting the requirements of such advance, such as qualified and skilled people.

There is no doubt that superiority of values or ethics and positive behavioral performance have a basic relationship with the constructive performance of civilization and a basic role in controlling and guiding the process of material production and technological creativity to keep them in line with the dignity of human beings, the security of societies, and the safety of the environment, and in harmony with the interests of human beings and the requirements of their procession in life. At the same time, values and ethics have a basic role in ensuring the continuity and refinement of the yields of civilization.

On the basis of this understanding of the relationship between the factors of the material advance of nations, on the one hand, and their values and ethics, on the other – an understanding that is based on the separation, in principle, between the elements of material production and the rules of positive behavioral ethics – we can read the various situations of human civilization through history, to which I referred at the beginning of this chapter:

· the civilization and material and technological advance of atheist countries which do not care for religion, ethics, or human conscience;

· the civilization and material and technological advance of countries which keep religion and the human conscience separate and regard them as purely personal matters that have nothing to do with the fields of science and technology; and

· The civilization and material and technological advance that are combined with religious values, ethical performance, and an active human conscience.

Certainly, these three types would seem puzzling at first glance and drive some to ask, “Where is the truth?”

· The former Soviet Union was a nation that omitted religion from its approach and considered it superstition and the opium of the masses. Yet, it managed to accomplish great material superiority and enormous technological advance. In fact, it occupied the first place in the field of space and its exploration. It was the first country in the world to make a landing on the moon surface and have its flag on it. Yet, it declined, weakened, and was fragmented, and its monuments collapsed. Its leaders and wise men attributed this to its decline in values and morality and its negligence of the individual’s affective and spiritual dimension.

· The United States is a nation that has separated its life from religion and its moral and spiritual influences. It regards this as a personal matter that has nothing to do with science and technological advance. It has managed to erect scientific and spiritual monuments and even achieve for itself a material advance more outstanding than achieved by any other nation. Today it sits on the throne of material superiority on earth. Yet, it is suffering today from chaos and omens of destruction, as its leaders and wise men point out, linking these omens of destruction with the lagging of their values and ethics behind their technological achievements. They recommend a restoration of the delicate balance between material production and ethical and behavioral performance in the progress of their civilization so that it may continue and last. Otherwise, the inevitable fate of that nation is the same fate as its former rival in the technological race.

· The Islamic nation tied its life closely to its religion, the components of its faith, and its moral and behavioral influences, and it excelled in science and in technology and erected monuments of civilization of a kind unique in human history. Yet, it regressed and its civilization was set back, weakened, and lagged behind.

· So, where is the truth?

The truth becomes evident and clear with some meditation and objectivity and with the understanding of the delicate relationship between the material production of civilization and ethical performance. In the final outcome, it is a complementary, rather than causal, relationship, in the sense that each, production and performance, complements, but does not produce, the other. Neither ethics produce material excellence, without the elements that achieve such excellence and without observance of its rules and laws, nor does material excellence produce values or ethics. It may stir an intellectual storm headed in the direction of the truth, but it does not produce it to start with, for God, the Most Sublime, says:

We will show them Our signs in the horizons and in themselves, until the truth is evident to them (Fussilat XLI: 53).

He also says:

Those who strive for Our sake We will guide to our right paths. God is for the righteous (Al-'Ankaboot XXIX: 69).

Striving (jihad) here is used in its general sense, which is to strive in order to maintain life. The truth and the ways that lead to it do not become clear for a person without effort, search, and thought, nor without competence, skill, and creativity.

We can, on the basis of the relationship of complementarity between material production and creative performance, read clearly and objectively the three cases of civilization listed above.

· The Soviet Union led its peoples towards production within a coercive system which it has created for its course in life. It imposed the system on its population and drove them with force towards production and creativity through a mechanism and a philosophy it had devised for its way of living. Thus, it constructed a giant material structure, but it was in the absence of any consideration for the individual’s affective, spiritual, and behavioral constitution. The Soviet Union persisted in its vanity, being proud of its civilization and material progress, and in ignoring its backwardness in ethical performance. This led it into the mania of superiority in material, destructive production that is the mania of the armament race with the other. It was a race that drove participants to a mad and extreme technological and production absurdity, with nuclear, biological, and other weapons of mass destruction being produced at the expense of human dignity and the individual’s daily needs, which unbearably declined to the lowest level, as Gorbachev put it. All this lead to a sudden, fatal blood clot that stopped the flow of life support in the arteries of the greatest technological empire at the time. Its nuclear and technological stockpile failed to save it from the rebellion initiated by the need for sustenance, medicine, and attire. The great empire failed in preventing the awakening of conscience and the revival of the glow of the individual’s spiritual and affective dimension. The civilization collapsed and turned into feeble fragments. The glow of its technological vanity and the material progress of its civilization faded away due to the backwardness of its ethical and behavioral performance.

The American nation, as well as the West in general, has chosen for its way of life a neutral course between religion and worldly interests, which it called “the secular approach.” It is based on the separation of religion and religious and moral values from life’s material and political concerns. It regards religion and morality as personal matters, convinced that a conflict exists between some religious teachings, on the one hand, and science and creativity, on the other. It makes religion a concern of the church and temple alone. Upon this foundation, the United States has been seriously involved in teaching and educating its successive generations. It focuses on the approaches of research, creative talent cultivation, and development of competence and skills. A large margin is allowed for applied sciences in the American educational process in schools, institutes, and universities. Great attention is accorded to research center, creative workshops, and specialized industrial cities. Brains and creative talents from all over the world are welcomed, and skills from all peoples and cultures are invested.

Thus, the United States has built a production network with various orientations and specialization, with its integrated and harmonious units working towards one end and one goal, which is the construction of an industrial infrastructure, unceasing in its production, development, and creativity, and unaffected by the social, political, and other climates. This infrastructure is independent in its concern, independent in its performance, and independent in its budget, which increases and never diminishes. It is an infrastructure that continuously encourages and supports new abilities and skills, as well as diligent, specialized studies and research.

Thus, America and other Western countries have managed to bring about a great transformation in the progress of their productive, scientific life. They have initiated an enormous and prevailing industrial and technological revolution in contemporary history. Now the United States is the leading country of the world in creative technological production in various fields of life. There is no doubt that it is the leading industrial and military, and perhaps economic, power on earth. However, it suffers today a “spiral decline,” as President Nixon puts it, and it faces an internal threat that might devastate and destroy its lofty technological monuments. The reason for that is a flaw in its performance and ethics, and its political and cultural backwardness. The famous President Theodore Roosevelt expressed this when he said:

It is not what we have that will make us a great nation; it is the way in which we use it.

President Nixon also made a warning, saying,

In the twentieth century, our technological progress took a few steps ahead of our political progress, and that is something we should not allow to happen in the next century. Our material progress has reached the point where if it is not combined with political progress, this might lead to total destruction. If we want maximum material progress in the twenty-first century – not to serve our interests alone, but the interests of all humanities, we have to reach for the means that would make our scientific conquests combined with a political one, thus we reduce the chance of war and enhance the participation in the benefits of peace.

This warning clearly means that the American civilization is facing a danger that threatens to destroy its giant civilization, unless its people hasten to correct the situation and strike a serious balance between its technological performance and its ethical and political performance. This supports our idea that material advance remains threatened unless it is combined with an advance in ethics and values.

· Meanwhile, the Islamic nation’s approach to civilization has been based from the beginning on the delicate balance and close tie between religion, values, and morality, on the one hand, and, on the other, the promotion of science, skills, research, and development in order to utilize the resources of the universe for the purposes of settling the earth, maintaining life, and safeguarding human dignity and environmental safety. When the Islamic nation observed this delicate balance between the bases of science and of values – or of belief, values and principles, on the one hand, and matter, instruments, and skills, on the other – it was able, with great competence and ability, to build lofty monuments of scientific and technological excellence combined with a benevolent history of civilization performance, ethical behavior, and equitable humanitarian approach. When it retreated from the fields of matter, skills, and instruments, due to a general disorder that affected the way it understood the true message of its religion and its objectives in life, is suffered retreat and decline in its scientific and technological progress. Later, it was weakened and withdrew in some of its countries, perhaps fully, from the fields of research and technological production. Yet, in spite of its scientific weakness, material and industrial backwardness, and the fact that it lacks the means and the materials, and in spite of the injustice and attacks it has suffered, it remains – thanks to God, the Most Sublime, and to its adherence to its values and the moral approach inherent in its educational makeup – coherent and alive, resisting and defending itself, and insisting to survive. It has not been wiped out, nor has it become extinct as the case was with earlier civilizations and nations.

Today it is trying to rise and soar once more. Awareness of the reality of its crisis and the causes of its backwardness is becoming more and more evident in its approach. True recognition of the mission of its belief in its religion, which is settled in the hearts of its rising generations, is flowing once more in its veins. These generations are beginning to recognize the defective points in its erroneous way of coping with the objectives of the mission of its religion. One of the most prominent of these defective points is the flawed relationship between spiritual worship and its varied rites, on the one hand, and, on the other, its mission in life and the consequent responsibilities, after having been for a long time unaware of the objectives of the great, immortal divine call: