AKDN: An Ethical Framework - What are the abiding traits of Islam’s ethical ideal which inform the AKDN mandate? February 2, 2007
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What are the abiding traits of Islam’s ethical ideal which inform the AKDN mandate?
Ethic of Inclusiveness
Islam’s is an inclusive vision of society. The divine spark that bestows individuality also bonds individuals in a common humanity. Humankind, says the Quran, has been created from a single soul, as male and female, communities and nations, so that people may know one another. It invites people of all faiths to a common platform, to vie for goodness. The Prophet sought to harness individual and group differences and talents to serve common needs of different religious groups, among whom he encouraged a spirit of harmony and toleration as constituents of a larger community of his time.
Ethic of Education and Research
The Prophet and Hazrat Ali
The key to the nature of society that Islam espouses is an enlightened mind, symbolised in the Quran’s metaphor of creation, including one’s self, as an object of rational quest. The very first revelation to the Prophet is a command to read. Those who believe and have knowledge are the exalted ones. Such cannot be equated with those who are ignorant. “My Lord! Increase me in knowledge”, is a cherished prayer it urges upon the believers, men and women alike. Learning ennobles, whatever its source, even if that be distant China, and is obligatory upon every Muslim man and woman, the Prophet is reported to have said. “One’s greatest ornament is erudition”, and “the most self-sustaining wealth is the intellect” which “gives one mastery over one’s destiny”, are among the sayings attributed to Hazrat Ali, the first Shia Imam. “Knowledge is a shield against the blows of time”, wrote Nasir-i Khusraw, an eleventh century Iranian poet-philosopher. But the person of knowledge and wisdom carries the greater obligation of sharing it. The Prophet likens the knowledge which is kept from others to a girdle of fire round one’s neck. “One dies not”, said Hazrat Ali, “who gives life to learning”.
Early Muslim Scholars
The teachings of Islam were a powerful impulse for a spiritually liberated people. It spurred them on to new waves of adventure in the realms of the spirit and the intellect, among whose symbols were the universities of al-Azhar and dar al-’Ilm in Fatimid Ismaili Cairo and their illustrious counterparts in Baghdad, Cordova, Bukhara, Samarqand and other Muslim centres. Reflecting the spirit of the culture which honoured the pursuit of knowledge, Al-Kindi, a ninth century philosopher and student of Greek philosophy, saw no shame in acknowledging and assimilating the truth, whatever its source. Truth, he wrote, never abases. It only elevates its seeker. As a result, sciences flourished in their different domains: mathematics, astronomy, botany, medicine, optics, pharmacology, zoology and geography. In his History of Science, George Sarton traces, from 750 onwards, an unbroken stretch of six centuries of Muslim pre-eminence in the world of science.
From Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN): An Ethical Framework
…..to be continued.
alhamdulillah this article, with a little more Quranic Evidence, can spread to the Muslim World for many have steeped in ignorance