SIGNIFICANCE OF ENSURING INTERRELIGIOUS HARMONY IN THE CONTEXT OF GLOBALIZATION (fourth part of the article)

There is neither a stronger dictation nor a stronger motive than the dictation and the motive of pure faith. Noah, a.s., built a ship by the dictates of pure faith; Ibrahim, a.s., was dictated by pure faith to sacrifice his son; Musa, a.s., confronted Pharaoh by the dictates of pure faith; Isa, a.s., suffered all by the dictates of pure faith; Muhammad, a.s., by the dictates of pure faith left everything in Mecca to save everyone in Medina. It is not difficult for those in charge of affirming pure faith as a dictation to defend this claim. Those who are already in faith, or are with faith in their souls as unquestionable truth, accept the dictates of pure faith as a final thing in which there is no doubt and no discussion. In fact, this is the meaning of religious dictate: without question it is the ultimate Divine good. God is good and therefore everything God commands is good in itself. There does not have to be an immediate clear benefit or gain from the Divine com[1]mandment, but the soul must be submissive to receive and carry out the commandment – immediately. About how much a commandment is a benefit or a gain, man will know later or will never know, but he will always believe that every commandment of God is both useful and gainful for him. God created man and that is why He knows better than man what is best for him. Man is ignorant. He needs to be constantly reminded of this in order to understand that he must read and learn to know and understand where his place is in the world. If he tries to compete with God, man is at a loss. Not because God does not allow him to know the truth, but because in the moment of forgetting his position in relation to God, his Creator, man thinks that he is self-sufficient, as well as that the Creator hinders him on the path of knowing everything although he is not able to know even himself. It is clear that only when Man knows himself, can he know his Creator, and thus his place in the world. The sufi, Muslim mystic, would say: man ʿarafa nafsahū fa qad ʿarafa rabbahū (“He who knows himself, has known his Lord”). But by his nature, man likes to know what he needs not know and what he needs not be concerned with rath[1]er than what he should know and what he must be concerned with. Most of all man must know “who and what he is” and he must be concerned with “why he is here and now”.

Natural Faith Vis-à-vis Covenant. So far, I have compared the natural faith with the dictate of faith in order to show a possible shift from the pure matter of faith (al-īman) to the form of religion (al-dīn) of theology nay ideology. As much as it is noble in its purpose, the dictate of faith, if not properly compre[1]hended, might be a disaster. It depends on the state of human soul, heart, mind and hand how the dictate of faith will be worked out in history. 

Now, we would like to compare the natural faith with the idea of divine covenant with man or the man’s covenant with God. First, let’s say that a covenant is a pure theory of faith, just as a law is a pure theory of law. Under the term “pure theory of faith” I want to emphasize that it is necessary to define faith by remov[1]ing all the elements that do not belong to pure faith, which makes faith impure. It is a methodological basis by which pure faith frees itself from foreign elements, which obscure its purity and spoil its beauty. At first glance, this seems both normal and understandable, but in history it has been neither normal nor understand[1]able. It was normal to attribute to faith much that did not belong to it. Namely, it was normal to ascribe to faith all that came to man’s mind to emphasize himself and his thought; and it was understandable that faith justifies all so that man may rule over man. Hence, there is a constant need to protect or cleanse the pure faith from foreign elements, which by its nature do not belong to it. This should be done theoretically, methodologically and practically in order to preserve its purity, its beauty and its sublimity, similarly as the Austrian theorist of law Hans Kelsen warned that law, as a basis for regulating interpersonal relations in so[1]ciety, must be cleansed of elements that do not belong to it. Kelsen observed that during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries law lost its purity, I would say its innocence, because it methodologically blended with disciplines such as psychology, sociology, ethics, and political theory. If this is the case with the law, then what about faith, which is much more susceptible to the manipulation of human arbitrariness and abuse (Hans Kelsen, 1967).

Indeed, it is much harder to preserve the purity or independence of faith which is like a true gem and which hides itself in the deepest part of the human soul, but also sometimes reveals itself, as a false gem in the shallowest human “will to power”, than to preserve the purity or innocence of law which is born as a deepest human desire for social order, but is also violated from the shallowest human corruption and complacency. As much as faith is “pure law” (“nomocracy”), so much is the law “pure faith” (“democracy”). These two values are so interdependent that it is not possible to imagine faith without a law, nor a law without faith. That is why Kelsen’s thesis on the “pure theory of law” is interesting, just as it is his need to purify legal science from all elements, which strictly do not belong to law, is worthy of our attention. In fact, this imposes on us even more the task of purifying religious science from all elements, which strictly do not belong to religion, because it becomes much more important and much more meaningful. Indeed, we believe that the Last Divine Covenant – the Qur’an is the ultimate attempt to purify the faith from all these elements, which do not belong to it strictly, theoretically, methodologically and practically.

But it should be emphasized that a covenant pre[1]cedes a law, just as a regulation precedes the final bill. A covenant is apodictic while a law is a casuistic regulation. Apodictic religious precept, as a covenant, is a commandment (al-amr) or prohibition (al-nahy) in the form of imperatives: “say”, “respect”, “keep”, “do” this and that... and “you shall not do” or “don’t do” this and that... Say: “God is One”! “Respect your parents!”, “Stick to the rope of God!”, “Do good to others!”. But also: “You shall not kill!”, “You shall not steal!”, “You shall not fall apart!”, “You shall not spoil!”. These negative imperatives are much stronger in apodictic law than positive ones, because the implications indicate man’s natural tendency to do what he must not do, i.e., “kill”, “steal”, “lie”, “be corrupt”, and so on. This is why man is warned not to do it even though it is in his nature because it is illegal. Thus, apodictic law is an eternal covenant of God about which there is no debate. It has no expiration date. Apodictic law is the eternal commandment of God. Apodictic law is not an applied law, but an unconditional and unaltered covenant from God to man, as well as man’s vow to God that he has received a message, which should always be present in his mind and consciousness. On the other hand, casuistic law is an applied law of God, derived from God’s apodictic law, which is usually in the form of a conditional: “if ...” this protasis occurs, “then...” it will be that apotasis. Casuistic law is closest to inductive or Anglo-Saxon law, which is derived from specific life cases as opposed to deductive or Roman law, which is mainly based on established legal axi[1]oms, from which other legal sub-norms can be derived as needed. This deductive or inductive methodology in law is present in Shariʿah law in such a way that the Qur’an contains both an apodictic and a casuistic covenant or legal narrative.

In fact, the exegetical discipline of asbāb al[1]nuzūl (the cause-and-effect reason for God’s revela[1]tion of certain verses) represents one of the best ways to understand the Qur’anic-votive or Qur’anic-legal message both in terms of apodictic-deductive and in terms of the casuistic-inductive method, which makes it easier for the human mind to comprehend the dif[1]ference between the eternal and the transient, between the unchangeable and the changeable, between the living and the non-living, between the reasonable and the unreasonable ideas and practices in life of a man who took a vow to God that he will be aware of God’s presence as he is aware of himself, for without self-awareness, man cannot be aware of God. In fact, everything that “is” in this transient world makes sense to man as much as man is aware of it. God lives and acts regardless of whether man has an awareness of God, but man’s life and man’s actions have no meaning if there is no man’s awareness of God. Man knows this, but sometimes he does not admit it while here in this transient world. But ultimately this recognition awaits him in the Hereafter.

In the Holy Qur’an the word mīthāq (“covenant”) is mentioned 25 times. Here is an example of mīthāq, a covenant made by God Almighty with the sons of Isrāil, a covenant transmitted by the Qur’an from the Torah (the “Old Testament”). This covenant is valid for all times as well as for the entire humnanity: – And when we took from the sons of Isrāil vow: that you will worship no one but God, the One and Only God; that you will be benefactors to your parents, that you will be benefactors to your relatives; that you will be benefactors to orphans; that you will be benefactors to the poor; that you will speak kind words to people; that you will maintain a connection with God through prayer (ṣalāh); and that you will set aside from your property for the common good (zakāh). But you have renounced that vow, except for one minority (Abdullah Yusuf Ali, 2003. translation of Qu’ran). 

Of course, each of these eight covenant norms, which God Almighty prescribed to the sons of Is[1]rāil in the Old Testament (“Tawrāt”) and which God Almighty repeats in the Last Testament (“Qur’ān”), represents the culmination of apodictic-deductive law and morality. One who consciously accepts these votive principles may have a certain image of the world, which may be in line with M. Heidegger’s thought that “the worldview is a pre-ontological shaping of the image of the world” or the innate power to have a picture of the world, a picture that allows him to decide on the basis of it the essential questions of the meaning and significance of the world. Because the understanding of faith and morals is derived from the worldview, ideals, life principles from which political, ethical, aesthetic, ecological and other beliefs are derived. Therefore, freedom is not a choice, but a votive mandate for man to be what he is in relation to God the Most High, and that is that he must accept For, he who is aware of the One and Only God, is aware of his obligation to par[1]ents, relatives, orphans and the poor... is aware of the value of the beautiful word ... is aware that maintaining a relationship with the Creator is the surest way to be mentally healthy and spiritually rich... is aware that working for the common good is a value, which makes a person happy.

Our argument here is obvious, namely, that there are two seals of the covenant of faith between God and man, man and God. One is imprinted in the soul of man, and the other is written in God’s book for man. God Almighty imprinted both seals with his “hand”. Man is bound by these two votive seals of pure faith, whether he is aware of them or not, and whether he fulfills them conscientiously and responsibly. Man has the God-given gift of the mind, which has the power to read the vow of faith in his soul; man has a God-given intelligence, which has the power to understand the book of God. If man did not have the gift of the mind, then the vow of faith in his soul with the seal of God would make no sense. Likewise, if man did not have the gift of intelligence, then the vow of faith in God’s book would have no purpose. The seal of God in the soul of man is indelible, just as the seal of God in the book of God is undeniable. The secret of pure natural faith (al-īmān) is in the Divine touch of the human soul to recognize in itself the Divine votive gift of formal and normative religion (al-dīn); the secret of pure faith is in the Divine inspiration of the mind to recognize in the Book of God the Divine votive grace of divine law as a formal and normative may of human individual and societal life.

Mustafa Ceric, 
Grand Mufti Emeritus of Bosnia