Islamic Thought

Any way of life can be judged to be more or less valuable to humanity as a whole (i.e suitable to be adopted and promoted as a universal way of life) by the following criteria:

It must be clear and unambiguous between right and wrong, virtue and vice;
it must provide strong encouragement and incentives to encourage people to lead lives based on benevolence, integrity, self-restraint, selflessness and virtue;
it must provide strong discouragement and disincentives to deter people from leading lives based on malevolence, dishonesty, self-indulgence, selfishness and vice;
it must be comprehensive in addressing all aspects of human existence, either through direct teachings and/or examples, or indirectly, through a methodology to enable scholars to apply the direct teachings and examples to new situations, new technology, etc. (Note that this criterion is particularly relevant both to the way of life's suitability to form the basis of a legal system, and to its suitability to be adopted by all human beings, at all times and in all places);
the source documents of the way of life must have the prestige that can only come from Divine source and must be credible (standing up to logical, rational and scientific scrutiny);
the source documents of the way of life must be durable and unadulterated, with well -documented, unbroken links between the source and the modern day, so that inauthentic embellishments and innovationscan be identified, by scholarly research, and discounted.

In other words, the value of a way of life is not the fact that it produces perfect human beings or a perfect society - that is not possible, not least because of the inability of human beings to grasp the full consequences of their actions.

Rather, the value of a way of life is manifested by the extent to which it sets out a practical, highly moral, way of life, a life of principle and integrity - complete with extensive, well documented, authentic examples and role models -that encourages human beings to strive to live according to that pattern, and discourages them from living immorally and selfishly.

The only objection that any person of good will could have to the criteria above, is to question the possibility of divine origin and the universal way of life. This secpticism is due to a widespread myth, encouraged by modern Western culture that science has proved or will, inevitably one day prove that there is no God. This myth owes less to rationality, and more to a selfish urge to aviod moral responsibility and to embrace the hedonistic "pleasure" of vice.

The truth is that science will never be capable of either proving or disproving the existence of God (see Godel's "Incompleteness Theorem", Heisenberg's "Uncertanty Principle", and the philosophical doctrine of "Fallibilism").

The objective of human existence is not to amass material wealth. That primitive urge - unquestioningly encouraged, and ruthlessly purused, by modern Western culture:

has brought humanity to the brink of environmental disater in just a few generations (with no signs of stopping there!);
has built a global economic system in which over 80% of the world's wealth is in the pockets of less than 5% of the people (e.g the total annual income of the 200 richest people exceeds the total annual income of the 2,500 million poorest (and this is set to double to 5 billion within 50 years!) The richest 20% of the worlds population consumes over 80% of what the world produces!);
has created an international political, journalistic and entertainment "culture" in which people who encourage greed, selfihness and hedonism are applauded, celebrated and rewarded; while those who demand virtue, restraint and selfless generosity are reviled, ridiculed or ignored in the name of freedom and democracy!

The real objective and the only legitimate objective of human existence is to lead a life of benevolence, integrity, self-restraint, selflessness and virtue; and to encourage, teach and persuade others to do likewise. Because of the social and environmental damage that invariably results from human vices, those who refuse to live virtuously must be restrained from malevolence, dishonesty, self-indulgence, selfishness and vice, for the greater good.

Islam Teaches:

that there should be a balance between the rights of the individual and his or her duties to others - to the family, the community, the wider society and humanity as a whole, to the environment, to Creation as a whole, and not least, to our Creator, and that the only vaild basis for discriminating against between people is in terms of how morally upright they are;
that consistently encouraging benevolence, integrity, self-control, selflessness and virtue and consistently discouraging malevolence, dishonesty, self-indulgence, selfishness and immorality, are the only ways to bring about and maintain the best possible conditions for humanity in this world;
that there should be a balance between the material ambitions of an individual on his or her spiritual, emotional and social life, and the material, spiritual, emotional and social needs of others;
that not only does the Supreme Being (Almighty God/Allah/Yahweh) - Who is Incomparable, and to Whom Alone all worship and devotion should be directed - exist, but he has taken the trouble to communicate to mankind His guidance for building the best possible human society, and that for the sake of all humanity, His guidance should be followed as closely as possible.

There is only one way of life which perfectly fits all the criteria above - and that is Islam. If you don't believe that to be the case then either:

then we warmly invite you to take a closer look at Islam, the only way of life that God has approved for mankind;
and we urge you to investigate for yourself what this truly universal and noble religion actually teaches.

The True Islam, not it's deformity.

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