The characteristics of an ideal monotheistic society

It is the author’s firm belief that the characteristics of an idealistic monotheist society are to be summarised as follows:

1. Negation of the Man of Absolute Materialism: from the viewpoint of Islam, man is a mixture of soul and body, and in this mixture the soul is genuine. In other words, the humanity of man and his reality depends on his soul, and this soul, with all its complexities, is a tool for comprehending and carrying out its own actions. Man, from the view of the Holy Qur’an and the narrations, is neither absolutely good-natured nor totally bad-natured; rather the two kinds of inclinations exist within his nature, one towards evil and the other towards good.

2. Negation of Individualism: individualism, as was formed under the auspices of humanism and which, subsequently, led to utilitarianism and profit-making, has no place in Islam and Islamic society. Individualism of this type is ungracious in the realm of values and morality; for the human being is not the pivot of morality and values but is the one who must be bound by values and in fact excels thereby. The bases of morality and the propositions of value are objective affairs independent of men’s will, demand, and mentality. Consequently, the basic propositions of morality are absolute and free from relativity. The secret of objectivity of the main moral propositions is that these express the existence of a moral act and man’s ultimate spiritual perfection.

3. Negation of Secularism (Separation of Religion from Politics)

If we consider even a little of the content of Islamic teachings, it can be understood that jurisprudence and religious law are important elements within it; for religious law is not limited only to personal and private realms, and Islamic social jurisprudence has clear teachings in various social categories.

Therefore, we have witnessed that secular media have introduced Islam in a totally negative way from a gloomy angle. Islam is continuously introduced by the media creating an Islamophobic environment. They, i.e. the secularists, have constantly sought to remove Islam from the social and political fields limiting it to the arena of personal life, without realizing that Muslims recognize it as a pale distortion of the reality of this perfect and exalted religion. If personal behaviour plays a role in man’s perfection and exaltation and is the cause for his consequent happiness in the hereafter, social behaviour and collective mutual relationships influence his happiness far more effectively. In the second media approach, Islam has been reproduced to be contradicting any human European culture, due to its exclusiveness and rigid Shari’a Law’s rulings. Therefore, we feel the need to profoundly grasp the relationship between Islam and various European cultures.