Family
& Society
Question:-
Throughout Western
Civilisation and the rest of the World where Western influence is progressively
dominating, we find that Families are collapsing. It is thought by some
thinkers that this institution based on formal marriages is becoming rapidly
obsolete and will be replaced by a different social system based either on
greater individualism where children are brought up centrally and
professionally in institutions or on a kind of communalism where all men and
women are collectively husband and wives to each other and jealousy based on
individual attachments will be considered evil. For Islam, however, marriage
and the family are half of Religion, and all the rules that concern the
relationship between the sexes are designed to protect and strengthen marriage
and the family. These rules appear to be regarded by many people, including
Muslims as becoming rather oppressive.
Much of the conflict between the West and Muslim people seems to be
centred around just this question, the idea of family, marriage and the status
of women and children.
The question is:
How should Muslims deal with this question in the context modern developments?
What exactly is the significance of the Family in Islam?
Answer:-
Human being are
social creatures, but their Societies can be organised in three different way:-
(1) Like a machine through controlling Laws, bureaucracies and enforcing officials.
(2) Organically through the natural inbuilt human drives and instincts. (3)
Spiritually through consciousness, conscience and will. There can be
combinations of these with various amounts of emphasis on each. The erosion of
the second or third leads to an emphasis on the first and the society becomes
robotic. Development requires emphasis on the third.
The first thing to
note is that Islam presents us with a conscious ideology based on spiritual
principles that requires conscious application, whereas the fact is that the
social conditions in the West have arisen automatically without human control
as a result of economic
developments. And these social conditions in turn have created the ideologies
and the spiritual conditions. This is the exact reverse of what Religion and
intelligence require. The economic conditions ought to serve the social
conditions which ought to serve the spiritual goal.
For Islam, which is
surrender to Allah, the ultimate Objectivity, the Self-existing Creator of all
things, human beings who ought to be agents of Allah, are required to give up
their ego and replace it with Allah, and therefore with objective principles
such as Truth, Compassion and Justice which are the attributes of Allah. That
is the whole of Religion. That of course is the goal, but religion is a path,
the Straight Way to that goal. It is the Way of Spiritual
Evolution (Quran 91:7-10). This includes duties towards ones own spiritual
development, duties towards others and duties towards the environment on which
we depend. If we do not behave in an objective manner but are rebellious and
behave in terms of prejudices, fantasies, addictions, arrogance, greed, vanity,
lust, envy and so on then we will destroy ourselves and our environment and be
replaced by others (11:57, 14:19, 70:41,76:28). This is because the Laws and
Processes of the Universe are much stronger than we are and we are dependent on
them, not they on us.
In order to fulfil
their function human beings have been given (a) the spiritual faculties or potentialities
for consciousness, conscience and will, (b) the inbuilt motives or drives for
self-preservation, reproduction and self-extension, and (c) the ability to
record and process the data of experience, apply the results in action, and
various skills for manipulating things.
Marriage and Family
life can be regarded as half of Religion for the following reasons:-
(1) Human beings
are agents of Allah by virtue of the spirit of Allah in them (Quran 32:7-9). This bestows on
them some of divine powers of
initiative, creativity and responsibility. The ability to reproduce and
have children exemplifies this power
and we have the responsibilities for their
welfare and development as Allah has with respect to the Universe and
all things in it. To shoulder
family responsibility is therefore to be part of this Universal principle and align
oneself with Allah. It is Surrender to
Allah (Islam).
(2)
Self-preservation is, of course, a basic necessity for anything to exist at
all. It is wholly self-centred. But its existence must have a purpose and this
purpose lies beyond the individual who must die anyway thereby contradicting
the self-preservative drive. This contradiction is overcome through
reproduction. This drive takes a person beyond his or her own individuality. It
allows his or her idea of self to expand so as to include in it their spouse
and children and also the parents. It can expand further to take in the
families of the off-springs and so on until a personal identification is
achieved with a community, nation, race, humanity as a whole. The reproductive
drive is responsible for the social instinct or is an integral part of it.
Human beings ought to develop through three stages:- of childhood where the self-preservative
drive dominates, to adulthood where
the reproductive dominates to the age of seniority where the
self-extensive dominates. But social
conditions may be such that development is arrested at a lower stage or it can
be accelerated to a higher stage. When it is arrested at the self-preservative
stage then the society tends to
disintegrate. But it can and has been kept together artificially by
imposing external unifying forces on it e.g. through formal organisations,
state control and military force. The society then becomes more like a dead
machine than a living organism, and cannot advance to the state of self-regulating conscious entity which
is the goal.
(3) Sexuality has
three major aspects: (a) creativity (b) attachment (c) intensity. Apart from
biological reproduction it also manifests in other acts of creation as in the
arts and technology. It binds the spouses and parents to children people. Its
intensity provides strong motives which can if suppressed re-emerge in
perverted forms such as fanaticism, masochism and sadism. Its force can be
channelled into the self-preservative or self-extensive drives. It is not
merely a matter of sexual intercourse and self-gratification. When reduced to
this it is already a perversion, having become self-centred. But most
achievements in the economic, social and cultural fields are motivated to
supply the needs of the family, particularly the welfare and development of
children. But it can be channelled into spiritual directions, especially in the
age of seniority. This is a kind of
inner growth, creativity and reproduction. Many religions have sexual symbolism.
Sexuality, therefore, forms a bridge between the other two drives.
(4) It is necessary
to understand that unlike animals human children have a very long period of
immaturity and dependence because it is not merely physical development but
mental and spiritual development is also required. This dependence means that the human
child needs an environment that is secure, stable and has sufficient resources
that facilitate development. This
makes the devotion of parents to each other and to the children essential.
Apart from the basic physical and social resources that a society needs to
provide, the child has three basic psychological needs for security, love and
significance. These are inter-dependent. It is within the family that children
acquire their attitudes to life, positive or negative, their values, their
self-image, faith and self-confidence and where they develop their virtues and
abilities and learn how to interact with others, with their own inner states,
with the physical environment and other
creatures in it. There can be no one but a parent who has sufficient
personal vested interest in the welfare and development of the child. No
institution that employs teachers who have no genetic interest in the children
and work for a short period of the day can possibly be a good substitute. But
it is true that many parents are bad parents owing to personality disorders,
ignorance or stupidity. But this happens mainly in a dysfunctional society and
culture and can be cured by social means.
Education for marriage, family life and parentage ought to be part of
the educational curriculum of all. And it also requires a social system where
there is cooperation between parents. This is more likely in a system where the
extended family prevails and grandparents have an important function instead of
being treated as redundant. The women of the families could be organised to
undertake co-operatively and much more effectively all the necessary work that
otherwise in a dysfunctional society requires many thousands of uninvolved
social workers paid out of taxes on the people.
(5) Marriage and
family make the society into a network, where each marital point is a knot
connected to other knots both horizontally in space and vertically in time to
the past and future. It connects a person with all of humanity and beyond, with
all life and all of existence. It gives a person an identity in a larger
context and expands, or ought to expand his consciousness, conscience and will,
connecting him with Reality.
(6) We note that
the world we experience contains three levels of entities - those we consider
to be dead and relatively inert, those we consider to be alive and have a
certain amount of self-regulation and those we consider to be conscious. They
are not to be regarded as totally distinct but there is a difference of degree.
Religion does not generally concern itself with a congregation of dead things
or even families of dead entities, except indirectly. Though the Biological
family is certainly important for religion, the Spiritual family is much more
important. This refers to the community of all those who are like minded and
have the same goals.
"The Prophet is closer to (has a greater claim
on) the faithful than they have on themselves, and his wives are (as) their
mothers; and the possessors of (genetic) relationship have the better claim in
the ordinance of Allah to inheritance, one with respect to another, than other
believers, and Muhajir (those who fled from Mecca), except that you do some
good to your friends; this is written in the Book." 33:6
"Hold fast, all together, to the cable of
Allah, and do not separate (divide or part in sects); but remember the favours
of Allah towards you, when you were enemies and He made friendship between your
heart, and on the morrow you became brothers, by His grace. You were on the
edge of an abyss of fire, but He rescued you there from. Thus does Allah show
to you His revelations; perchance you may be guided; and that there may spring
from you a nation who invite to goodness, and bid right conduct, and forbid
what is wrong (or indecent); these are the successful." 3:103-104
(7) The Universe,
according to the Quran, is a result fundamentally of a pair of forces that can
be regarded as male and female. Scientific investigations confirm this view
-there is matter and anti-matter, there aree electrons and positrons,
electro-positive and electro-negative elements, and plants and animals have
male and female aspects. Each is incomplete in itself, and each is dependent on
the other and a balance is required between them. So whereas Islam is in favour
of each sex fulfilling its own role with respect to the other rather than the
erosion of sexual differences which narrows down the range of possibilities, it
requires that each should consider the other and recognise that ultimate
Reality lies beyond the pair. It is necessary to transcend the pair. This
achieved through Unity of the sexes.
"And of all things have We created pairs, that
you may reflect (or receive instruction).
Therefore flee unto Allah, surely I am a plain Warner to you from Him." 51:49-50
"And do not covet that by which Allah has preferred
each of you over the other. The men
shall have what they earn, and the women what they earn; but instead (of envy)
ask Allah for His Bounty, verily, Allah is All-Knowing." 4:32
"O mankind! Be careful of your duty to your Lord,
who created you from one soul, and created there from its mate, and scattered
from the twain a multitude of men and women. Be careful of your duty towards
Allah, in whose name you claim
rights of one another, and the wombs that bore you; verily, Allah is Watcher over you." 4:1
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