Man and Ignorance

How can we get rid of ignorant backgrounds?

Generally, nations and peoples suffer from deep-rooted pagan `jahiliyah', which is regarded as the most dangerous one in history. It is the source of ignorant thoughts and the ill deviations from which the ancient nations suffered.

Today, the disease of ignorance and phenomena that afflicts the different nations and cause them to live in the ugliest scenarios in modern material civilization. In other words, modern man naturally and usually practices unbelief, atheism, moral corruption, oppression, aggression, greed, domination, exploitation, wars, destruction, and social chaos.

Even the Muslims, who believe in Islam, are forced or satisfied to follow these ignorant currents and decline into their deep abysses with the exception of those true believers who have understood this destructive danger, and who avoided it and refused to follow it.

Therefore, if we analyze society and its modern civilization, we will be able to divide both the individuals and their societies into three parts:

  1. An ignorant society whose life embodies all ignorant aspects such as communism, capitalism, materialism, deviated religions, idol worship...etc.

  2. Society in which individuals believe in Islam, but do not embody its beliefs in their lives nor apply it to their actions. Their society is also deviated and lost. It has no Islamic identity nor does it represent the original ideology. It imitates others in laws, art, literature, concepts, and method of life, in a manner which makes the social aspects and the form of general life similar to the ignorant form and the lost life which does not know originality and discipline.

Therefore, in such a society, it is usual to see nightclubs, bars, dissolute women, prostitution houses, usury banks, the system of the material life, the patterns of art, and the kinds of material culture, immoral literature, etc.

  1. The faithful individuals who conform to Islamic beliefs, but are too few to form a social current to enable them to change the regime of life and mark Islam on the personality of the civilization stand apart and isolated in their society. They are deprived of the legitimate benefits of a healthy society.

Therefore, the total application and the full conforming to Islam, as a faith, a way of life, law, and behavior in order to achieve the sincere worship for Allah, the Glorified, are not naturally applied in the life of our societies nor embodied in our public life.

For this reason, in our life, concepts, behavior, regime, and laws, there are many ignorant foundations and non-Islamic concepts which came to us from both Eastern and Western ignorant and material thoughts. Such thoughts feed our own thoughts, our life, and our concepts.

Regarding this cultural invasion and influence, Muslims should sincerely do their best and devote their efforts in order to make essential changes, uproot `jahiliyah' (global ignorance) and demolish its rules and pillars.

Therefore, Muslims should build their personalities and their society according to Islamic values, ideas, and principles. The following Qur'anic verse should be their example in life:

***“And from among you there should be a party who invite to good and enjoin what is right and forbid the wrong, and these it is that shall be successful.”***Holy Qur'an (3:104)