The age-old dream of the human caravan is not to send astronauts in their orbit in outer space.. it is to send its individuals - every single individual in his orbit of self-realization. It is high time that this dream be thus reinterpreted. It is also the sacred duty of every man and woman to help intelligently reorientate human endeavour towards the culmination of this pilgrimage.

Mahmoud Muhammad Taha - Answers to the questions of Mr. John Voll - 17.7.1963

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The Religion of Man: A new conception of ISLAM

Introduction


This booklet attempts to introduce the reader to a conception of Islam which is not only different from prevailing notions of Islam, but the religion itself. It is a conception that applies the rational scientific approach to religion. The outcome is an intelligent, tolerant and modern religion that concentrates on what men have in common rather than what they have in difference. As such, it is a religion for all men.
We now live in such an interdependent and unified world that we can no longer afford to maintain and emphasize our differences. The achievement of agreement and concord is, in fact, essential for our very survival on this planet. With the advanced sophisticated weaponry we have at our disposal, the prospects of armed conflict are too awful to contemplate. Yet, peace will not be achieved and maintained, however much we desire it, unless we have the necessary basis for agreement. Peace in the world is the manifestation of peace within the individual. Peace within the individual, in turn, is the product of a combination of favorable external circumstances and effective internal self discipline and education. There must neither be the need nor the inclination for aggression and violence.
Any ideology which purports to solve our problems today must, therefore, provide the external conditions as well as internal techniques necessary for the production of the individual who is at peace within himself, and, consequently, capable of being at peace with others.
No secular ideology is able to provide this combination. In fact none exists that can provide either arm of this formula in the manner Islam, as propagated by the Republican Brothers, can. Secular thinking purports to regulate only the external conditions of our existence. It has nothing to offer in relation to spiritual self discipline and education.
No traditional religious approach, including that of Islam as popularly understood today, is able to provide this necessary combination. That is because religion traditionally emphasizes partisan thinking, rigid and narrow attitudes and rivalry with other religions and creeds. All of this is inconsistent with both internal and external conditions for peace as indicated above. Traditional religious thinking is demonstrably incapable of organizing the world, or educating the individual in the necessary manner. It tends to discriminate on the basis of religion and sex; it endorses outdated and unfair socioeconomic phenomena such as intellectual and moral guardianship over “the ignorant and sinful” by the “knowledgeable and righteous”, as well as a capitalist economic order.
The conception of Islam, we attempt to introduce in the following brief account, provides the complete formula. It regulates the socioeconomic order according to the most advanced notions of democracy and socialism where guardianship over all is vested in human and forward-looking laws. Every person is absolutely secure in his person and property as long as he observes the laws of the community at large. These laws are to be derived from the basic moral precepts shared by all human cultures and religions.
In this sense, Islam is not a conventional religion in the sense most people understand religion. It is rather a way of life and personal approach to dealing with psychological problems according to the techniques of worship revealed to the Prophet Mohamed Salla Allaho Alaihi Wa Salam. Yet there is no compulsion or correction of any degree, type or shape. Every person is perfectly entitled to adopt his own private technique, or have no technique whatsoever, provided he observed the laws of the community. In other words, it is not the business of anybody, whether a private person, an organization or official agency, whether any individual is religious or not, or which religion or creed he professes. However, it is the business of everybody, private individual, organizations and official agencies that every person should observes the law.
Thus, what we propose to have is a democratic and socialist socioeconomic order where the individual is subject only to the rule of law and nothing else.