As for social philosophy, throughout the ages and up to contemporary communism, it has failed to comprehend the relationship between the individual and the community. It assumed that if the individual were given the opportunity to exercise his freedom, his actions would conflict with the interests of the community. And since the community is considered greater than the individual, its interest was deemed more deserving of protection than his. Consequently, the individual's freedom was sacrificed for the sake of the community's interest whenever the two appeared to be in conflict.
Looking back at the history of human society from its origins to the present, it becomes evident that individual freedom has frequently clashed with the interests of the community. Indeed, human communities have historically established their systems and safeguarded their interests at the expense of restricting individual freedom. Early human beings evolved from a state of wild animalistic instincts, dominated by the pursuit of base desires such as stomach need and sex. Human societies could not have emerged without regulating these two desires. Thus, customs arose to organize sexual relationships: prohibiting the sister from the brother, the daughter from the father, the mother from the son, the son's wife from the father, and the father's wife from the son, even before the broader societal norms that generally prohibit adultery were established.
This custom, or call it the first law, helped to calm the sexual jealousy that used to divide the human family whenever the children reached adulthood. After this custom, it became possible for the father, the grown-up son, the son-in-law, and the married son to live together in one house or in adjacent houses, with each of them secure that his wife was safe from the others.
The custom of respecting individual property may have arisen simultaneously with these sexual norms, for in primitive societies, there was little distinction between owning a wife, a tool, or a cave. If small communities were to live in harmony, in a shared space, with ever-growing numbers, hunting together, fighting their enemies together, and facing the challenges of life as a united front, it was necessary to establish these two customs. These customs regulated behavior within the group and safeguarded its cohesion.
In such contexts, the punishment for transgressions like adultery might have been death, applied equally to men and women. Similarly, theft from close kin was punishable by death, a punishment that later extended to theft in general as communities expanded. Over time, as humans became more refined and intelligent, these punishments were softened - cutting off a thief’s hand replaced taking his life - because individuals had developed enough awareness to be deterred by less severe measures.
This account does not imply that all societies evolved in the same way, but it is certain that wherever human societies emerged, they were founded on sets of customs and traditions. These customs, which represent the origins of law, played a fundamental role in the development of human society. Early human beings were coarse, hard-hearted, and dull in sensitivity - more animal than human. They required extreme measures to be tamed and to transition from a state of wildness to one of domestication. Early social customs were correspondingly harsh, often imposing the death penalty for even minor infractions. Such societies required virtuous individuals to commit themselves to the service of the community. Human sacrifices were a known practice, performed on the altars of communal temples to win the favor of deities or to avert their anger when they were presumed to be angry.
And this harsh law, which suppressed individual freedom for the sake of communal interest, was well known and practiced until relatively recent times. In the era of Prophet Abraham, the Father of the Prophets - who lived about two thousand years before the birth of Christ - this law was still accepted both religiously and rationally. He himself was commanded to sacrifice his son Ishmael, and he proceeded to carry out the command without fear or hesitation. Then Allah permitted its abrogation, so it was abrogated, and mankind was ransomed with an animal more bestial than himself. This was a declaration that the ascent of humanity one degree above the level of the animal had neared its end. And Allah has recounted to us the story of Abraham and Ishmael, saying:
“And he said, "Indeed, I am going to my Lord; He will guide me. My Lord, grant me [a child] from among the righteous." So We gave him good tidings of a forbearing boy. And when he reached the age of working with him, he said, "O my son, indeed I see in a dream that I am slaughtering you, so see what you think." He said, "O my father, do as you are commanded. You will find me, if Allah wills, among the patient." And when they had both submitted and he laid him down on his forehead, We called to him, "O Abraham, you have fulfilled the vision." Indeed, We thus reward the doers of good. Indeed, this was the clear trial. And We ransomed him with a great sacrifice. And We left for him [favorable mention] among later generations: Peace be upon Abraham.” (37-99-108)
“And We left for him among later generations” means, among other things, the abolition of the law of violence against the human individual, for it had lasted through long ages, and the individual had benefited from it. He rose from the pit of beastliness and became worthy of being ransomed with something lower than himself, a beast.
The remnants of such violence against individuals in contemporary societies are not significant, for they are destined to vanish as opportunities for awareness and maturity increase. The physical sacrifice of individuals did not end abruptly in Abraham’s time. History tells us that during the Islamic conquest of Egypt, Muslims discovered such practices persisting in the form of the Bride of the Nile. It is said that Amr ibn al-As, the conqueror of Egypt and its governor at the time, once observed a great commotion. Upon inquiring, he was informed of a custom whereby the community would select a girl, the most beautiful and of noble lineage, to be ceremoniously offered to the Nile each year. This was believed to entice the river to overflow its banks, bringing abundance and blessings, and to prevent drought.
Amr ibn al-As instructed the people to delay this act until he could consult Caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab. Umar responded with his famous letter, which read as follows:
"In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.
From the servant of Allah, Umar ibn al-Khattab, Commander of the Faithful, to the Nile of Egypt: If you flow of your own accord, then do not flow. But if you flow by the command of Allah, then flow."
Umar instructed Amr to cast the letter into the Nile, which was done, and the Nile flooded, abolishing the practice of human sacrifice. Thus, another instance of ransoming individuals through knowledge and wisdom was achieved.
And this intense violence against the human individual, which has persisted since the dawn of human society - long before the dawn of recorded history - and whose manifestations continued until recently, as demonstrated by the two previous examples, has misled social thinkers. They assumed that individual freedom, based on historical precedent, always conflicts with the interests of the community. Hence, they concluded that wisdom lies in sacrificing individual freedom for the sake of the interest of the community. Communism, as the vanguard of contemporary social philosophy and a leading progressive force in contemporary Western mechanical civilization, became entangled in this misconception.

The Individual and the Universe in Philosophical Thought

The failure of contemporary social philosophy to understand the relationship between the individual and the universe surpasses its failure to grasp the relationship between the individual and the community. However, the former is less apparent because the relationship between the individual and the community directly affects practical matters such as politics, legislation, and governance, whereas the relationship between the individual and the universe remains largely theoretical. This oversight stems from our continued dominance by herd instinct, which prevents us from ascending to the realm of individuality. Nonetheless, there is no doubt that the era of the community is yielding to the era of the individual, whose sun now heralds its rise. This new era will arrive when the perceived conflict between the individual and the community is resolved - first theoretically, then practically. This resolution is a subject we will address in detail shortly, Allah willing.
A precise understanding of the relationship between the individual and the universe is not merely a matter of abstract philosophy, which might be dismissed as intellectual luxury. Rather, it is a practical necessity. Such understanding is essential not only for realizing individuality through personal effort but also for organizing the community to serve as a legitimate parent to individuals capable of achieving their individuality.
The misguidance of social philosophy in correctly understanding the relationship between humanity and the universe finds its cause in the study of human history from its very beginnings. When the first human being stood upright for the first time and confronted the natural environment with his mind, he found it teeming with immense forces that, as they appeared to him, were constituted in a manner different from his own. These forces acted in ways incompatible with his thinking and desires. Moreover, they were indifferent to his life or death - indeed, many of them seemed to be relentlessly working towards his destruction. Those who shared life with him amid these inert forces were either prey or predator: prey that hunts and is hunted, and predators that hunt and are hunted. It was as if the whole environment consisted of blue fangs and red claws. Thus, if he was to preserve his life, he had to devise all kinds of tricks and resort to every manner of cunning for his own survival.
Then, these inert forces, some of which are immense and terrifying, rendering his ingenuity powerless and exhausting his mind, and some of which are predominantly harmful, while others are predominantly beneficial, led his ingenuity to ingratiate himself with all of them, driven by motives of fear or love. Thus, he humbled himself, showed reverence, offered gifts, sacrificed offerings, and established rituals of worship. Among the forces in the natural environment in which he lived were those that could be outwitted or confronted. So, he devised various strategies: he built homes atop trees, on mountain peaks, on pillars he fashioned from tree trunks and embedded in the beds of ponds, and in other fortified places. Then, by making tools from branches of trees and pieces of stone, he further extended his ability to contend with these forces.
The human being, caught between worship and confrontation, is often overwhelmed by a sense of desolation and plagued by the anxiety of being unique in their kind, surrounded by enemies on all sides, lying in wait for their moment of vulnerability and plotting their downfall. From here, it occurred to the human being that their place in the universe is one of hostility and contention.
Philosophy has now led some of its adherents to declare that religiosity, which early humans were driven to by natural forces as previously mentioned, is merely a necessity of childhood. They argue that religion, wherever it has existed up to the present day, is nothing more than a phenomenon of childhood, where early man resorted to imagining a god to fulfill the child's need for a father to protect him. They claim that the fundamental way to confront the environment is through confrontation, not flattery, and that what pushed man toward flattery was his inability to engage in conflict. Now, with his development of weapons from tree branches and stone tools to the hydrogen bomb, his ability to engage in conflict has been completed, or nearly so. Therefore, they argue that he must abandon flattery - or rather, abandon religiosity, the religions, and Allah.
Khrushchev is alleged to have said that when Gagarin became the first human to travel into outer space, he did not find the being known as God. It seems that Khrushchev could not conceive of God except as a type of matter - something he claimed to know. In truth, when their philosophy failed to conceive of anything beyond matter, they turned that very failure into a virtue by denying the existence of anything immaterial. This allowed them to maintain the coherence of their claim that man, while contending with his material environment, develops his understanding of it and improves his means of confronting it, until he conquers and subjugates it, thus becoming the master of his destiny.
The misunderstanding of the relationship between man and the universe has never, at any point in time, reached the depth it did during the era of communism - and all in the name of science and philosophy. Communism stands at the forefront of contemporary social philosophy and plays a progressive, intelligent role in today’s mechanized Western civilization. At the very least, this is how it appears to people today.
Or do you claim that Western Christendom differs from the Communist East in matters of religion and in its conception of God? This may be true in the traditional sense, but it is not true in practice. There is nothing in the Western conception of religion or of God that prevents the West from becoming communist. After all, before the communist revolution, Russia was Christian - and specifically, it was Orthodox.
In truth, religion - whether Christianity or Islam - if it does not encompass all aspects of societal and individual activity and does not take charge of organizing all the energies of individual and collective life with wisdom and guidance, will detach itself from people's lives, lose its influence, and leave its place to any other philosophy. This can happen regardless of how misguided that philosophy may be, as long as it is capable of providing practical solutions to people's daily problems or even misleading them temporarily under the guise of serving their livelihood interests. Since people possess bodies and stomachs, any call to virtue must not neglect their bodies and stomachs needs. Indeed, a proper understanding of the nature of things dictates that the call to virtue should reach them through their bodies and stomachs.
Whatever the case may be between the Communist East and the Christian West, the present Western mechanical civilization is not Christian. It has failed to grasp the relationship between the individual and the community, just as it has failed to understand the relationship between the individual and the universe. As a result of this failure, it has practically fallen short of reconciling socialism with democracy, which is one of the greatest manifestations of its shortcomings.
We are not, at this moment, seeking to disparage or belittle it. Rather, we aim to conduct a scientific study of it, placing it in its proper context, acknowledging its merits, and calling for addressing its deficiencies so that it may transform into a true civilization after having become merely a material progress.