Man is the microcosmic representation of the macrocosm, the universe at large……

Man is the microcosmic representation of the macrocosm, the universe at large……

Tuesday July 12, 2011

Man’s personal and social order

IKIM VIEWS

By DR MOHD ZAIDI ISMAIL,

Senior Fellow/Director,

Centre for Science and Environment Studies

In its efforts to revitalise Islamic jurisprudence, the legal fraternity should bear in mind that religious rituals and worship protect and perfect man’s rational, nutritive, carnal and irascible faculties.

IT has been a prevalent understanding in the intellectual tradition of Islam that man in his very constitution reflects what is there in the outer world.

In other words, man is the microcosmic representation of the macrocosm, the universe at large.

Some scholars of this tradition go even further to assert that what is outside man reflects what is in him.

By and large, it is held that there are three basic powers, or faculties, common to both man and plants: the nutritive faculty, the growth faculty and the reproductive faculty.

As far as these faculties are concerned, man is no different from plants. Just as plants need nutrition to grow and multiply, man needs to consume food and drink because only by doing so can he maintain his health and thus grow, and later on to duly satisfy his carnal instincts and reproduce.

“Vegetative soul” (al-nafs al-nabatiyyah) is the term the scholars of that tradition adopted to refer to such faculties.

Yet, they are not the only faculties man has; neither are they those which differentiate man from plants and beasts.

In this respect, to limit one’s life simply to the satisfaction of these three faculties is to reduce and downgrade oneself simply to a mere plant.

Hence, there is a need to afford the other faculties of man their proper due, which brings us to the traditional understanding of the indispensability of maintaining order and justice in both the microcosm and the macrocosm.

The basic meaning of justice in Islam has always been “the condition wherein things are in their right places” and, as such, an act is said to be just if it is aimed at according a thing its proper place.

To maintain order and justice in the microcosm as well as in the macrocosm requires and necessitates the realisation of the above, meaning both microcosmically and macrocosmically.

It is in this context that one should reflect the wisdom of Shaykh Muhammad Arshad al-Banjari, a famous Malay Muslim scholar of the 19th century, comprising his Sabil al-Muhtadin li al-Tafaqquh fi Amr al-Din, a book on Islamic law (al-fiqh).

Man, he argues, is created by God fully equipped with four main faculties: the rational faculty (quwwah nutqiyyah), the nutritive appetitive faculty (quwwah shahwiyyah batniyyah), the carnal appetitive faculty (quwwah shahwiyyah farjiyyah), and the irascible faculty (quwwah ghadabiyyah).

From these psychic powers spring various human dispositions and actions that have societal impacts which, when classified, will generally fall into either one of the four general areas of human life, namely, religious rituals and worship (‘ibadat), transactions (mu‘amalat), matrimonial matters (munakahat) and criminal or penal matters (jinayat).

As such, human affairs cannot be set in order unless all the four faculties are properly governed and perfected.

Since the main purpose of legal rulings (hukum shara‘) in Islamic jurisprudence is to give order to human life, principally pertaining to the governance of those four general areas, al-Banjari explains that God out of his mercy has rendered ‘ibadat to be the one that protects and perfects the rational faculty; mu‘amalat, the nutrititive faculty; munakahat, the carnal faculty; and jinayat, the irascible faculty.

In accordance with such an arrangement and wisdom, and in order to realise that paramount religio-ethical task, it has become a common practice among the Shafi‘ite jurists to organise their fiqh treatises and manuals into four main parts, namely, Kitab al-‘Ibadat (The Book on Religious Rituals and Worship), Kitab al-Mu‘amalat (The Book on Transactions), Kitab al-Munakahat (The Book on Matrimonial Matters) and Kitab al-Jinayat (The Book on Criminal or Penal Matters).

Indeed, it is such a psychological analysis of law that our colleagues in the legal fraternity should seriously consider in their efforts to revitalise Islamic jurisprudence.

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