Islam_in_Focus_text

overemphasis on spirituality and resignation is bound to give
rise to a counter emphasis on materialism, rationalism, "free
will", and so on, Stressed beyond certain limits. spirituality
may become superstition, and confusion. Likewise, a coun-
ter stress may turn materialism into laxity, free will into li-
bertinism, and rationalism into sheer vanity. The intellectual
history of the last few centuries demonstrates these tenden-
cies only too well.
Over the years of recent decades, the spiritual scale
tipped up and down. In the sixties, and now in the seventies,
the news-making events are those of the unsurpassed,
unprecedented, outerspace explorations. Equally sensational
are the unprecedented exp!orations in the inward, internal
realms of being, however faddish, cultic, or neurotic they
may seem t o be.
The rise of these two unprecedented and unbalanced
types of exploration is exceptionally alarming. The reason
probably lies in the fact that the two types do not seem to re-
late to each other, let alone converge. There is no apparent
reciprocity. mutual reinforcement, or crossfertilization. Be-
sides, their precarious, unbalanced existence is a constant
threat to the majority of people. It may very well drive them
into ambivalence and confusion which may, in turn, intensi-
fy the problems of society and harden the lot of modern
man. But such a precarious course can be changed if the out-
ward scientific explorations and the inward moral gropings