French Egalitarianism versus All-encompassing Islam?

French Egalitarianism versus All-encompassing
Islam?
West has mediated egalitarianism and Islam has negation all encompassing
Allah hence we have beheading of Samuel Paty.
Samuel Paty| France| Islam| French Revolution| Prophet Mohammad
The beheading of Samuel Paty by an Islamic person for showing obnoxious
pictures of Prophet Muhammad has created a sense of phobia again Islam in the
entire Western World. This is an unfortunate because both the French ideology
and Islamic religion are humanist and universal in nature. The declaration of the
French Revolution says, the national assembly recognizes and proclaims, in the
presence and the auspices of the Supreme Being, the following rights of man and
of the citizen: Men are born and remain free and equal rights.

Consumption helps rise up the hierarchy of seven needs if done properly.
Maslow| Hierarchy of Needs| Safety| Belongingness| Self-Actualization
This “freedom” of men has somewhat gone astray in the Western Civilization. The
driving idea of freedom has become to increase consumption. The West has
attained unparallel levels of consumption but has not found peace. Psychologist
Abraham Maslow helps explain this matter. He has said that there is a hierarchy
of seven needs in the human psyche. The lowest two are Psychological and Safety
needs, the higher five are Belongingness, Esteem, Cognitive, Aesthetic and Self-
Actualization needs. The first two needs—Psychological and Safety—require
consumption. We cannot survive without consumption. Therefore, the freedom
of consumption is a positive step insofar as it is used as a first step towards rising
from the two lower needs. However, in practice this freedom has been used for
ever increasing consumption without rising to higher needs.

Brian Morros of Brunel University London says that we are tired of freedom.
Brian Morros| Brunel University| London| Consumption
Brian Morros of Brunel University, London says: “We become tired out by choice
and are robbed of living our lives the way they should be. It takes great willpower
to move up Maslow's hierarchy of needs towards the self-actualizing stages which
consider other peoples.”
This is very significant statement. It is saying that while consumption is good,
excessive consumption becomes a trap. We keep on choosing between different
dishes in the restaurant and never get down to eating. More importantly, it says
that it is difficult to rise from the lower- to higher levels—especially to the highest
self-actualizing level which considers other peoples. In the result, the Western
Civilization has got trapped into meaningless consumption.

Carl Jung suggested that we must connect with our own unconscious.
Carl Jung| Collective Consciousness| Unconscious| Dreams
Psychologist Carl Jung has explained this in slightly different manner. He says that
each individual has his own unconscious. The individual unconscious--as
manifested in dreams--contains collective images which are manifestation of the
Collective Unconscious. That is, my unconscious, your unconscious and
unconscious of the million of the others are all interconnected like a world wide
web. Further, Jung says, this Collective Unconscious becomes an independent
entity. So, Carl Jung can be understood as suggesting that the way to overcome
this unending consumption is for human being to connect with their unconscious
which, in turn, is connected with the Collective Unconscious. Then the
consumption we undertake will be in tune with the unconscious. A person whose
unconscious desire is to play music will not run after a luxury car; and a person
who is interested in sports will not run after tourism. The Western Civilization has
got trapped, the consumption that was a first step to rising to higher stages has
become an unending cycle of evermore consumption and has become an
obstruction to rising to higher stages. In the process, we stand against other

human beings because our consumption deprives others of their consumption.
This is the primary critique of the Western Civilization by Islam.
Sayyid Mujtaba Musavi Lari says “Science imposes an order on life which
provides affluence but not happiness.”
Sayyid Mujtaba Musavi Lari| Shia| Islam| True Worship
Sayyid Mujtaba Musavi Lari, a Shia Islamic Scholar, says, “Science imposes an
order on life which provide affluence but not happiness, since happiness is
outside its competence. True worship frees a man from the bondage of fleshy
lusts, and draws him into God's presence and to spiritual joys.” This is exactly
what Brian Morros and Carl Jung are saying: Please desist from this unending
consumption; connect with your unconscious; connect with other human beings
and move up to the stage of self-actualization.

Sociologist Emile Durkheim says human beings have collective consciousness.
Sociologist| Emile Durkheim| Collective Ideas
Now let us look at the Western critique of Islam. Sociologist Emile Durkheim says:
“The society is collective ideas, beliefs and sentiments that is produced from the
fusion of individual conscious. This ‘Collective Consciousness’ is unique.” Just as
water is a wholly new entity even though it is a combination of hydrogen and
oxygen atoms, so also the collective consciousness is greater than the sum of the
individual consciousness, he says.
Durkheim is saying that human beings have a collective consciousness just like the
students in a classroom a collective consciousness. The students, when they
interact with the teacher, are interacting both collectively as well as individually.
Durkheim is saying that this collective consciousness is at the conscious level
while Jung was talking about the collective consciousness at the unconscious
level.

Ayat 17:60| Ayat 2:39| Ayat 2:161| Quran| Muhammad| Encompass the People
In this context we could think of Allah as a name of our “collective
consciousness.” Let us look at some of the Ayats of Quran in this context. Ayat
17.60 says, “And [remember, O Muhammad], when we told you, Indeed, your
Lord has encompassed the people.” The phrase “encompassed the people” is very
significant. It means that the Lord or Allah has covered, has included, or has
subsumed all the people. There is no distinction here between the people of
some area, time, race or religion.
Next, Ayat 2.39 says, “And those who disbelieve and deny Our signs - those will be
companions of the Fire; they will abide therein eternally.” We could understand
this Ayat as saying that “those who disbelieve in the (unity of all humankind) and
deny those signs - those will be companions of Fire.”
Ayat 2.161 says, “Those who reject Faith, and die rejecting - on them is Allah´s
curse, and the curse of angels, and of all mankind.” We can understand this as,
“Those who reject faith (in the unity of humankind), and die rejecting (that unity)
- on them is the curse of the curse of angels, and of all humankind.”
In this way, the ideology of the French Revolution and the Religion of Islam are
parallel. Both are saying that there is a collective humanity and those who oppose
this collective humanity are contemptible.
The problem starts when this collective humanity is limited to those who believe
in Islam. This can be explained by considering two interpretations of Ayat 5.33:
“Indeed, the penalty for those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger
and strive upon earth [to cause] corruption is none but that they be killed or
crucified.”
This Ayat was revealed when some persons came to the Prophet suffering from
bad health. The Prophet gave them some camels and also a shepherd to take care
of the camels. Those persons went away with the camels. They drank the milk of
the camel and became well in some time. Then they killed the shepherd and took
the camel and wanted to run away. But the prophet came to know of this. These
persons were brought back. At that point, this Ayat was revealed. It said: “those

who wage war against Allah and his Messenger should be killed or crucified.” But
this statement is specific to the civil law at that time. If a person killed the
shepherd and took away the camel--perhaps at that time this punishment could
be given. This punishment has to be revisited in the present context.
Maulana Maududi says to wage war against Allah and His Messenger is to wage
war against Islamic State.
Tafsir| Maulana Maududi| Allah| Messenger| Islamic State
Further, this Ayat is understood differently by certain Islamic scholars—and thus
starts the problem. Writer of Tafsirs, Maulana Maududi says that in this Ayat,
‘strive upon earth” refers to that country or territory in which the maintenance of
law and order is the responsibility of the Islamic State; and ‘to wage war against
Allah and His Messenger’ is to wage war against the righteous system of
government established by the Islamic State. In this way, the Ayat is transformed.
It is one thing to say that those who acts again the collective consciousness of
mankind, should be punished. It is an altogether different thing to say that those
who act against the Islamic state should be punished. An Ayat that was of
universal application, was first interpreted in the specific political context of some

persons killing a shepherd; now second, it is further interpreted to apply to all
those who act against the Islamic State. This means that Allah’s writ the Collective
Consciousness of mankind has been restricted to those who believe in the
Prophet. Those who believe in the Supreme Being, like the French people, are
excluded from the writ of Allah. This is the fundamental problem that a West is
facing with Islam and that Islam needs to reconsider.
West| Islam| Supreme Being| Humanity| Prophet
The Western Ideology and the Islamic Religion are saying same thing. The West
recognizes the Supreme Being and it talks about the humanity. Islam, of course,
recognizes the Supreme Being as Allah and says that His writ encompasses all the
people. It is, therefore, very unfortunate that two ideologies that are so parallel
to each other are yet in conflict with each other. The reason is that the West has
gone astray in using the freedom of the individual to increase unending
consumption and denied the Collective Consciousness. Islam, on the other hand,
has gone astray restricting the writ of the Supreme Being or Allah to those who
believe in the Prophet and follow the Islamic State. Those who believe in same
Supreme Being but not in the Prophet nor follow the Islamic State are excluded
from the ranks of believers. Both West and Islam need to reform themselves. The
West has to give up unending consumerism and encouraged peoples to link to
their unconscious and to the Collective Consciousness. Islam has to expand the
writ of Allah or the Supreme Being to include all believers in Collective Humanity
and treat them as believers. The two ideologies coalesce into one in this way and
this conflict can be resolved.