LINK BETWEEN FASTING AND HUMAN
FREEDOM AND DIGNITY
The Qur'an states that the
divine compensation which is exacted for accidental homicide by a Muslim of a
Muslim includes "freeing of a believing slave" or, for those who find
this beyond their means, "fasting for two months continuously." (Qur'an 4:92)
Hence the freeing of slaves is invested with a special degree of spirituality in Islam since it is equivalent in status to prolonged fasting. Now this is an achievement of great significance indeed for it permits the process of the dismantling of the institution of slavery to proceed in a manner which ensures the full rehabilitation of the freed slaves.
The negative after-effects of
slavery and, in particular, the damage to the human personality, are still very
visible in the western hemisphere more than a century after the abolition of
slavery in western civilization. The descendants of freed slaves in the United States
of America are yet to be successfully integrated into American society. The
explanation of this pathetic situation lies in the fact that slavery was
abolished in response to basically economic compulsions. Humanitarianism
appears to a have played a minor role in the whole affair. No evidence exists of
any significant spiritual motivation in the dismantling of the institution of slavery.4
We wish to suggest that this is
the basic reason why western civilization has been able to live with, or at
least to tolerate western-imposed apartheid on the soil of the very continent
from which the West enriched itself by enslaving a free people. In other words,
apartheid is a manifestation of the spiritual bankruptcy of secular western
civilization.
In India, on the other hand,
the caste system imposes a very real form of slavery on millions of people in
that hapless country. It is of crucial importance to note that there is a form
of colour discrimination which is involved in the caste system. The
fair-skinned Aryan is never at the bottom of the social order. That is reserved
for the dark-skinned indigenous Indians. Although the caste system has been
denounced by many great Hindu spiritual and religious leaders and Hindu reform
movements, as well as being made illegal by the Indian constitution, it
continues to survive and to impose terrible sufferings on low caste and
caste-less Hindus to this day.
In Christianity as in Hinduism,
there appears to be a no basic linkage between fasting on the one hand, and the
recognition of human freedom and dignity on the other. And it is the consequent
inability to mobilize the spiritual consciousness and bring it to bear on such
social problems as caste in India, apartheid in South Africa, and the
integration of the descendants of freed slaves into American society which
explains the continued existence of these manifestations of social cancer.
Islam's basic achievement
really lies in the functional linkage it has established between fasting, on
the one hand, and charity, chastity and recognition of human freedom and
dignity, on the other. The one envelops the others in a spiritual embrace of profound
practical consequences.
1. Ibn Arabi - The Bezels of Wisdom,
translated by R. WJ.Austin, SPCK, London, 1980, pg. 274
2 Ibidp275
3 Answer to a question posed to
Dr. Ansari by the author.
4. See the excellent work ofDr.
Eric WIlliams 'Capitalism and Slavery'.
To Be Continued ....
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