Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
I seek refuge from the evil inclinations of the cursed devil, i begin in the name of God, the most gracious, the most Merciful
And all praise is due to God and may the peace and blessings of God be upon his final messenger Muhammad and upon his immaculate, clean and oppressed family and righteous companions
Brothers and sisters, i begin this video by sending you my peace and blessings
Today ill be making a short video, ill be offering my own personal summary
of the well known and respected book called "our philosophy"
In arabic its called "falsufatuna" and ill be reading off my laptop over here because most of my notes are on it so ill be referring to it during the entire video
So today we'll be reviewing this book as i said and we will be going chapter by chapter so today is an intro to the first chapter
The author of this book is known as Ayatollah al shaheed sayed Muhammad Baqr Al Sadr
This man is widely regarded within both the sunni and Shiite schools of thought as an original thinker, an extremely formidable theologian, philosopher
philosopher and political activist. He was born in the Iraqi city of al kazimiyah in 1935
His lineage goes back to the prophet (saw) through the prophets great great grandson imam musa al kathim (as).
). Imam al sadr was subsequently martyred under the tyrannic hands of then Iraqi president saddam Hussein in 1980, he died aged 45
In those 45 years of his existence, he managed to produce and publish over 6 jurisprudential books, 3 books on the fundamentals of law, 3 books on Islamic economics
3 books on theology, 3 on quranic tafsir, books in philosophy, logic, 2 history books, 5 books on Islamic culture and over 30 articles
He is also the teacher of well known and respected scholars including ayatollah sayed Muhammad Hussein fadllah, sayed abbas al musawi and sayed mohammed baqr al hakim
The book "our philosophy" is a general critique of materialistic philosophy and
thus opens with an introduction to the social issue that continues to plague modern society
The author begins by examining and critiquing the social schools of thought including socialism, communism and capitalistic democracy
Then the author makes the case for the Islamic system and lays down his arguments as to why the Islamic system is the best solution out of the other competing social schools of thought
So lets have a look at chapter one. Before we do so, I should like to say that in no way is this brief summary a substitute for the real book
So, This would be a great injustice on my part to say this is a substitute for the real book like i said
my main aim in this presentation is to entice the viewers into looking up this
great book and contemplate purchasing it or if you already have it then to begin reading
it because there are many a things I have left out which are tremendously important
but due to time restrains must be cut down to digestible morsels.
The author begins by critiquing the capitalistic democratic system as one that places tremendous
importance on the individual's personal interests. More over, we see that capitalistic democracies
are essentially materialistic in the sense that they are devoid of any articulate worldview
or ideology. By claiming that their system emphasises the interests and safety, liberties
and freedom of the individual is by default securing the interests of select individuals
within society at the cost of the vast majority of society. This line of reasoning is almost
found indubitably within all first year economics textbooks that argue the assumption that since
all individuals within society are seeking their own self interests, this leads to the
automatic fulfilment of the interests of society, however upon careful thinking this could not
be further from the truth. You see, when you adopt an outlook on life
in which materialism dominates and any transcendent form of philosophy is neglected, shunned and
marginalised from vocality, moral values and duties are suppressed and annihilated leading
to deep social problems. Why? Simple. Because the rights, liberties, freedom and interests
of those less fortunate, those who are the minority are neglected. The capitalist might
offer a retort and say "everybody in society has the same access to the same freedoms and
opportunities available and it is up to the individual to make or break himself". In order
words, it is not their problem what happens to everybody else so long as they are doing
ok. Due to enormous economic resources at their disposal, control of mass media, government
bodies, legislation and judiciaries becomes possible. Foreign markets and their factors
of production and resources are not spared nor are they secure from hostile takeovers,
exploitation and ownership. We see that there is a strong link between imperialism and capitalistic
democracies. Now, there is a school of thought led by the
Marxists, obviously founded by karl marx and friedrich engels called dialectical materialism
which is a method of understanding economics and history based on the notion that the basis
of reality of constantly changing due to the conflict between dialectical opposites arising
from internal contradictions inherent in ideas, events and movements.
Here Marxism sees that all the evils of capitalism are down to the ownership of private property
and means of productions. If this concept of private ownership is removed and property
becomes the sole ownership of the state, meaning it becomes public, then this self interest
that people seek to maximise in capitalistic democracies will die and possessions and control
will pass from the individual to the community. Now, this remedy sounds good? Does it not?
Although communism did solve many a problems of the capitalistic system, it did so at the
cost of immense human suffering, so we see that the remedy was transitory and temporary.
The socialist system brought along with it tyrannic dictatorships, deprival of individual
freedoms, stifling of basic human emotions, constant fear of imprisonment, torture, executions,
loss of motivation and economic vigiour, debasement of basic human values and so on.
In the view and opinion of ayatollah sayed al shaheed mohammed baqr al sadr, the problem
unlike communism, does not lie in private ownership, however it lies in something more
profound and that is in the neglect of mans spiritual dimension. Self seeking, self interest
is inherent in mans nature, this is not a product of private ownership as marxism assumed.
Private ownership is a product of mans nature. Therefore, communism and socialism mainly
substituted the handful of capitalists with a handful of party officials and bureaucrats.
Therefore we see that both these systems fail to produce solutions capable of solving the
problems of human society, one rooted in a dangerous and unequal materialistic world
view and the other unable to satisfactorily understand mans nature.
What is the Islamic solution offered by the author? The communists abandon mans self interested
seeking character while keeping a materialistic world view whereas the Islamic systems as
envisaged by the author abandons the materialistic outlook yet selects a different metaphysical
criterion. In islam, private ownership is not abolished, however the systems gives a
new meaning to human existence. The Islamic system is essentially based on a transcendent
source of life and existence, belief in god. Therefore the highest values and criterion
of all human activities and pursuits should be done within this context of seeking gods
approval. No system can successfully claim it offers a solution to mans problems without
taking into account humanities innate nature. The key is establish a balance between the
two. Islam does this by harmonising mans self seeking nature by not abolishing private ownership
yet abolishes the materialistic tendency by making gods approval the ultimate end in itself
and human activities as the means. This is reinforced in the quran in chapter 99 verse
6-8 where god says that "upon that day when men shall see their works scattered and whom
so ever has done an atoms weight of good shall see it and whom so ever has done an atoms
weight of evil shall see it". Such a thing like this is not present in the materialistic
world view. Other systems face a trade off between sacrificing the good of society for
the individual or sacrificing the individual for society, whereas islam offers
a specific system for mans spiritual, moral and emotional potentialities by considering
both the welfare of man and the state.