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Until They Change What Is in Their Souls

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Until They Change What Is in Their Souls UNTIL THEY CHANGE WHAT IS IN THEIR SOULS A Study in Changing What Is in the Souls By: JAWDAT SAID Translated into English by: Dr. Abdullatif Al-Khaiat 1 Praise be to God. Peace be to God's servants, those chosen by Him. Accept our work, O God – for You are the All-Hearing, the All- Knowing. In the Name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful "Never will God change the conditions of a people until they change what is in their own souls;" (the Qur'an, 13:11). "God will never change the Grace which He has bestowed on a people until they change what is in their own souls;" (8:53). 2 Foreword by Translator In the Name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful. It is a blessing from God that He has enabled me to present in English another book by Jawdat Said who, I take to be, the foremost Muslim thinker of our time. That not enough of his work has been translated into English in more than half a century since he started writing is a shame – it is actually another proof of how little we Muslims know what avails us and forwards our cause. When I do my humble bit, I hope that God in His Bounty will reward me, and that Muslims – and non-Muslims, too – will give Said's work the attention it deserves. Abdullatif al-Khaiat 5 Dhu al-Qa'dah, 1440 A.H. 7 July, 2019 C.E. 3 PREFACE Praise be to God. Peace be to His servants whom He has chosen for His Message. I have often been asked after the first edition of this book [in 1972] came out the following question: Why should you mention the laws ("sunan" in the Qur'an) of change, without giving details of those sunan, and without detailing how change may come about? One good thing about this question is that it concedes there being laws of changing the content of the soul, or mind. Granting that this is an important step – I must declare that I am not sure with what depth the inquirers say it; nor am I sure how important a step the current book represents in causing the principle of the crucial 'sunan' to be accepted as a basis for bringing about change. So, it may be true that the main focus of this book is just to achieve this acceptance of there being laws: after all, one will not endeavor to attain something unless he/she admits that it could be attained. And when we take up the issue of change, in the sense of bringing about change, that involves several aspects: 1. Is change possible? If yes, does it come about according to laws, or 'sunan'? 2. How can we bring about change? Or how does change take place? 3. What to change? The first topic is a direct objective of discussion of the current book; the second is a necessary and evident consequence of the first; 4 and the third is only so by implication. It may be noted that there is no definite separation between the first and second topics – it is so since one will not concede the possibility of change until they can notice examples exhibiting that change is within humans' reach. If an individual does notice that change is taking place in life, without realizing any of the laws of change, nor how it comes to happen – it is possible in this case that the observer will end up believing in determinism – that things must undergo change of their own accord, without the human having any part in bringing about change. So, taking up the first question, we need to review the human experience to see change. People really never cease to speak about change: change in people’s financial ability, change in technology, the moral change across generations. All such changes are commonplace topics of conversation. And yet, it is not at all commonplace knowledge to be aware of this change being controlled by laws, and further, that the human being has a part in controlling those laws. To know this does not come without effort. Ibn Khaldun has been highly acclaimed for discovering and revealing that change in human history is subject to laws – he for instance spoke of the four generations that it takes for states to come into being, to rise, and then collapse. But Ibn Khaldun was unable to go from there to the ability of humans to have control over those laws. This step had to wait for the more advanced communities in the modern age. In writing this book, all my focus has been to point out that the task of changing what is inside the human soul, or the mind, is a human concern, that it is up to human beings to bring about such change. As the reader may notice from the title, I take a verse of the Qur’an concerned with change, and keep developing an interpretation of that verse. As for the second question: it is true that the details of how change may be achieved have not been the direct topic of this book. However, the reader can notice the examples in the chapter on the link between a human’s behavior and what is settled in his/her soul. This may be said to be the crux of our problem: how far we acquire the necessary knowledge, how actively we use our sensations, our vision and hearing, to acquire enough objective information about the causes 5 of events and changes. It is in other words how we observe God’s signs in the world around us and in our own selves – by getting acquainted with the deeper aspects of events, our attitudes are bound to change. No experience a human goes through, and no idea he/she learns, but brings about some change in their attitude. This means that no image our eyes see, and no piece of information that reaches our hearing, but will have its effect on changing our attitude, potentially or actually, and in a positive or negative direction. People can be more and more skillful in designing what signals are to reach their or others’ perception for the best outcome. As for the third question, it is similar to someone’s asking: “What shall I do with iron after I have mastered the iron industry?” A Muslim has always dreamed of bringing about change to the Muslim world. They know, or claim to know, the answer to the third question. Muslims do know what they wish to do, but are ignorant of how to do it. Our task is then to learn this skill, and hence the need for the reader to know more about these questions. Let us then get along our discussion. In the meantime, let us give praise to God, the Cherisher and Sustainer of the World. Jawdat Said 25 Shawwal, 1389 A.H. 27 September, 1978 C.E. 6 CONTENTS Foreword by Translator ………………………. 3 Preface ………………………………………… 4 Foreword by Malek Bennabi ………………….. 9 Introduction ……………………………………. 12 A Law That Applies to All Humans …………. 27 A Sunnah (Law) for Society not for Individuals …32 A Sunnah of This World Not of the Hereafter ….. 35 The Verse Mentions Two Types of Change: That of God and That of People …………………….. 36 The Two Changes Are Based on Inconvertible Order ……….……………………………….. 37 The Sphere of God's Change and the Sphere of People's Change ………………………………. 38 The Basic Change Is The People's ……………. 45 How to Understand 'Al-Fitrah' ………………… 48 People's Condition Reflects What Is in Their Minds ……………………………………………. 49 For Change to Take Place, Both Changes Are Necessary …………………………………….. 54 The Others' Idea of Change ……………………. 61 7 Psychology – Individual and Societal ………… 65 The Relationship Between A Human's Behavior and What is in His/Her Soul ………………….. 69 What Is in the Self Leads to Results Even When It Is False …………………………………...…… 76 What Is in the Soul Varies in Depth ……..……… 81 How to Ensure That Muslims Accept Laws …… 99 The Mind and the Sunan in the Qur'an ……….. 128 On Organization and Planning ……..…………. 135 Action and Reaction …………………………... 149 Method and Application ………………….…… 155 8 FOREWORD BY MALIK BENNABI For an observer of the affairs of the Muslim world, it will be clear that such reformation movements as took place since the age of Sheikh-ul-Islam Ibn Taimiyah (died: 1328 C.E.), or perhaps since the age of al-Ghazali (died: 1111 C.E.), until our own time, have not achieved more than some political changes – such as the establishment of al-Muwahhidin State (1146-1269 C.E.), within its borders in North Africa and al-Andalus. It at least had the merit of halting the disintegration process, which would eventually lead to the fall of Granada. As for the reformation movements of the medieval times, which rose on the basis of individual efforts, such as Ibn Taimiyah’s, their long-term effect was confined to the Muslim heritage: they compose the intellectual arsenal upon which the standard reformation movements have been drawing ever after, and up to the present day. Nor have the modern reformation movements proved to be more fortunate than their predecessors, both those who set out as an individual effort, such as the movement launched by Jamal-u-Ddin al-Afghani, or on the basis of organized, or semi-organized effort, such as the Salafi movement of Algeria prior to the Second World War. One explanation of the humble accomplishments of these reformation movements is that they rose in a society that, in the case of earlier attempts, there was nothing left to be reformed; and in the case of later and current movements, there is nothing yet ripe enough to be reformed.
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