The webinar on “Components and Characteristics of New Islamic Civilization” with a speech by Dr. Habibullah Babaei was held.
According to the public relations department of Baqir al-Olum University, in this webinar which was organized by the International Affairs and Non-Iranian Students department of Baqir al-Olum University in cooperation with Islamic Culture and Communication Organization, Dr. Habibullah Babaei gave a lecture with regard to “Components and Characteristics of New Islamic Civilization” in English.
At the end, some questions were raised by the participants and Dr. Habibullah Babaei answered them.
You can study the most important parts of the lecture in the following:
I believe that for considering components of an Islamic civilization we need to think about Muslim civilization differences or what is differentiating between Muslim civilization from western and non-Muslim civilization. It is very important to think not only about common points and common components, but also very essential and decisive to extract exactly what is the unique aspect of Islamic civilization in contemporary world.
The first point is about the relationship between Islam and iman (faith) or the rational relationship between external aspect of Islam on one hand and internal aspect of Islam on the other hand. It is very important how we want to consider these two sides of Islam. When I talk about iman and faith, I mean internal aspect of Islam, and when I talk about Islam, I mean external behavior of Muslims, and what we practice over every day life in Muslim community that is related to my Islamic identity and not my imani and faith identity. So I think focusing and concentrating on one of them could be sometimes misunderstandable and sometimes dangerous for mankind and formulation of Islamic civilization and how I think concentrating on Islam itself and without thinking about iman.
Not differentiating between these two dimensions may lead to hypocrisy and takfir among Islamic ummah and this is a very important point because takfir is one of the main obstacle towards Islamic civilization. We need to avoid hypocrisy which is a sign or result of takfir. We need a faith training system and this system is a tool which can help us avoid hypocrisy in Islamic ummah. There’s a very important point here that civilization should not be defined as a relationship between human and the nature. Rather, it’s a relationship between an individual and another one and in this concept we can understand Islamic civilization.
If we refer to the holy Quran there are different concepts and words which is related to our discussion but the most equivalent word and the concept in the holy Quran referring to the civilization is the word ummah.
Another significant point mentioned in Quran regarding to the topic is the relationship between faith and Omran. To be civilized we need to be faithful. The more we get stronger in faith, the more we can find ethics, civilization and humanity among people.
Shahid Motahhari, one of the prominent scholars of shia, distinguished between two egos of human. Every person has two egos inside, a virtual one and a real one. We should control the first and develop and the second to advance.
In normal societies, there are legal order and ethical order which are common among Islamic and non-Islamic or secular societies which are based on ethical system as well as legal system. However, we can talk about a new order called “spiritual order”. So even in secular societies you can find ethical order and also legal order but this new concept which is spiritual order is different which can only be found in an Islamic society.
A muslim prays every day and attemps to establish a relationship with God. There’s a spiritual relationship between every individual and God, and a common element is formed among all the people who is God. Accordingly, all the people can establish connection to one common source and this communality and similarity can be considered as an item to unify all of them to establish spiritual order.
For instance, during Arbaeen when a vast number of people from different tribes, genders, nationalities gather together in a same place, and all of them consider themselves as pilgrims of Hossein and because there’s a common concept among all of them, it doesn’t matter from which community, nationality or gender they are. Because the common concept which is imam Hossein (AS) unify all of them.