Your creation and your raising are but as those of single self
(31:28).
The Qur'an speaks of Ka'bah, the centre of the Muslim world, as
"an establishment for the entire mankind" (5:97). It holds that the
wellbeing of the individual depends on the well-being of the society.
Muslims are enjoined to work not for the well-being of the Muslim
community but for that of all mankind. The Qur'an leaves no doubt
on this point, and Prof. Whitehead is in full agreement with it when
he says that:
The perfection of life resides in aims beyond the individual person in
question.(2)
Mason says:
Man, in his individual capacity, self-develops his personality as he
satisfies his desires, and his self-conscious interpretations of his
subconscious knowledge of his origin in Pure Spirit may influence his
activities. But, racially, man ought to engage only in such activities as
tend to extend creative freedom to the utmost through the self-
creativeness of all personalities to their uttermost limits. Man may turn
from this second movement while holding to the first. Man, therefore,
may be moral individually and immoral racially. The highest
personalities unite the two moralities.(3)
The interdependence of man is the recurring theme of the
Qur'an. The Qur'anic programme for man has a twofold aim – the
furtherance of the best interests of the individual as well as of the
society. In working for the good of mankind, man achieves his own
good as well. This view has been held by some great thinkers in the
West also. We quote from Kant:
Act in such a way as to treat thyself and every other human being as of
equal intrinsic value; behave as a member of a society in which each
regards the good of the other as of equal value with his own, and is so
treated by the rest, in which each is both end and means, in which each
realises his own good in promoting that of others.(4)
The Qur'an goes a step further and declares that "the believers
prefer others to themselves although there is indigence among
them" (59:9). Julian Huxley, a great scientist who holds no brief for
religion, writes to the same effect:
I believe that the whole duty of man can be summed up in the words:
more life for your neighbour as for yourself. And I believe that man,
though not without perplexity, effort and pain, can fulfil this duty and
gradually achieve his destiny. A religion which takes this as its central
Islam: A Challenge to Religion 182