of life and is still going on. A system in which the weak and the
simple go to the wall while the unscrupulous have their own way,
cannot be expected to encourage the development of free and good
men.
The Communists seek to overthrow the Capitalist state and, in its
place, they want to set up a totalitarian order. The remedy is worse
than the disease. No doubt, in a Communist society every man is
assured of employment and his basic needs are provided for: but he
can hardly be said to be a free man in a free society. He has been
reduced to the status of a mere cog in a gigantic machine. He is the
member, or rather a part, of a highly regimented society. In action
and thought he must conform to the standard set up by party
leadership. He is not permitted to think, choose and judge for
himself. In the Rububiyyah society man sells his life to God. In the
Communist state he sells his mind to the state. He perceives,
remembers, imagines, thinks and believes only what the state wants
him to do. He sells his individuality – his self-to the state. He is no
longer an end in himself; he is merely the means to the objectives of
the state. In short, he is reduced to a status lower than that of a serf
or a slave; to the status of a mindless machine. How can the
development of a free self be possible in such a society? In the
Qur'anic society man is a volunteer; in the Communist state, a tool.
This is but the natural corollary of the philosophy of life on which
the Communistic order is based.
In the West, during the last decade the idea of a welfare state has
appealed to many thinking men. The welfare state, like the Qur'anic
society, is intended to provide for the basic needs of its citizens. Such
a state, however, still remains as an ideal, attainable perhaps but not
as yet realised. Even if it is set up, will its members have sufficient
incentive to work when they already have all they need? The
Qur'anic society, like the ideal welfare state, seeks to place man
above care and want, but unlike the welfare state, it does not weaken
but rather stimulates the incentive to work. It inculcates in man that
the only ideal worthy of him is the full development of all his latent
powers and that he can realise this ideal only through the
disinterested service of mankind. He has to give and not to take. He
must work, not for himself but for others. He is fired with the
ambition to work hard for the enrichment of the life of all men,
because it is only in this way that he can realise himself. This urge is so great
The Rububiyyah Order 198