Open AccessCivilisational Renewal Through Spiritual Revival
Author(s) -
Reza ShahKazemi
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
islam and civilisational renewal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2041-8728
pISSN - 2041-871X
DOI - 10.52282/icr.v4i4.443
Subject(s) - revelation , heaven , islam , civilization , philosophy , perfection , soul , character (mathematics) , faith , narrative , literature , theology , epistemology , aesthetics , religious studies , history , art , linguistics , geometry , mathematics , archaeology
Islamic civilisation is the diversified crystallisation of the essential values of the faith of Islam. These values can be summed up in two principles, one which is ‘vertical’ and Divine, the other ‘horizontal’ and human. The Qur’an is the vertical and Divine axis; the soul of the Prophet is the horizontal and human axis: it is at the point where the two intersect that there resides the immensely creative force capable of founding an authentic civilisation. All science, all art, all culture, all philosophy, all spirituality which can in any way be defined as ‘Islamic’ derives in the final analysis from this point of intersection between the human and the Divine, between earth and Heaven, between prophetic perfection and divine revelation. As regards the nature of the Islamic Revelation, there is not simply intersection between the two axes, but also profound complementarity between the divine Message and the human Messenger: on the one hand, the prophetic character (khuluq) was akin to the Qur’an, as his wife, A’isha, tells us in a famous narrative; and on the other, his character is described in the Qur’an itself as being ‘azim, “tremendous” (68:4)—an adjective used to describe both the Qur’an and God Himself.