Text of the publication

Sufi preacher Ali al-Jifri said: “Religion did not come merely to organise life; it came to create within us the capacity to organise life and develop the earth well, in accordance with the requirements of acting as God’s vicegerents.”

Comment

1. Among Islam’s merits is that it organises life, making it stable and marked by security, safety, justice, fairness, love and brotherhood. It contains many psychological and social benefits, through God’s grace and mercy, so that unbelievers and hypocrites may recognise the truth, perhaps be guided and worship God alone, while believers increase in certainty and faith and improve their worship and obedience. The matter thus returns to worshipping and glorifying God, the purpose of religion; everything else is a means to that end.

2. Means must not be placed on the level of ends and objectives. Developing the earth is a means; worshipping God is an end. A means is sought to the extent needed to achieve the end. Beyond that, it belongs to permissible matters carrying no obligation, let alone ultimate purposes. Indeed, expanding such pursuits may lead to envy, rivalry, hatred and then fighting, obstructing the end for which God created us. This bears out the Prophet’s words: “Rejoice and hope for what will please you. By God, it is not poverty that I fear for you. Rather, I fear that worldly abundance will be opened up to you as it was to those before you, that you will compete for it as they did, and that it will destroy you as it destroyed them.” Al-Bukhari (3158).

3. God did not appoint us as His deputies in developing the earth. This is a mistaken understanding of the verse, “I am placing a successor on earth” [al-Baqarah: 30]. God created the earth, the heavens and everything between them, and created us and our deeds. The correct meaning of the verse, as held by the majority of Qur’anic commentators, is that people succeed one another. It does not explain the purpose of Adam’s creation, but his condition and that of his descendants on earth as God willed it to be. God explained the purpose of his creation in His words: “I created jinn and human beings only to worship Me.” [al-Dhariyat: 56.]

4. Finally, it is remarkable that the person advancing this claim is one of the leading advocates of Sufism today, among those who permit seeking supernatural aid from others besides God, touching graves for blessing and constructing buildings over them, and who claim that saints can create! This is in addition to permitting dancing and jumping in what are called circles of remembrance, and other errors and superstitions. If religion may be said to have come to organise life, the Sufism advocated by al-Jifri is surely among the greatest corrupters of life, its order and its development. How could associating partners with God organise life when God says: “Had there been gods in them other than God, both would have fallen into ruin. Glory be to God, Lord of the Throne, above what they ascribe.” [al-Anbiya’: 22.]

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