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There is a question that has plagued the western philosophical tradition for millennia: “Why am I here?” Alhamdulillah, Islam grants us absolute certainty with the answer to this existential question, which deals with our present state and what is required of us. Allah Ta’ala says:
وَ اِذْ قَالَ رَبُّكَ لِلْمَلٰٓىِٕكَةِ اِنِّیْ جَاعِلٌ فِی الْاَرْضِ خَلِیْفَةً ؕ
“And (recall O beloved), when your lord said to the angels, ‘I am about to appoint my vicegerent on the earth.’”
{Holy Qurān 2:30}
This verse reveals that we have been created to be the Khalīfa (vicegerent) of Allah Ta’ala on earth. Essentially, being the Khalifa of Allah Ta’ala on earth, entails a key principle: allocating things to their correct place. This principle is known in Deen as Justice, as the great Imam Ghazali (Alaihir Rahmah) states:
المحمود المطلق هو العدل ووضع الأمر مواضئها
“The absolute praiseworthy [characteristic] is Adl (justice), allocating things to their correct places.” {Ihya-ul-Uloom, Vol. 3}
The opposite will be Zulm (injustice), placing a thing in other than its rightful place. Allah Ta’ala created everything with a purpose. When something is in its rightful place it fulfills its purpose without conflict, which is called Harmony.
Harmony is a sense of agreement and balance. It is intellectual coherence, internal contentment and social law and order. If you walk into a room where everything is disorganized, clothing scattered, furniture out of place, dirty dishes piled up in the sink, you will have a natural aversion to it. However, if you find a room well organized with everything in its place you feel tranquil and at ease. When humans experience this sort of harmony visually and the sense of tranquility it conveys, it is called beauty.
So how do we know what is the best place for a thing, for us to achieve justice and harmony? We have limited knowledge to judge what is best, so we submit this judgement to the one with eternal knowledge, Allah Ta’ala. What he revealed to us to be the best place for it, we establish its affairs in accordance with that.
The concept of justice applies to every level of man’s existence. On an individual level, the correct place for his body at the time of prayer is in worship. If not, he has done injustice to himself and he finds discord in his spirituality. If he does not allocate 2.5% of his wealth to the poor, he does injustice against his wealth and those in need, and contributes to public dissent. This principle applies to everything, even to the most seemingly mundane of issues, like keeping one’s belongings in an orderly manner.
From this we see that the purpose of man is to use his authority on earth to establish justice, correct disorder and chaos, and achieve harmony and order, the scope of which depends on his role in society. For the common man, this applies to himself and his household, whilst for the leader of a nation it applies to himself and the affairs of his people. Fulfilling this requires obeying the commands and prohibitions of Allah Ta’ala as expressed in the Qurān and Sunnah, which contain rulings on every aspect of man’s existence – business, warfare, spirituality, marriage etc. Therefore, man is not lost in his ability to fulfill his role, as the commands and prohibitions of Allah Ta’ala are clear. The outcome of this is justice and harmony in every sphere of man’s existence.
To illustrate how Islam results in greater harmony, we turn to the best example, Sayyiduna Rasoolullah (Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam). He was born into the most chaotic of environments. Pre-Islamic Arabia was barbaric and lawless. Constant feuds between rival tribes, burying daughters alive and worshipping idols. Unity was absent both theologically and socially. Rasoolullah (Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam), through all the chaos, recognized and preached that there is only one God, the cause of all that exists. This demonstrates that the first objective of man as Khalīfa on earth is to recognize Allah Ta’ala through the disorder of this material world. This is doing justice to the gift of the intellect by using the mind correctly – placing it in its correct place. The mind is ultimately a tool for recognizing Allah Ta’ala. Through this, man finds intellectual harmony because his beliefs are coherent and not contradictory, as Allah Ta’ala states:
اَفَلَا یَتَدَبَّرُوْنَ الْقُرْاٰنَ ؕ وَ لَوْ كَانَ مِنْ عِنْدِ غَیْرِ اللّٰهِ لَوَجَدُوْا فِیْهِ اخْتِلَافًا كَثِیْرًا
“So, do they not ponder over the Qurān? And if it had been from anyone besides Allah, they would certainly have found much contradiction in it.”
{Holy Qurān 4:82}
The teachings of the Qurān and Hadīth led to reform in the Arabian Peninsula; from worshipping multiple idols to worshipping one God, from anarchy to lawfulness, from being the most barbaric nation to the most civilised and humane nation, from having disunity to becoming a united force that rivalled the superpowers of the time. This is the transformative power of Islam, when man truly fulfills his role as a vicegerent and achieves justice and harmony.
May Allah Ta’ala enable us to be just in our actions, make us of those in harmony with His decree, and beautify us with Imān.
آمین بِجَاہِ سَیِّدِ الْمُرْسَلِیْن ﷺ