Psychology and the Ummatic Paradigm

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Islam demands the existence of a Muslim community or ummah on earth. Allah said: ‘A‘nd there may spring from you a community (ummah) who invite to goodness, and enjoin good conduct and forbid indecency. Such are they who are successful (Quran 3:104).

The Muslim community represents a system of social relations meant, among other aims, to maximize the enjoyment of the goods on earth within the divine plan.

……. It is a system meant to facilitate the flowering of spiritual aspiration while at the same time representing an ordered way in exercising the “Amanah” regarding life, intelligence, power, and property.

In effect, the emergence of the ummah is to actualize or make operative the trust or amanah desired by Allah. It can thus clearly be seen that Islam is a religion that does not define relations merely between Allah and mankind but also between individuals and society as well as those between mankind and the resources of this world. Regarding this last detail on earth’s resources, Allah said: “See ye not how Allah hath made serviceable unto you whatsoever is in the skies and whatsoever is in the earth and hath loaded you with His favors both without and within?” (Qur’a'n 31:20.) ……..

Accordingly Islam demands that the material cares of men must not be at all neglected but should be a matter of concern, provided that one holds fast to the fundamental guidelines. Islam demands the development and search for knowledge in accordance with the prescribed prayer: “My Lord! Increase my knowledge” (Qur’an‘ 20: 114). Knowledge here includes the kind of knowledge that comes about in the study of the different manifestations of nature -—veritable revelations of Allah.

Besides the development of the intellect, a virtuous and moral life is enjoined. Then and only then can the desired ummah be realized. Allah said: “Ye are the best ummah that hath been raised up for mankind. ye enjoin right conduct and forbid indecency; and ye believe in Allah” (Qur’a'n 3:110). …….

But the fact that a community as a witness to it implies that Islam has a social function. In other words,it is not confined solely to the definition of the relations between the individual as such and his Lord and Creator.

It prescribes a strong, healthy, and well-organized social life. This has been one of the aims of the Shariah. Another function is to sustain the intellectual life of the Muslim community, without which the whole community ill disintegrate. As Allah says:

“If a ,taifah (community) From every expedition remained behind They could devote themselves To studies of religion and admonish the People when they return to them That thus they (may learn) to guard Themselves (against evil) [Qur’an‘ 9:22].

The above verse demands that a community (taifah) within the Muslim ummah has to confine itself to the study of religion to sustain the life of the community. In other-words, a community within the ummah has to pursue knowledge for the whole ummah to survive.

… This taifah of knowledgeable members of the ummah form a scientific community within the ummah. This scientific community is not meant to imply a group of scientists working in the same physical location, but rather is an intellectual community.

The members of this early scientific community, mentioned in the above verse, share a common language, values, assumptions, goals, norms, and beliefs due to their membership in the ummah. ……….

The history of the early development of science in the Muslim' world shows that a scientist mastered all the branches of knowledge existing in his lifetime. The history and development of revealed knowledge in the early history of Islam showed the existence of a group of scholars, especially among the companions, who learned and recited the Quran and Sunnah.

……….. Those were the pioneers, such as Muadh ibn Jabal (RAA), who spread Islam to newly discovered territory. Therefore anything pertaining to Muslims affairs in those early days was always referred to those groups (taifah) of companions who had mastered the Quran and Sunnah and especially to those knowledgeable in “Ibadat”, family, economics, education, and so on. In the first few centuries of Islam, however, on account of political changes as well as the emergence of new social situations, the Muslim community was led to produce various schools of jurisprudence (madhahib). ……..

In effect, these schools, at least in the minds and interpretations of their founders and immediate disciplines, represented an effort to maintain a well-ordered Muslim' society, which while adhering closely to the imperatives of revelation could, at the same time, con- front the exigencies of the times as brought about by new economic, social, and other forces.

……… During the historical development of Islam, these schools, by means of certain jurisprudential techniques such as Izma, qiyas, istihsan, and istilah, succeeded in generating certain social structures and cultural institutions, many of which have persisted to the present. ……..

The schools in jurisprudence are the clear evidence of the existence of ,taifah (community) within the Muslim ummah dealing with paradigmatic epistemology concerning certain aspects of Shariah, that is, jurisprudence. ……...

Having described the development of one of the sciences in Islam dealing with revelation, namely, jurisprudence, in terms of paradigmatic epistemology. We have to proceed to understand the psychology that could be perceived from a paradigmatic point of view. Psychology is to understood by education as one of the sciences categorized as human sciences, which in turn are a branch of the acquired sciences as contrasted with the revealed science. We can proceed further to elaborate how scientific progress will occur through psychological community.