The Process of Islamization, Part 1

The aim of the Islamic movement is to bring about somewhere in the world a new society wholeheartedly committed to the teachings of Islam in their totality and striving to abide by those teachings in its government, political, economic and social organizations, its relation with other states, its educational system and moral values and all other aspects of its way of life.

Our organized and gradual effort which shall culminate in the realization of that society is the process of Islamization.

This naturally leads to the question: Is there an Islamic process of Islamization? In other words, does Islam only specify the aim to be reached and leave the method of achieving that aim to the intelligence of individuals or does it also specify the means by which that aim is to be reached?

The answer will become clear once we begin to see some of the major issues that are involved in this question.

How does certain social order come to be? The answer to this question has to depend, in the last analysis, one's view of the nature of reality. This is so because the achievement of certain social results depends on the correct performance of certain actions which, in turn, are based on the belief that there is a causal connection between these action and the desired result. The choice of these causal actions will depend on your conception of reality as a whole. A materialists who believes that there is ultimately nothing in the world except matter and its movement will not include in such actions anything like prayer, intentions or moral values. These are for him mere names which do not designate any reality and thus cannot in any way be effectual.

If the means of achieving an aim are thus connected with one's view of the world the process of Islamization must be related to the Islamic view of life. This is confirmed by the fact that Islam is both a message and a method. It is a body of facts which a believer should translate into reality, and it is a method by which this translation is to be effected. The principles of this method are outlined in the Qur'an, but they cannot be rightfully understood without the perspective of the sira of the Prophet which was a successful translation of these principles into action.

In what follows I shall give a brief but, I hope, comprehensive account of that method, starting from the basic conceptual issues and coming down to some practical details.