God, Delusion, and the Modern Mind: An Islamic View on Western Confusion
1. Introduction
In the contemporary discourse between religious and secular worldviews, the concept of God is more than a metaphysical question. It is a battleground for understanding reality itself. The Islamic conception of Allah represents an all-encompassing, indivisible unity that stands in stark contrast to the fragmented, often dualistic understanding of God common in Western secular and atheist thought. This essay explores these contrasts, considering how they shape views on morality, free will, technological progress, and human destiny.
2. Allah: The All-Encompassing Unity
In Islamic theology, Allah is not a separate deity in the sky or a being among beings. Rather, Allah is the source and sustainer of all existence, referred to in the Qur’an as al-Haqq (the Real or the Truth). The term “Allah” derives from al- (the) and ilāh (god), denoting “The God”, singular, absolute, and beyond comparison.
The Qur’an states:
“He is the First and the Last, the Outer and the Inner; and He is, of all things, Knowing.”
— (Qur’an 57:3)
This reveals the core Islamic understanding: there is no ‘outside’ to Allah. All things are within the domain of the divine. Unlike many Western theological constructs where God is external, judgmental, or optional, Islam posits an ontological monism. Everything is a manifestation of divine will.
3. The Western Concept of God: Abstraction and Alienation
In contrast, many Western secular minds treat “God” as an abstract idea, often equated with a rejected myth or a symbol of authoritarian control. Even within Western theism, particularly in post-Enlightenment Protestant traditions, God is often understood as a transcendent, distant creator, akin to a cosmic watchmaker.
Nietzsche’s famous declaration “God is dead” did not simply signify atheism but described a civilisation that had lost its grounding in the eternal, replacing it with materialism, relativism, and human-centric ideologies (Nietzsche, The Gay Science).
This shift towards human sovereignty and the rejection of metaphysical order has deeply shaped Western values, especially the celebration of radical individualism, moral subjectivity, and technological mastery over nature.
4. Free Will, Submission, and the Satanic Refusal
Islam values free will, but not in the Western sense of freedom as radical autonomy. In Islam, freedom is the ability to choose submission to the divine order, to live in harmony with reality.
Satan (Iblis) in Islamic cosmology is not the rival of God, but a symbol of willful disobedience. He refuses to bow before Adam and asserts his own judgment over God’s command. This archetype represents the ego rejecting unity; the “I” severed from the All.
The Qur’an frames this choice clearly:
“Indeed, those who disbelieve and avert [others] from the way of Allah have certainly gone far astray.”
— (Qur’an 4:167)
To reject Allah is not just theological dissent—it is to deny reality itself, to live in delusion. This makes sense only if one accepts the Islamic premise that God is not part of existence but is existence itself.
5. Delusion, Indoctrination, and the Hypocrisy of Modernity
From the Islamic perspective, modern Western civilization is not “free-thinking” but rather immersed in another kind of belief system. One that disguises itself as neutral or scientific. The secular West often condemns religious violence or moral absolutism, yet it frequently enacts its own forms of violence and coercion, cloaked in ideologies of freedom, democracy, or economic necessity.
Schools and media do not offer “objective knowledge,” but perpetuate narratives in service of state and capital. As Noam Chomsky observed in Manufacturing Consent, mass media in liberal democracies serves elite agendas just as effectively as propaganda in authoritarian regimes.
Thus, Westerners often accuse others of being “inhumane” or “barbaric,” while failing to examine their own technological warfare, social atomization, and ecological destruction. From an Islamic standpoint, this hypocrisy is not just moral but metaphysical. It stems from a refusal to see the Whole.
6. Technology as Distraction and Defilement
In Islam, knowledge (‘ilm) is sacred only when it draws one closer to truth, order, and justice. Technology, when divorced from spiritual responsibility, becomes a form of delusion, an idol. The Qur’an warns against serving created things:
“Have you seen the one who takes his own desire as his god?”
— (Qur’an 45:23)
Today’s AI systems, global surveillance, and virtual realities promise progress but often detach us from embodied presence, spiritual meaning, and human empathy. Echoing Heidegger’s warning in The Question Concerning Technology, modern tools do not just serve purposes. They reshape human thinking, making us view everything (including ourselves) as resources.
In this way, the machine becomes a false god, offering omniscience, control, and salvation yet leading to anxiety, addiction, and alienation. From a Qur’anic lens, such systems may be seen as satanic in essence: they deceive, pollute, and distract from the Real.
7. Sectarianism and the Divine Design
Even within Islam, humans are not immune to fracture. Sunni, Shia, and Sufi traditions diverge on how best to interpret and enact the Prophet’s message. These divisions have sometimes erupted into violence. Yet the Qur’an suggests even this is part of divine will:
“And if your Lord had willed, He could have made mankind one community; but they will not cease to differ.”
— (Qur’an 11:118)
The challenge is to seek truth without arrogance, to hold conviction without cruelty. Islam demands not just submission to God, but a rejection of the ego’s desire to dominate truth itself. This humility is absent from much of modernity, religious and secular alike.
8. Conclusion: Order or Chaos, Truth or Delusion
We are left with two paths:
1. The way of God: to recognize the divine in all things, accept our place within the Whole, and submit to a higher truth.
2. The way of chaos: to elevate the self, deny metaphysical order, and drift in delusion—dressed up as freedom, progress, or self-expression.
Islam insists that this is not just a moral choice but an ontological one. To believe in God is to believe in Reality. To deny God is to enter into unreality, even if accompanied by science, wealth, or rights.
This tension between submission and rebellion, unity and fragmentation, defines our age. And Islam, perhaps more than any other tradition, confronts this cosmic choice not as theory, but as the most urgent question of existence.
Index of Sources (by Title and Author)
• The Qur’an, translated by M.A.S. Abdel Haleem
• The Gay Science – Friedrich Nietzsche
• The Question Concerning Technology – Martin Heidegger
• Manufacturing Consent – Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman
• Islam and the Destiny of Man – Charles Le Gai Eaton
• The Vision of Islam – Sachiko Murata and William Chittick
• God: A Biography – Jack Miles
• The Idea of the Holy – Rudolf Otto
• The Crisis of the Modern World – René Guénon
• Islam and the Problem of Black Suffering – Sherman A. Jackson
No comments:
Post a Comment