THE SPIRITUAL SIGNIFICANCE OF JIHAD IN ECONOMICS

Abstract

To the question of what are the foremost things a man should do, situated as he is in this world of enigmas and fluctuations, the reply must be made that there are four things to be done or four jewels never to be lost sight of: first, he should accept the Truth; second, bear it continually in mind; third, avoid whatever is contrary to Truth and the permanent consciousness of Truth; and fourth, accomplish whatever is in conformity therewith. All religion and all wisdom is reducible, extrinsically and from the human standpoint, to these four laws: enshrined in every tradition is to be observed an Immutable Truth, then a law of “attachment to the Real,” of “remembrance” or “love” of God, and finally prohibitions and injunctions. The ultimate motivating cause for homo Islamicus is not happiness or “utility,” but the Truth. For although happiness accompanies confomity to the Truth, it is an effect rather than a motivating cause. As Frithjof Schuon states, “our willing is not insphd by our desires alone, fundamentally it is inspired by the truth, and this is independent of our immediate interests.”* Islamic economics recognizes the need for homo Islamicus to conform to the Truth that God is the Absolute and that all that is relative is attached to the Absolute by integrating all of life around a Sacred Center. Accordingly, this realizes the meaning of the funda- mental witnesses (shahadatayn)-‘’There is no divinity but Allah” and “Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah ...