This has resulted in social isolation, anxiety, breakdown of relationships, and a general sense of emptiness. So the question naturally arises: how does Islam resolve this ordeal? How does it conceptualize human society?

To begin, we turn to the Qur’an:

“O humanity! Indeed, We created you from a male and a female and made you into peoples and tribes so that you may know one another. Surely the most noble of you in the sight of Allah is the most righteous among you.” [1] 

Turning to prophetic wisdom, we are reminded of the hadith of the Prophet ﷺ:

“None of you truly believes until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself.” [2]

The question arises: how does piety and society connect ? My piece aims to give a fulfilling response.

The proposition this article advances is that, in order to truly be righteous, the Muslim must engage in society and assist and support his fellow human beings. To begin, we cite a sacred hadith qudsi:

“Allah Almighty will say on the Day of Resurrection: O son of Adam, I was sick but you did not visit Me. He will say: My Lord, how could I visit You when You are the Lord of the worlds? Allah will say: Did you not know that My servant was sick and you did not visit him? Had you visited him, you would have found Me with him.

O son of Adam, I asked you for food but you did not feed Me. He will say: My Lord, how could I feed You when You are the Lord of the worlds? Allah will say: Did you not know that My servant asked you for food and you did not feed him? Had you fed him, you would have found that with Me.

O son of Adam, I asked you for a drink but you did not give Me drink. He will say: My Lord, how could I give You drink when You are the Lord of the worlds? Allah will say: My servant asked you for a drink and you did not give it to him. Had you given it to him, you would have found that with Me.” [3]

God associates acts of mercy toward others with Himself, honoring such deeds beyond all others. The necessity and importance of social engagement can also be seen clearly in the very rituals of Islam. The five daily prayers are encouraged to be performed in congregation with one’s fellow believers. In the breaking of the fast, one is encouraged to help those who cannot afford iftar. Charity is prescribed to assist those in need within the community. The pilgrimage (hajj) itself is a powerful expression of communitarian equality, where people stand before God dressed in the same simple garments, regardless of tribe, wealth, or status.

These points are well known, and therefore we will not undertake a lengthy exposition of every report concerning the communal nature of Islamic ritual. Instead, we cite the following prophetic saying to bring our main proposition into focus and begin our discussion:

The Prophet ﷺ said:

“The Most Compassionate shows mercy to those who are merciful. Show mercy to those on the earth, and the One in heaven will show mercy to you.” [4]

Our main argument here is that a righteous life is unfulfilled without the rewarding aspects of socializing. For we say that to be of service to others is to be of service to oneself. The human being has stations of perfection, and this perfection is attained through embodying the attributes of perfection. Many of these attributes cannot be fulfilled except through service to others. In order to demonstrate this we shall turn to understanding how Islam proposes one to rid oneself of certain moral diseases:

The greatest disease that a man may have in the Islamic discourse is pride, as the hadith says:

“No one will enter Paradise who has even a mustard-seed’s weight of arrogance in his heart, and no one will enter Hell who has even a mustard-seed’s weight of faith in his heart.” [5]

Pride is the practice of assigning oneself a rank and then assigning one’s brother a rank, while making one’s own rank higher than that of his brother. This is the definition given by Abu Hamid al-Ghazali in his Ihya Ulum al-Din [6], and it is the one we shall use here.

In order to rid oneself of this disease, one must bring oneself to humility, which is achieved through the constant renunciation of pride in both knowledge and action. In knowledge, it is done by admonishing oneself about the fleeting nature of all of his attributes and recognizing them as gifts of God. In action, it is done by placing oneself in service of the creatures of God and regarding them as better than oneself, for guidance and wisdom lie in thinking lowly of oneself and bringing oneself to account.

As Umar ibn al-Khattab رضي الله عنه said:

“Hold yourselves accountable before you are held accountable and evaluate yourselves before you are evaluated.” [7]

In order to habitually become humble, one must perform acts of humility toward his fellow man — accepting error where it occurs, admitting when he has lost an argument, praising the one who corrects him, and being gentle even towards the one who is mistaken. Likewise, he must constantly help the people of God and not think himself above acts of piety and humility performed for his fellow brother. For indeed, until he ceases to believe himself above an act of humility done for his brother, he remains prideful.

The second step is to nurture these actions (reaffirmed by belief) habitually, until they become second nature and he no longer finds discomfort or dislike in them. For if he finds dislike in them, then in his heart he still believes himself above these acts. This transformation is not possible except through the performance of humble and praiseworthy acts within society.

Another disastrous trait is that of self-admiration. As the Prophet ﷺ said:

“Were you not to sin, I would fear for you what is even worse: self-admiration.” [8]

Self-admiration is essentially the belief that one has attained felicity and has become perfected in one or more of his attributes, thus ceases striving against himself (jihad al-nafs) in that matter or in his character as a whole.

The cure for this disease, like the cure for pride, lies in both knowledge and action. In knowledge, a person must recognize that every good trait he finds within himself is provided and sustained by Allah. He is not perfected in it except through the guidance that Allah grants him and the goodness that He has created within him. This goodness is not due to any deserving on his part, but rather through the pure generosity of God, for He gives to whom He wills and is not questioned regarding what He does. When this is truly understood, self-admiration becomes rationally impossible.

The perfection of this understanding, however, must be reinforced through action. One must renounce admiration of oneself by constantly doubting one’s own excellence in the very attributes he believes himself to possess. He should consider the creatures of God to be better than himself in those qualities and continually place himself in their service.

This is done by being with others in humility, by offering sincere advice to friends, walking behind them rather than before them, eating with the beggar, giving even to the miserly, visiting the sick, and maintaining ties with one’s relatives. It is done by showing kindness and mercy to one’s parents, one’s children, one’s spouse, and to fellow human beings. By constantly placing himself in their service, he may hope to rid himself of the disease of self-admiration. The reason these actions point to humility is that they come from the humility already present in the heart. Just as bravery naturally leads to acts of courage, inner humility naturally expresses itself through service. If a person truly claims to be humble, then the only fitting outcome is that he acts in ways that reflect that humility. These actions don’t just display what is within him, they also strengthen it because through constant repetition, what is inside becomes firm and rooted. JYet again, this is not possible without engagement with society at large, practiced in mercy and humility.

The last trait we will cover, for the sake of brevity, is the trait of stinginess. Charity is a pillar of Islam, and its purpose is to rid a person of stinginess, to help his fellow human beings, and to demonstrate love for God by sacrificing that which he values.

Charity is fundamentally an effort toward societal well being, in which a person, through his wealth and through himself, is commanded to engage in that which benefits his community. It is to give to the beggar, to the miserly, and to the one in need; to relieve the debts of one’s brothers; and to offer a kind word, a kind heart, and a helping hand to one’s fellow man.

Charity is a measure of one’s love for God. It is measured by how much one is willing to sacrifice in His path by being of service and help to others [9]. Yet in doing so, a person ultimately benefits only himself, for it is his wealth that becomes purified through charity and thus lawful, and it is his heart that is cleansed of stinginess and made pure. In all these traits and countless others that could be mentioned it is the person himself who is purified through service to others and engagement with society. In humility, honor, respect, good conduct, assistance, and kindness.

Thus, what we have sought to demonstrate has been shown, a person cannot attain a wholly righteous character except through engagement with the community. To further solidify this, we mention some of the traits of the Prophet ﷺ.

He would never keep anything for himself; rather, he would seek out the needy and give them whatever he possessed before returning home. He listened to the poor and the rich alike, anyone could approach him, and he would honor them with good comportment, adab, and kindness. He ﷺ would visit the sick and would not decline the request or invitation of anyone, whether rich or poor, of noble lineage or a slave. He accepted gifts even from those of the humblest means, and he spent his entire life in service to his community.

We will briefly introduce some thoughts from Ibn Khaldun in order to provide a broader societal understanding of the need for such praiseworthy attributes within society at large.

He writes in the Muqaddimah:

“Respect for excellent and particularly qualified strangers means perfection in general political leadership. The pious are respected for their religion; scholars because they are needed for establishing the statutes of the religious law; merchants in order to encourage their profession so that their usefulness may be widespread; and strangers are respected out of generosity and to encourage them to undertake various kinds of activity. Assigning everyone to his proper station is done out of fairness, and fairness means justice. When people who possess group feeling have that, one knows that they are ready for general political leadership, which means royal authority.” [10]

The basic concept in Ibn Khaldun’s thought is that group feeling (asabiyyah), apart from that which arises from blood or lineage, is strongest when it is formed through religious belief, such as in Islam. From this shared bond flow praiseworthy characteristics, and mutual aggression and jealousy are restrained. This occurs because the group as a whole begins to act and behave as one, with its goals and viewpoints aligned.

We do not need to go deeply into Ibn Khaldun’s full theory of royal authority here, for what concerns us is his observation that the prosperity and stability of societies depend upon norms of praiseworthy human interaction. When society possesses strong group feeling and practices acts of righteousness, such as honoring scholars, showing kindness to travelers, being charitable, encouraging merchants, and performing other acts of piety, this leads to cohesion and prosperity. Each person is treated according to his proper station, and fairness prevails. Fairness is justice, and justice is the cornerstone of society [11]. To reflect more upon this. Islam introduces into life one sole aim, which is to worship God [12] and acquire knowledge (Marifa) of Him. The worship of God requires that society purify themselves, as in Islamic worship ‘Ibadah’ is not limited to communal worship or isolated prayer. Rather, to look at a person’s mother with a smiling face is a rewarded act, to help remove a rock from the road is a rewarded act, to pay the debt off of a person in need is a rewarded act, etcetera. The root of the Arabic ‘عبادة’ is ‘ABD’ which literally means a perpetual state of servitude. Servitude to Allah implies a constant engagement with community by following the dictates of Islamic ethics. To worship,  hence,  can be said to follow the din, as an encompassing moral criterion, which includes undoubtedly to be of service to others as aforementioned. When ‘Ibadah’ which is the sole purpose of human life, is done as a collective its fruit can be none other than praiseworthy and just dealing with all human beings. When the Islamic ethical framework gets applied as a collective, the primarily traits of the community and purpose are aligned, which leads to nothing but unity and prosperity for the community as a whole, in both this world, and  in the next, by way of the acceptance of ‘Ibadah’ done for the sake of God. Thus, in reality, the group feeling (Asabiyyah) we have been discussing, actually is transcended altogether, as for Ibn Khaldun the early caliphates due to their utter unity in seeking religious piety, had no need of group feeling in the sense that it functions in society today [13]. For him, when interests other than religious concern and utter piety were introduced, in the later Abbasid period did group feeling come to play a role fully in society. Though, here we highlight his thought on religion being a way to attain group feeling because we must first display that groups can unite on principles of righteousness, before we dive into utter perfection of community beyond it.

Thus, communal engagement in ethical conduct is not only a necessity in Islam but also a necessity for the flourishing of society itself. For as luxury increases and individualization grows, the group feeling produced by religious community and praiseworthy traits gradually erodes. Without these virtues, fairness is lost, injustice emerges, and as Ibn Khaldun observed this becomes the beginning of the decline of dynasties.

Some may object by asking: what of zuhd and suluk? If one must detach from the world, does that not also entail detachment from society at large? And if one must undertake the path of wayfaring, does that not imply isolation?

This, however, is a grave misunderstanding of Sufism. Indeed, zuhd is a principle of basic righteousness, but it entails detachment only from those aspects of the world that lead one away from the remembrance and service of God. Praiseworthy engagement with society does neither; rather, it draws one closer to God. In fact, proper comportment, engagement, and guidance of the community become a natural consequence of detachment from the world, for the one who understands God’s mercy desires that such mercy be extended to His creatures.

As for suluk, it is merely a path undertaken to bring one’s inner states into proper order, so that one acts solely for the sake of Allah. Temporary isolation may be practiced in order to remove distractions and detach the heart from everything besides Him. Yet, as explained by Abu Hamid al-Ghazali [14], isolation is not sought as an end in itself. Rather, it is a means of restoring equilibrium within the soul and purifying one’s intention.

Al-Ghazali writes “When he is returned to this transient world that is like a shadow, he looks at the creation with a look of compassion for them because they are veiled from seeing the beauty of the Holy’s Presence.” [15]

In this sense, intoxication is inferior to sobriety. Sobriety demands acts of responsibility and service. When a person returns from the state of spiritual absorption to sobriety, he manifests mercy toward his fellow human beings and engages with them in guidance, humility, and compassion. The aim is to resemble the angels; they neither withdraw entirely nor overwhelm others with their presence, but remain constantly attentive to God. Once such a state of equilibrium and awareness is reached, the individual returns to his people and rectifies his conduct through righteous engagement with them.

Perhaps the best example of this is the life of the Prophet ﷺ. Before revelation, Muhammad ﷺ would retreat to the Cave of Hira, isolating himself for prolonged periods in devotion to God [16]. Yet after revelation descended upon him, he returned to his community and spent the rest of his life in just and praiseworthy engagement with them.

To conclude, we say that a Muslim is truly fulfilled only as a functioning part of a society. His character and religion remain incomplete unless he actively participates in and perfects himself through engagement with the well-being of his community. To neglect this is, in reality, to neglect religion itself; to honor it is to honor religion itself.

In an age in which many of our brothers and sisters are being stripped of Islamic societal norms and traditions, it becomes incumbent upon us to foster and preserve Islamic social ethics, making service to others the cornerstone of our identity. We should inquire about those who have been absent, visit the sick, relieve people from debt, show generosity to the poor, and assist our brothers and sisters who suffer from social isolation.

This is a religious obligation upon us, and these communal duties are essential for attaining and preserving righteous character. Moreover, this is the only way societies themselves can remain sound. If we lose our connection with one another and fail to stand for the fairness and justice that all human beings deserve. We do not only deprive others of these qualities,  inevitably deprive ourselves of them as well. For society functions as a whole, not as isolated individuals. That which is granted to one will eventually be granted to all, and that which is taken from one will eventually be taken from all. Therefore, let us ensure that goodness is what we grant and injustice is what we remove, lest the opposite become our fate.

And God knows best who is guided, and He knows best what is true.