Islam Gives Meaning to Technological Advancement

India’s moon landing on 23 Aug is yet another technological feat, among the long list of technological achievements throughout the World during the past century. The World witnesses these technological breakthroughs every now and then. However, despite these technological advancements, the plight of people around the world continues to deteriorate. People around the world suffer from core issues such as food insecurity, political instability, volatile global security, economic strangulation, injustice, corruption, family life disintegration, colonialist exploitation, displacement, migration pressures, racism, psychological ailments, to name a few from a long list.

India, after its moon landing, may proceed to landing on Mars, but it will still not be able to rescue its people from the slums of Delhi and Mumbai. Or halt its rape epidemic. The US may come up with few more hi-tech trillion dollar enterprises, but it won’t be able to solve the issue of growing inflation and cyclic economic recession that bring immense misery to its people, by burying them deep in economic slavery. China may further increase its GDP through hi-tech manufacturing but its people will continue to suffer and toil as a Third World labor force. Russia may keep developing hypersonic missiles but it will fail to ensure world security. In short, technological advancements on their own do not serve as the solution to the core problems of the humans around the globe.

Technological advancement is meaningless in the absence of a sound ideology and system of life that emanates from it. The ideology defines and governs the very purpose of human life, which then shapes up human aspirations in life. This triggers the endeavors for technological advancement in order to pursue life’s aspirations governed by the ideology. Hence, technological advancement is tightly linked and subservient to the ideology.

The flawed Western Capitalist ideology has resulted in technological advancement linked with an incorrect aspiration of life. Hence, it is disconnected from the core issues of the human life. In reality, the current technological advancement ends up serving the interests of the small capitalist elite, while forsaking the interests of the masses. What the masses get at the end are nothing more than crumbs that trickle down the capitalist system of life.

The Islamic ideology, on the other hand, presents the correct focus towards the human life. It defines the purpose of life as obedience to Allah Almighty and to attain His pleasure, so as to become successful in the life here and after. The system of life that emanates from Islamic ideology is also focused towards serving this purpose of life.

All the resources of the world are hence put at the disposal of humans to be utilised to serve the very purpose of the life defined by Islam. The technological advancement is therefore carried out to facilitate the people in fulfilling their purpose of life. Throughout the Islamic history, the technological advancement had always been carried out objectively to serve the people. Muslim scientists, engineers and designers invented entirely new fields of science that serve as the very foundations of contemporary technological achievements.

The time has arrived to once again carry out technological advancement with sound objectives, so as to serve the human kind by solving their core life issues and to facilitate them to pursue the correct purpose of life defined by the Islamic ideology. This is only possible under the authority of the Islamic Khilafah (Caliphate) on the Method of Prophethood, which has the single focus to implement the Islamic Ideology through necessary technological advancement. It alone can rescue humanity from the current abyss of disobedience and misery.

Allah (saw) said,

[إِنَّ اللَّهَ لَا يُغَيِّرُ مَا بِقَوْمٍ حَتَّىٰ يُغَيِّرُوا مَا بِأَنفُسِهِمْ] “Indeed, Allah does not change all that is of a people, until they change all that is in themselves.” [TMQ Surah Ar Ra’ad 13:11].

At-Tabari commentated in his Tafsir,

(يقول تعالى ذكره ﴿إِنَّ اللَّهَ لَا يُغَيِّرُ مَا بِقَوْمٍ﴾ من عافية ونعمة فيزيل ذلك عنهم ويهلكهم ﴿حَتَّىٰ يُغَيِّرُوا مَا بِأَنفُسِهِمْ

من ذلك بظلم بعضهم بعضًا واعتداء بعضهم على بعض فَتَحلَّ بهم حينئذ عقوبته وتغييره

Allah (swt) says,

[إِنَّ اللَّهَ لَا يُغَيِّرُ مَا بِقَوْمٍ] “Indeed, Allah does not change all that is of a people,” of well-being and favor, but that He (swt) removes that from them and destroys them

[حَتَّىٰ يُغَيِّرُوا مَا بِأَنفُسِهِمْ]“until they change all that is in themselves” due to their oppression of one another and transgressing against each other, then His (swt) punishment and change befalls them.”

Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Ali Tariq – Wilayah Pakistan