Majalah Al-Hikmah Edisi ke 16

Regaining Humanity Through God- Consciousness From the lens of Islamic revelation, to be human is to be His servant. Becoming human, or realizing true humanity, is realized in this servitude. Thus, to lose God is to lose humanity. Engaging in quotidian affairs, Muslims must recognize that the world has the potential of either distracting one from or bringing one closer to God. It is simply not feasible to detach one’s mind from the godly awareness, for the world is the mirror of His greatness. It may be common to distinguish between worldly and spiritual as different concepts. Yet, to assert both as being exclusive and independent of each other is not justified from a genuine Islamic perspective. Both worldly and spiritual are essentially so interdependent that it is improbable to separate them. Arguably, the worldly-spiritual division is only a mental construct, a product of cognitive analysis. In other words, it is human imagination that assumes both as being separated. Eventually, this distinction ends up in the secular-religious conflict. Islamically speaking, the dichotomy between religious and secular is paradoxical and misleading, as it presupposes an inherent incompatibility between the sense of engaging with the world and being religious. The Muslims have been compelled to pick a side in the false dilemma of the dichotomous religious-secular battle. The hegemony of secular consciousness through unjust attachment to worldly matter strips individuals of their true humanity, which is to live in submission to God. Secular consciousness reduces life to a purely worldly experience, absent of divine consciousness and lacking transcendental purpose. The only remedy is to regain the God- consciousness by abandoning the false dichotomy between the worldly and the godly. Believers must be reminded of their ultimate existential purpose as servants of God. To serve the world is, essentially, to serve Him. The end. MA JA L AH A L - H I KMAH 57