From Ideal Society to an Ideal Human

Throughout history, human communities have been named as "society,” “nation,” “race,” “people,” and “tribe”. The whole denotations express the unity of blood, race, land, and ownership. In Islamic terminology, the concept of "ummah" replaces all of them. The concept of ummah involves much deeper meanings than racial, regional associations. The word Ummah is an Arabic word that refers to a certain society. Furthermore, it also includes meanings such as path and intention. Islam aimed at social unity by ignoring the discriminatory elements with choosing the concept of the ummah. According to Ali Shariati, the ideal Islamic society is called the Ummah. In this context, the ummah is formed by a common faith and the people who share the purpose. Moreover, this social structure defies today's societies based on racial foundations. The Islamic religion targets "universal brotherhood". The holy book of Islam, the Quran, is a book that aims at removing the barriers of all kinds of race and color, and even the geographical unity that prevents the unity and solidarity of people by laying the foundation of the universal brotherhood of humanity. The concept of Ummah in the form of this understanding of social life.
 As Ali Shariati points out that, the material basis of the ummah is economics. In Islamic terminology, the concept of "Iktissad" is used instead of the economy. This term means "middle way". As a matter of fact, Muslims in Islam have been exhorted to "taking the middle way". On the other hand, the social order in Islam is based on equality, justice, public ownership, and classless society. According to Ali Shariati, the ideal Islamist society should have an ideal leader. More importantly, he is a faithful and revolutionary person who guided the society in the aim of the creator with respecting the world view and values of society. He brings criticism to the Shiite faith. After all, Ali Shariati mentioned the ideal person. It is important to pay attention here why he didn't mention the ideal person before the ideal society. According to him, the ideal person manages to stay away from doubt and hesitation. In Islam, the basic understanding is “Take on the characteristics of God”.
According to him, this means to demolish certain traditional patterns and is to move towards perfection. The ideal man is the person who observes nature, tries to understand and make sense of his creator and himself. In this way, it can only reach God. In his words " Science has not deprived him of the taste of faith, and faith has not paralyzed his power of thought and logical deduction."[1] The ideal man gets rid of worshipping objects. According to him, the ideal man is not shaped by his environment. Rather, he is the person who shapes his own environment. Finally, he mentions three characteristics of the ideal human being. These are truth, goodness, and beauty in other words, knowledge, morality, and art.
 At this point, after mentioning his ideas about the ideal society and the ideal human it can be said society will reach the ideal through the individual. According to our readings that, we can say that his thoughts are scattered, overly eclectic, and unclear, and they are more prone to imaginary than real. However, the solutions offered are not applicable to social life. Finally, sociology is not interested in the ideal, but in life. Therefore, his ideas do not go beyond being idealistic. However, despite all this, he deserves all kinds of appreciation and respect because he was one of the rare people who emphasized the facts that no one else could express during his lifetime.

[1] On the Sociology of Islam- Alı Sharı’atı- P-122

(This article is inspired by the book "On the Sociology of Islam" - Alı Sharı’atı)