Ebook: Society and History

The outlook of a school of thought regarding society and history and its specific approach to them, plays a decisive role in its ideology. From this point of view, it is essential, in the context of Islamic world outlook, to throw light on the Islamic approach to society and history.

It is evident that Islam is neither a theory of society nor a philo¬sophy of history. In the sacred Book of Islam, no social or historical problem is dealt with in the technical jargon of sociology and philo¬sophy of history. In the same way no other problem, ethical, legal or philosophical, is discussed in the Qur’an, either in the current terms or according to the traditional classification of sciences. However, these and other problems related with various sciences can be deduced from the Book.

Islamic thinking on society and history, because of its special importance, is a topic that deserves to be studied and investigated pro¬perly, and, like its many other teachings, reveals Islam's profound¬ness in dealing with various issues. Since the problems that deal with society and history are closely related, and since we wish to discuss them briefly, it was apt to discuss them together in a single book. How¬ever, we shall discuss the problem related to society and history only to the extent that would help in understanding Islamic ideology.