فصلنامه مشکوه
پیاپی 128 (پاییز 1394)

The present article is a systematic attempt based on a scientific methodology to represent, analyze, and elucidate the “Islamic civilization-making” planning in the Qur’ān. After presenting some generalities concerning the major concepts and elements of the subject including discourse, civilization, and Islamic civilization-making, the writer has tried in this writing to study the “Islamic civilization-making system” in the Qur’ān by employing the experimental techniques of discourse analysis through the following discourses: 1. Representing and analyzing the order of Paganism discourse as situational, historical, cultural, political, and social context for the appearance and development of Islamic civilization; 2. Extracting and explaining some aspects of the Holy Qur’ān’s alienation of the Paganism system, which naturally took place with the purpose of establishing and developing Islam’s spiritual system; 3. Articulation of the main signs of the key designators of the rival’s discourses (Islamic and Pagan civilization-making), which will enable us to more clearly understand and better identify some of the hidden aspects and the realities concealed in the intellectual and cultural layers of the “Islamic civilization-making system” in the Qur’ān.

The history of Islamic civilization shows the flourishing of various branches of knowledge that have become of the same nature as this civilization. Accordingly, we can mention the branches of knowledge relating to the stage of appearance and prosperity of Islamic civilization and the period of its decline. Meanwhile, a study of the history of the appearance of civilization studies shows that this knowledge has been formed at the stage of the decline of Islamic civilization and recognized its own frameworks. Given the fact that this period of the decline of Islamic civilization can be divided into the primary, middle, and contemporary stages, the appearance of the early text of Islamic civilization studies in the first period of decline and the halt of this knowledge in the middle period of decline and the appearance of the second and third scholarly theorizations on civilization studies in the contemporary period of decline of Islamic civilization have remarkable points to ponder on. This study tries to examine the theoretical and practical antecedents of the appearance of civilization studies in Islamic civilization and the causes and elements of its failure to achieve completion and its six-century stoppage among the Muslim scholars.

During the two past centuries, the Islamic nations have more or less been under the influence of the West and consequently, various revolutions and crises have occurred in the Islamic countries. However, most of these movements were influenced by the Western civilization; for this reason, a considerable number of the orientalists have propagated the belief that Islam is on the brink of collapse; but in the course of the Islamic Revolution of Iran, the genuine Islamic thinking, despite its various schools, has pursued collective goals in the world of Islam and tries to distance from disunity, resolve its challenges with the modern world in a logical manner, and employ it for upgrading itself in widespread civilization fields. Touching upon the materialization of the new Islamic civilization in the present era and pointing out its signs, this writing is intended to explore into ten fields of civilization studies, that is: globalization studies, international studies, regional studies, political studies, cultural studies, environmental studies, media studies, critical studies, and Islamic-Iranian studies involved in civilization studies, along with the subdivisions of any of them pivoted on the classification of these sciences in relation to civilization studies.

The new Islamic civilization or the revival of a new civilization under the auspice of Islamic religiosity has preoccupied many of those concerned with Islamic problems and the thinkers of the Islamic world, especially in the past several centuries. The truth is that a new and influential civilization is developing in light of the Islamic doctrines in the Islamic world. The fundamental question is that in what approaches and on what foundations such a civilization is taking place; as its previous flourishing is also likely to be explored and emulated from this same perspective. In the writer’s opinion, the new Islamic civilization is being recreated on the basis of several fundamental principles: 1. Principle of the purposefulness of existence in light of theocentricism and Monotheism; 2. Principle of the equality of all people before God and the possibility of acquired superiority through abiding by transcendental values; 3. Principle of building the world in line with the Hereafter (creating balance between the world and the Hereafter and seeing the human life as continuous); 4. Principle of the actualization of Islamic community, by which the Islamic religiosity basically represent its entity; 5. Principle of Islamic cosmopolitanism and belief in sublime Islam; 6. Principle of science-orientedness and knowledge-seeking. These principles and approaches would on one hand lead to giving meaning to life (the real and textual dimension = software) and freeing mankind from spiritual crisis, and on the other, would provide a convenient life (instrumental dimension = hardware).

One of the matchless obligations for making attempts toward re-sublimation of Islamic civilization and culture, which enjoys a bright and unequalled background in history, is reference to the real cultural history of this very civilization. The present article has been founded on the basis of the ideas of the German researcher (Thomas Bauer) in his The Culture of Ambiguity: Another Side of Islam. The research methodology in this work is mainly cultural studies; that is, study of a certain period from the perspective of cultural procedure. The writer shows that the eminent Muslim scholars in various fields of Islamic sciences such as science of recitation, interpretation, jurisprudence, and ḥadīth, have, in their attempts for understanding Divine Revelation, created an unparalleled culture, which the writer mentions as “the multi-meaning culture and tolerance” versus “single-meaning and non-tolerant culture of modernity”. According to the writer, the Muslims influenced by the technical and military dominance have entrapped in modernity instead of referring to the fountainheads of their own rich culture for confronting this invasion and decided to present a version of Islam by following its standards that conforms to modernity. Therefore, despite the view of the writer of the book, many of today’s viewpoints about Islam, even those presented by Muslims in defense of Islam, are exactly rooted in modernity.

In respect to the highly serious emphasis of the Supreme Leader on economic discourses in recent years and especially his emphasis on solving the society’s economic problems in the form of the Islamic economy model, it is tried in this writing to analyze in a comprehensive way the theoretical view and the approaches and strategies delineated by him in the Islamic economy discourses as an Islamic theoretical and domestic view in creating Islamic civilization and solving economic problems. This is a method close to content analysis along with a comprehensive look, along which the cross-textual interpretation method has to some extent been also used. The conclusion made in this article is that the leader has considered the Islamic economy model as one of the frameworks of the grounds for creating Islamic civilization and the foundation for solving Islamic economic problems with a theocentric outlook. In this framework, solving the economic problems of the country will lead to the stability of the order of Islamic Republic.