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Wednesday, December 27, 2006

Is Islam a Complex System?

Jamshid Gharajedeaghi in his book "Systems Thinking: Managing Chaos and Complexity, A Platform for Designing Business Architecture" explains complexity and chaos as phenomena that appears when we use inadequate concepts to explain them. When we understand something, we no longer see it as chaotic or complex.

I would agree with his explanation, as humans we can not comprehend many natural phenomenas around us, one example is the movement of the planets, stars, sun, moon and earth, ocean tides and many other signs around us. So if we are left to our own decision making capabilities we will definitely not only not understand these complex systems, but we will also either not appreciate them, or just take them for granted and label them as mother Nature "did this and did that". However as believing humans, who believe in the unseen revealed by the Creator, we can start to get an appreciation for these phenomena and complex systems as well as understand them and understand how simple they really are, yet accurate and precise that they must be controlled by a divine power and controller.

Allah (Glory be to him) tells mankind in the Quran that he created the heavens and earth, and the planets and that all orbit in a precise movement. Just providing that fact makes believing in it simple and comprehensible. We then no longer see it as a chaotic system, but rather a precise, controlled system.

So in a nutshell we can say that Islam is complex only to those who do not understand it, and do not try to learn about. To the Muslim and Muslimah Islam is simple and clear. It is simply the submission to the one and only one Lord in everything the Muslim and Muslimah do.

Allah says in the Quran in the chapter of the Moon (Al Qamar) 54:17, 54:22, 54:32 and 54:40 "And We have indeed made the Qur'an easy to understand and remember: then is there any that will receive admonition?"

وَلَقَدْ يَسَّرْنَا الْقُرْآنَ لِلذِّكْرِ فَهَلْ مِن مُّدَّكِرٍ

Again in the chapter of Mary (Maryum) 19:97 "So have We made the (Qur'an) easy in thine own tongue, that with it thou mayest give Glad Tidings to the righteous, and warnings to people given to contention".

فَإِنَّمَا يَسَّرْنَاهُ بِلِسَانِكَ لِتُبَشِّرَ بِهِ الْمُتَّقِينَ وَتُنذِرَ بِهِ قَوْمًا لُّدًّا

In the chapter of the Smoke (Al-Dukhan) in 44:58 Allah says (the mean of), "Verily, We have made this (Qur'an) easy, in thy tongue, in order that they may give heed".

فَإِنَّمَا يَسَّرْنَاهُ بِلِسَانِكَ لَعَلَّهُمْ يَتَذَكَّرُونَ

A clear proof that Quran, the word of Allah, and the miracle that is with us till the end of time, is simple, yet it contains every thing an human needs to live a successful life and be a winner in the hereafter, and to appreciate and differentiate between complexity and simplicity.

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