Source Citation: The Words, The Twelfth Word, Second and Third Principles, Pages 147 to 148.
SECOND PRINCIPLE
A comparison between the moral training the wisdom of the All-Wise Qur’an gives to personal life and what philosophy and science teach:
The sincere student of philosophy is a pharaoh, but he is a contemptible pharaoh who worships the basest thing for the sake of benefit; he recognizes everything from which he can profit as his lord. Such an irreligious student is obstinate and refractory, but he is wretched together with his obstinacy and accepts endless abasement for the sake of one pleasure. And he is abject together with his recalcitrance and shows his abasement by kissing the feet of satanic people for the sake of some base benefit. And that irreligious student is conceited and domineering, but since he can find no point of support in his heart, he is an utterly impotent blustering tyrant. And that student is a self-centered seeker of benefit whose aim and endeavour is to gratify his animal appetites; a crafty egotist who seeks his personal interests within certain nationalist interests.
However, the sincere student of Qur’anic wisdom is a servant, but he does not stoop to worship even the greatest of creatures; he is an esteemed slave who makes not even a supreme benefit like Paradise the purpose of his worship. And its student is humble; he is righteous and mild, yet outside the limits of his Maker’s leave, he would not voluntarily lower and abase himself before anything other than his Maker. And he is weak and in want and he knows his weakness and poverty, but he is self-sufficient due to the wealth which his All-Generous Lord has stored up for him in the hereafter, and he is strong since he relies on his Master’s infinite power. And he acts and strives only for God’s sake, for God’s pleasure, and for virtue.
THIRD PRINCIPLE
The training philosophy and science and Qur’anic wisdom give to human social life is this:
Philosophy accepts force as its point of support in the life of society. It considers its aim to be benefits. The principle of its life it recognizes to be conflict. It holds the bond between communities to be racialism and negative nationalism. Its fruits are gratifying the appetites of the soul and increasing human needs. However, the mark of force is aggression. The mark of benefit, since they are insufficient for every desire, is jostling and tussling. While the mark of conflict is strife. And the mark of racialism, since it is nourished by devouring others, is aggression. It is for these reasons that it has negated the happiness of humankind.
As for the Qur’anic wisdom, its point of support is truth instead of force. It takes virtue and God’s pleasure as its aims in place of benefits. It takes the principle of mutual assistance as the principle of life in place of the principle of conflict. And it holds the ties of religion, class, and country to be the ties bonding communities. Its aim is to form a barrier against the lusts of the soul, urge the spirit to sublime matters, satisfy the high emotions, and urging man to the human perfections, make him a true human being. And the mark of the truth is accord. The mark of virtue is solidarity. The mark of mutual assistance is hastening to assist one another. The mark of religion is brotherhood and attraction. And the mark of reining in and tethering the soul and leaving the spirit free and urging it towards perfections is happiness in this world and the next.