Islam's Response to Contemporary Issues — Page 87
Social Peace 87 excitement and exhilaration; a society where the tastes are wilfully perverted to suit an artificially created market for new instruments and toys of pleasure which are fit only to create excitement and thirst for more; a market masterminded by powerful syndicates whose sole purpose is to amass wealth; such a society chooses all this at the cost of nobler human values, peace of mind and security in a society as a whole. You cannot possess both simultaneously. You cannot have your cake and eat it. The emphasis of Islam is exactly the opposite. Pleasure indeed— but not at the cost of peace of mind and the security of society as a whole. All such tendencies, which if unchecked, are likely to lead to a gradual disintegration of family life and promote selfishness, irresponsibility, vulgarity, crime and violence, are strongly discouraged. The climates created by the two philosophies are poles apart. It astounds me how some people believe that by raising ambitions or giving free reign to desires in a society, they can ever hopefully promise peace of mind. No society in the world, however economically sound it may be, can support unlimited and unbridled generation of lustful desires. Even in the richest societies of the world, there are always haves and have-nots. Those who are deprived of the most basic amenities of life make a much larger section of the society than the comparatively smaller number of those who can afford to pay for what they like. Even that is questionable because it seems that with the growth of wealth, desires also rise and perhaps even the richest cannot fully realise all their dreams. But the case of the comparatively poorer majority is worse. They cannot even have access to the basic amenities of life, not to speak of the luxuries the affluent society can afford. It is