IDEA 28
Twelve Aspects of Justice (C)
Since the ethic laws, that concern the particular duty of every one in himself, are so hard to be framed, as we see they are, ’tis no wonder if those which govern so many particulars are much more so. Do but consider the form of this justice that governs us; ’tis a true testimony of human weakness, so full is it of error and contradiction. What we find to be favour and severity in justice — and we find so much of them both, that I know not whether the medium is as often met with — are sickly and unjust members of the very body and essence of justice. [Montaigne, Essays III.13]
6. Justice can be systemic or emotional.
According to researchers, infants from the age of about 10 months are sensitive to distributive fairness.1 They notice when goods are not shared equally, and from about 15 months of age prefer sharers they perceive to be just over those who are not. Adults never outgrow this basic feeling for justice and their antipathy to violations of it, and many species of the more intelligent animals evince strong emotional reactions to seeing their peers getting favours that they are denied. The many general references in the Qur’ān to acting even-handedly draw upon this basic sense of justice, found in and recognized by all societies and cultures. Then if they come back [to GOD’s Command], make peace between them justly, and be equitable. Verily AL-LĀH loves those who act with equity (Q49:9)
1 https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5902431
Compared to this version of justice with its prominent emotional component, systemic justice is often only grasped after one’s intelligence has matured to the point of being able to see behind the curtain of custom and realize that what society accepts as normal actually contains fundamental flaws and injustices. Socialist criticisms of capitalism, for example, depend on the development of this penetrating insight, and are partly supported by Q59:7, which requires that war booty be distributed among the neediest members of society that it might not be passed around among the wealthiest of you. (This should not be taken to mean that Islam opposes all aspects of capitalism.)
The ultimate example of systemic justice is the Qur’anic message of tawḥīd, that there is no god but AL-LĀH. Though it is the root of all truth and morality, and every crime can be viewed as some kind of defiance of His Unitary Majesty, few Muslims attain to seeing it as a statement of cosmic justice above and beyond its common meaning as an assertion of religious doctrine and identity.
The identification of GOD with justice begins with the dawning realization that this world is visibly and persistently unfair. How can we reconcile our unquenchable craving for justice (and for other heavenly gifts such as love, truth, peace, and immortality) with the undeniable facts that, in this world, the wicked prosper, evil acts go unpunished, liars see their lies adopted by society, warmongers profit from war, and innocent souls are cut off unjustly? Do we simply accept all that, and so stifle our spirits’ lament for all that is good and right in the world? Or do we realize that this deep-rooted need springs from a source so profound that it helps explain the greater justice we see in the grand workings of nature, in the meticulousness of its design, and in the wisdom and compassion of certain spiritual leaders whose visions pierce the Heavens or help create marvels of ingenuity and organization on Earth?
It is humanity’s sense of justice that keeps communities alive and united, and devoted to the personal ‘face’ of justice we call God. That sense of justice is what makes us whole persons rather than the spiritually crippled sociopaths and psychopaths that have plagued and fed on our social structures and resources until today. The unity of purpose and meaning we derive from justice must come from a Unified Being, The Model of what our spirits yearn to join. To be truly meaningful, there can only be One Justice, and One GOD Who reigns beyond time to ensure the ultimate triumph of that Justice. A dyadic or triadic divinity would constitute a cosmic fraud, for it would imply a division in the moral realm that only Force could resolve. If Justice is broken on high (as it seems to be on Earth), then so too are our hopes, our prayers, and our lives.
Each soul created by GOD retains a faint notion of this urgent need for unity, as evinced by his or her struggles to dispel cognitive dissonance. Calling it ‘cognitive,’ however, is sufficient to indicate how remote and abstract it is for most of us. Our hearts still beat with the feeling for justice we first cried out for in infancy: “It’s not fair!” Ultimately, systemic justice is at its core emotional too.
Justice in the Qur’ān, as we have seen, is a complex topic, yet all of it emerges from the Single Justice of GOD The Just. This contrast between the Unicity of AL-LĀH and the often bewildering detail of His Rule on earth reveals a thirteenth aspect of justice I will not be discussing here, namely, how little of it we truly understand. No wonder, then, that we will be brought to face it, with bated breath and trembling hearts, before The Owner of the Day of Judgement (Q1:4) to find out what justice is really all about.
Download the PDF version for free at Ideas Inspired by the Qur’ān – Mont Redmond complete version, or purchase a hard copy at Ideas Inspired by the Qur’an: Redmond, Mont: 9781738842506: Books – Amazon.ca.
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