Islam and National Integration

Abstract

Integration has been an essential feature of Islamic religion from its very beginnings. One of the two basic teachings of Islam, which the Qur'anic revelations emphasized from the earliest moment of their disclosure, was the Unity of the whole mankind as one family. The goal of the integration of human society into one homogeneous body was consistently kept in view in the later Qur'anic revelations and in the legal injunctions and commandments enjoined in the Qur'an. The sayings and practices of the holy Prophet, which were only an elaboration and explanation of the principles laid down in the Qur'an, emphasized the same ideal. It was because of this importance given by Islam to the integration of society that pre-Islamic Arabs, who were divided into hundreds of clans, always at war with each other, were united into one Muslim Ummah within the lifetime of the holy Prophet himself.