This article presents the nature of conflicts in postcolonial societies as the consequence of being under external control and economic exploitation. Drawing on empirical cases from Indonesia and a comparative literature review of African states, this article reveals a huge dilemma within the desire to build a solid nation state in a deeply pluralistic society. The nature of the modern nation state, which from the start requires the forcible subjugation of the population, has become one of the greatest paradoxes. That is to say, the very idea of unity for the pursuance of equity contradicts the premise of democracy, because forcing unity onto diversity implies denouncing differences and thus violating universal individual rights to be different. On that account, Indonesia’s struggle with diversity has falsified Huntington’s thesis, according to which cultural differences necessarily tend to lead to conflict. On the contrary, Indonesia demonstrates that conflicts have stemmed from nationalism and political-economic ideologies rather than cultural differences. This article highlights two issues of global relevance. Firstly, the inherent problems of coexistence that arise from the legacy of the Christian missionary tradition advocating the separation of the state and religion in the colonies, whereas Islam is a religion of politics and of law. Secondly, the concept of al-din is hardly compatible with the Western concept of religion. In contemporary globalization, the modern nation state and nationalism are increasingly contrasted with the ‘cosmic’ nature of religion, which claims allegiances transcending differences of race and nationality. On the bright side, a case study of a Muslim ‘intentional community’ offers a pragmatic solution whereby an implementation of Islamic jurisprudence as a response to ecological issues by an individual Muslim group is doable within the constraints of a nation state. Thus the thesis moves beyond the rigidity of state system and promotes a ‘people to people’ approach.

The global environmental crises requires a global social contract. Islam has the philosophical foundation needed for such a social contract, since Islam has a legacy of political universalism. However, the reality is conflict among Muslims on political and philosophical-ideological grounds, and resentment among some Muslims to cooperate with Westerners to solve global issues. Therefore, I will develop a model for Islamic social contract that addresses these challenges. Berger and Luckmann’s symbolic universe premise serves to explain the essentialization of Islam in which the Qur?an and the Sunna lie at the center of the “sacred canopy.” In addition, symbolic interactionism premise allows for an explanation of the issues of meaning that prompted the diversity within Islam, as sub-universes constructed under Islamic symbolic universe—either in response to immediate political condition in local contexts, or different interpretations of the Qur?an and the Sunna were made by the actors. For better sociological understanding of religion, my framework considers as well the sacred purview of “reality” to explain the voluntaristic nature of Muslims religious actions and thoughts. Overall, the model that I developed leads to an incisive discrimination between philosophical and sociological dimensions of religion in all four respects: knowledge, meaning, action, and reality—that will throw light substantially on what have been a very complicated subject of religion-inspired actions.

Modernization and the concomitant changes in people behavior are now blamed for the deterioration of the environment. This article points up desacralization of knowledge and the demise of esoteric tradition that followed to have an ecological impact in the Islamic world as the Muslims began to hold the bifurcated notion of “this-worldly” and “heavenly” in a completely distinct manner. Through modern education, Muslims adopted the notion of “independent existence” according to which nature exists in and of itself. Hence, the modernist vision of development and progress that threw the life-support system of the earth out of balance was possible in the Islamic world where religion and its cultural traditions remained strong. The twentieth century’s awareness about the need of an integrative framework to reconcile rational thought and science with a spiritual sense of awe for the cosmos, should remind the Muslims of the unitive worldview that arise from the core of Islamic belief—tawhid—expounded by esoteric Islam. Further, this article argues that science needs to repossess a metaphysical foundation, and that ethics and values need to be reintegrated into our rationality. Three case studies reveal mental crises caused by an overweening trust in science. I use data from my own extreme life experience, and biographical data suggestive of existential depression of two arguably highly gifted individuals. Drawing upon the data, the article juxtaposes the “unitive worldview” associated with mystical experience and the “evolutionary worldview” given rise by Darwin’s evolutionary biology, to put forward an examination of the effects that worldviews might have on human minds. The analysis adopts organic inquiry within transpersonal psychology research method, and content analysis of biographical data. Designed to investigate the “non-objective” spiritual reality, organic inquiry offers a rigorous method for those attempting to incorporate spiritual experience and mysticism into academic work. As a whole, the case studies present an example of the biologization of ethics; discusses social Darwinism and giftedness phenomena; and explicate the unitive worldview granted by mystical experiences.

Over fifty years into global environmental negotiations since the first UN Conference in 1972 on the Human Environment in Stockholm, to the Climate Change Conference COP27 in Sharm El Sheikh in 2022, the major environmental concerns of our time are no closer to being resolved. Negotiations continued to fall by the wayside. Given the commitment to economic development and sovereignty of the nation states, the deadlocks are understandable. Against this background, this article proposes a “Green Caliphate” as a faith-motivated global environmental governance for a network of Sharia-based countries and devout local Muslim communities around the world. The article offers a set of rationales for considering the Green Caliphate in the light of climate emergency from multiple perspectives: social justice, knowledge sharing, and cultural transformation. Drawing on Schumacher’s Small is Beautiful and Ovamir Anjum’s “Who Wants the Caliphate”, this article broaches the concept of a socially and environmentally-responsible caliphate governance which might be in congruent with the Schumacherian pursuit of the “Fourth World” where government and economics are under genuine human control because the size of such units are small, sensible, and human scale, and where the pace of development is in accordance with the religious cosmology of their members to adapt. The Green Caliphate is envisioned on a decolonial horizon of pluriversality towards a multipolar world order.                     In the cycle of nature there is no such things as victory or defeat; there is only movement.                     Within that cycle there are neither winners nor losers, there are only stages that must be gone through. Both will pass. One will succeed the other, and the cycle will continue until we liberate ourselves from the flesh and find the Divine Energy.                                                                                                                                                                   —Paulo Coelho, “Manuscript Found in Accra”

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