Self or society?

Modern societies are often described as either individualist, putting personal autonomy first, or collectivist, putting the family, group or state first. This paper asks whether Islam leans to one side, and argues that both extremes do serious harm.

On individualism, the authors review research linking it to loneliness. A pilot study during the COVID-19 pandemic found higher loneliness among people from Western individualist societies, and a large European study by Beller and Wagner linked chronic loneliness to depression, high blood pressure and earlier death. The paper adds three case studies: isolation in care homes in both Denmark and Shanghai, anxiety and depression among carers living in Hong Kong's tiny subdivided flats, and hikikomori, the severe social withdrawal recorded in Japan. On collectivism, it notes that some collectivist cultures show higher social anxiety, and turns to the political scientist R. J. Rummel's work on democide, killing by governments, to show how totalitarian regimes sacrificed individuals to the collective on a vast scale in the twentieth century.

Against both extremes, the paper sets the Qur'an and Sunnah. The maqasid, the higher aims of Islamic law, protect each person's religion, life, intellect, lineage and property. The Qur'an says that whoever kills a soul unjustly, “it is as if he had slain humanity entirely” (5:32), and commands kindness to parents, relatives, orphans, the poor and neighbours both near and distant (4:36). The Prophet said, “None of you [truly] believes until he loves for his brother that which he loves for himself”, warned that a person whose neighbour is not safe from his harm is not a believer, and likened the believers to one body that shares the pain of any part. The Constitution of Madina, which the paper reads with the historian Lecker, joined Muslims, Jews and other tribes into one community with duties of mutual defence and support, while leaving each group its religion and internal affairs.

The authors conclude that Islam can be described as an “ethical collectivism anchored in individual dignity”: it builds strong ties of community without letting the group override each person's basic rights. They suggest this balance could inform modern policy on neighbourhoods, intergenerational living and social support.