Why is individualism contrary to Islam?

The answer is the story of the "Solitary Individual"

It's easy to assume the individual and their effort (or lack of effort) is the most important element to achieving anything in life.

It is akin to thinking the dot is the most important element in achieving amazing art (ignoring shapes, colors, textures, forms and so on) or the particle is the most important element in the miracle that is the universe (ignoring forces, waves, energy, bonds and so on.)

By such atomistic sort of logic, we should see quite a different world. For example we should see a reasonably even distribution of tech start ups around the world. The graph below however shows they are concentrated in a small number of locations.

Why is this?

Individuals perform differently in different environments. Silicon valley provides an environment conducive to tech startups via its incubator facilities, technical universities, venture capitalist financing, law firms, state funded research, supportive state policies and grants and so on.

The over-exaggeration of the "individual" confuses our view of the world. It arises not from facts of how the world works but from ideology dictating how the world should work - and in this case, a toxic secular-liberal ideology which historically arose in Europe in the 16th century seeking to replace a God-centric worldview into a human-centric one.

Its effects have been devastating to human thinking and well-being - none so much as to Islam.

Since our demise and colonisation in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, we have internalised Western ideologies such as these and continue to do so - progressivism, feminism and red-pill being recent examples.

We now view the world and even revelation through this lens - seeing our journey through primordial life to the hereafter in individualistic terms, marginalising and de-emphasising the social and political dimensions within which the individual actor operates.

A striking example of this I have recently encountered is the strange way we look at messengers - missionary-like characters seeking to save lost souls through dawa that partially reforms individuals rather than saving lost nations through dawa that requires socio-political reforms based on the sharia.

I don't think we need to cast out the individual with the proverbial bathwater - the Qur'an cites the word nafs (self) around three hundred times and the word qawm (nation) over six hundred times. The individual is and has always been situated in a socio-political context - joint at the hip so to speak. Both operate in unison and have to be reformed in unison.

What prevents this happening today is those holding power are secular in outlook implementing a cocktail of secular ideologies that prevent such a reform from occurring. They therefore need removing in order to establish Islam and reform society.

This is the first step which requires the ummah to gain consciousness of this one simple fact and demand change... otherwise our state and the status quo will remain the same.

“Verily, Allah will not change the state of a people as long as they do not change their state themselves” (Qur'an 13:11)

A society is not merely a collection of individuals (as incorrectly understood by many) but individuals living permanently at some geographical location forming relationships with other human beings. "Relationship" here does not just mean with immediate family or extended family but all possible relationships e.g. friends, business partners, work colleagues, law enforcement personnel, courts, doctors, engineers; any possible interaction with other human beings is considered a "relationship" here.

These relationships are interest based. And these interests are triggered by our instincts (survival, procreation, spiritual) and our physical needs (food, shelter, clothing etc).

For example, we take care of ourselves as human beings (to stay alive and to keep our lineage going etc). We look after our immediate family for which we work hard and get engaged in multitude of relationships in the Society that result in multitude of transactions.

So, the man gets shaped by all these factors as part of the society i.e. by fulfilling the need to survive and to satisfy all his instincts. And he has to do all this by living in a Society.

When millions of people in a Society do all of the above simultaneously (satisfying survival, procreation, and spiritual instincts AND looking for food, shelter, clothing etc), a very complex situation arises. This complex situation needs organisation otherwise there will be total chaos.

The net effect all of the above can be summed up as (which is also the definition of the Society):

"A society is the composition of individuals, predominant thoughts, resulting emotions, and a system".

The process described above ends up creating certain predominant thoughts within the Society i.e. a Society collectively starts carrying certain thoughts, from which come emotions and these thoughts and emotions effect every single individual. System then plays an important part in organising these complex relationships and transactions and also imparting thoughts that impacts every single individual.

That's why vast vast majority in any given society cannot escape the effects of these predominant thoughts and emotions and follow them wholeheartedly.

For example, the predominant thought of "Freedom" in the Western society is so powerful that almost every single individual accepts anything and everything in the name of Freedom; whether it's the 'right' to reject Allah SWT, 'right' to accept LGBT as natural, right to fornicate, right to gamble, right to drink, engage in riba etc.

Now, imagine in an Islamic society, the predominant thought would be "Tawheed based complete submission to all of Allah's commands and prohibitions in the Society".

This one predominant thought would fix multitude of issues that you have described.

So, it is not only through making "laws and actions of authorities" that we address these matters but through creating a Society that has correct i.e. Islamic predominant thoughts and emotions via a correct system i.e. Islamic system.

That's why Quran so frequently addresses the Qaum قوم and An-Naas الناس (ie collective or society) and less so as individuals.

So speaking truth, being honest, showing kindness etc is achieved via creating a Society that ensures most of its individuals have these qualities or attributes through predominant thoughts, emotions, and a System.

If the Society has erroneous i.e. Kufr predominant thoughts and emotions e.g. Liberalism (man is free to believe, do, and own whatever he wants) or Secularism (Allah has no right to interfere in Societal and State level matters) then the resulting Society will not produce the desired outcomes.

Muslim majority societies today are being forced to live by the Deen of Secularism and Liberalism while deep down Muslims believe in Islam, so this dichotomy will never allow Muslims to progress.

West made material progress because their predominant thoughts and emotions are inline with their foundational beliefs and the System is built upon these foundational beliefs of Secularism and Liberalism. So, their societies focus and work in one direction and therefore achieve material progress.

Muslim societies have become a terrible mishmash of contradictory thoughts and emotions with Secular System imposed by the West. Therefore, we find all kinds of ills in our Societies and we don't make good material progress either.

Changing the system was therefore crucial as demonstrated by Nabi Muhammad Aliehi Salaatu Wasalaam in Madinah. The same change is required today following the same steps.