MERIT CULTURE; CONTACTS CULTURE

A Third Option

DEVELOPED countries enjoy what can be called a ‘merit culture’. In underdeveloped countries, a ‘contacts culture’ exists. In contrast to these two, a divine society is one where a ‘tazkiya culture’ prevails, or a culture based on purification of the soul. In a society characterized by ‘merit culture’, all importance is given to how competent a person is. In such a society, a competent person is given the position he is thought to deserve, while someone who is not competent is rejected.

In a society characterized by ‘contacts culture’, everyone is busy seeking to build contacts with influential people. They do not bother about trying to improve their own abilities. Instead, day and night, they are hard at work seeking to build their contacts with powerful people. A general belief prevails that one is able to get one’s work done through one’s contacts, not through one’s personal abilities.

A divine society is different from these two. In a divine society, every person’s concern is one's own purification—that is, to reform oneself and to make oneself eligible for God’s blessings and to develop a purified (muzakka) character in order to become the sort of person selected for entry to Paradise in the Hereafter.


In a divine society, every person’s concern is one's own purification—that is, to reform oneself and to make oneself such as to be eligible for God’s blessings.

In other societies, people’s focus is on people—that is, they do all they can to try to make themselves appear capable in relation to others or acceptable to them. In contrast, in a divine society, the focus of people is entirely God. In such a society, people try to view themselves in the same way as their Lord views them. They gauge success in terms of the Hereafter, not in terms of this world. In such a society, a successful person is one who gains entry into Paradise, and an unsuccessful person is one who is deprived of this.