Well said
Super piece. This one wins an excellence award.
Habib
Abou Jeng wrote:
> Some thousands of years ago, when Huang-Ti, the yellow emperor took over
> reign of government in what is today called China, a chronicler with a
> visible penchant for fits threw himself to the ground and cried
> vociferously; “Guardians of the skies and mountains, bless my emperor”.
> Although this incident is purported to have happened way into the
> anthropological dating of human existence, its relevance should not be
> truncated to a dusty piece of history.
>
> Symbolically, it shows that there has never been a theology of solitude, for
> a solitary man sufficient on to himself, has no God to lean on for material
> or spiritual elevation. But above all, the chronicler’s action besides its
> rhythmic antiquity lucidly unravels that man had always taken the skies and
> mountains as untouchable “pieces of art” beyond his innovative skills and
> influence. Alternately these imposing masterpieces, are to humans, an
> unflinching acme of spiritual exhibition, soiree of inspiration and
> appreciation, for “beauty” in the lustrous eyes of John Keats, “is truth and
> truth beauty”.
>
> Arguably or rather evidently, right from the beginning, man had always
> developed a flare for spiritual identity in great variety. From the per-
> pharaohs era of Egypt, the scary hunters in the jungle of Borneo, the nomads
> in the Sahara, the Eskimos in the frozen Arctic and to the urban dwellers in
> the hotchpotch metropolis of today, all possess deified segments trusted to
> monitor or appease the fearsome spirits and to gain the favour of the
> benevolent. Indeed as Ivar Lissner intimated in a prelude to his thought
> provoking Chef d’ouvre, Man, God and Magic, “one can only marvel at the
> perseverance with which man has striven, throughout his history, to reach
> outside himself. His energies were never directed solely towards the
> necessities of life. He was forever questing, groping his way further, and
> aspiring to the seemingly unattainable. This strange and inherent urge in
> the human being is his spirituality.” And this human trait earns man a
> spiritual dimension that makes him different from and superior to the less
> meditative endowed creatures.
>
> Logically, religion, or any of its semblance, either hallucinatory or
> meditative is as old as the history of mankind, irrespective of nebulous and
> sometimes garrulous analysis of archaeologists and anthropologists. But
> religion of all epochs, from all the multitudinous strata of the “spiritual
> world”, modern or ancient, have always sought a justification for their
> existence and reasons for adoption as codes of conduct for humanity. The
> pretext was usually juxtaposed to self-satisfaction, superiority of
> spiritual culture, a factor that endowed the advocates of various religions
> with civilising missions for the human race.
>
> Yet man represents only a very small portion of the magnificent universe.
> And if he can make plans and appreciate the merits of planning, then his own
> existence and the survival of the universe must also be based on a planned
> policy. This effectively translates that there is a Designing Will of
> unrivalled artistic brilliance behind our material existence, and that there
> is a Unique Mind streamling things into being. The marvellous wonders of our
> world and the secrets of life are too mammoth to be products of random
> accident or mere chance.
>
> In cognisance of these irreversible facts, and driven by obsessive needs,
> the gleam of spiritual discovery, man dabbled in a sweaty exotic allure of
> meditative stints as the insatiable rapacity for codified religious systems
> gained pinnacle heights. The consequent was the systematic outburst of
> theories and thoughts; a few convincingly perspicacious, some seemingly
> pertinacious, others bore a semblance of a perverse coterie of coterminous
> confetti of codes bereft with perspicuous features.
>
> But Islam, a religion that denotes peace and propagates for the complete
> submission to Allah, has a stretching history of codified moral principles
> glued by a chain of authentic spiritual revelations. The five pillars that
> serve as an institutionalised source of reference and guidance, have unique
> teachings that when combined, make Islam more of a way of life than a social
> club propelled by artificial codes of imagination.
>
> Centuries before the birth of Muhammad in 571 AD, Islam had already
> sojourned as a religion, though on a dizzy plane mainly manacled by violent
> resistance from the millions of idol worshippers in Arabia, where the first
> segment of Prophets were commissioned to execute special missions to a
> selected catchment of people. These Prophets, such as Ibrahim, Ismael, Musa,
> Essa (Alaihi ma -Wa -Salaam) etc had an unassuming personality that hid
> their razor sharp visions. Belligerent and charismatic, these early Prophets
> of Islam exploited every avenue to execute duties ordained by the Almighty
> Allah.
>
> Notwithstanding, the story was not all that fine and dandy as they
> encountered serious resistance in the midst of parochial minded infidels
> trailing under the murderous lunacy of ignorance and decadence. Their
> resistance, violent in the main for centuries, was not the assertion of some
> abstract or remote historical rights, but explicitly a vital, seemingly
> unchangeable rejection of a permanent act of condemnation against the very
> roots of their lives. Some of these resistances were so brutish that Islam
> almost wallowed in doldrums as the biting hurdle of animosity between its
> handful propagators and millions of idol worshippers geared up in strength.
> But does this mean that, at any moment in history, one ought to give up and
> abandon oneself, to blows and accomplished hatred? Not at all. Pessimism and
> despair are contrary to the spirit of Islam, and helplessness is
> incompatible with faith in God.
>
> Apparently, the person who is ordained by Allah to be His active agent, must
> necessarily have some power and authority, and be, at least potentially,
> endowed with honour and integrity. And this is the status of man in Islam;
> not a condemned race from birth to death, but a dignified being potentially
> capable of good and noble achievements. The fact that the Almighty chose His
> messengers from the human race shows that man is trustworthy and can acquire
> immense treasures of goodness.
>
> Prophethood is an eloquent expression of Divine teachings of truth to help
> man realise the purpose of his existence. The sending of these Prophets from
> God is a clear manifestation of a strong link between Heaven and Earth, God
> and man. The promulgation process of prophets of Islam continued for
> centuries, covering the registered 124,000 prophets before the closing
> curtains were raised in 644 AD.
>
> By 571 AD, a man poised to transform the world with stunning intellectual
> standing and unrivalled spiritual significance was born to a peasant family
> of the Quraish clan. His humble beginnings were characterised by routine
> meditative spells in a secluded mountain in the outskirts of Mecca. This
> man, Muhammad Rasulullah, is a supreme example of a fountain of hope and man
> of action.
>
> As he grew up, he questioned the religious practices of his generation,
> visibly disturbed by incessant quarrelling in the avowed interest of
> religion and honour among the Quraish elders. Stronger still was his
> dissatisfaction with the primitive survivals in Arabian religion, the
> idolatrous polytheism and animism, the immorality at religious convocations
> and fairs, the drinking, gambling, and dancing that were fashionable, and
> the burial alive of unwanted infants.
>
> At around 621, Muhammad soon became the symbolic epitome of Allah’s
> greatness. Ordained at age 40 with a herculean mission, his struggle for
> survival and prominence had thus started. Unlike earlier prophets charged
> with a sacred mission to a narrow catchment of inhabitants, Muhammad’s
> mission had a universal bearing, the central theme of which was Submission
> to the Will of Allah. His message was not simply a neutral revival, racial
> monopoly, temporary change or reversion in the trends of history. The
> message of Muhammad (S A W) was, and, ofcourse, still is, a universal
> revival, a common blessing, a supranational heritage and an ever-lasting
> spiritual deliverance. It is an evolutionary continuance of the previous
> Messengers and a well-balanced incorporation of all the former revelations.
> It transcends all boundaries of race, age, colour, and regional features. It
> is addressed to man of all times and it is precisely what man needs.
> Indisputably Muhammad’s message has the highest qualities of a truly
> universal and conclusive faith.
>
> Indeed as professor Ninian Smart opined in his book Background to the Long
> Search, “looked at from a human point of view, the achievement of an Arabian
> prophet living in the sixth and seventh centuries after Christ is
> staggering. Humanly, it was from him that a new civilisation flowed. But
> ofcourse for the Muslims, the work was divine and the achievement that of
> Allah.”
>
> Dr Hammudah Abdalati a renowned scholar in the Muslim Ummah minced no words
> in his assessment of Prophet Muhammad; “his spiritual accomplishments, and
> his mundane reforms are unparalleled in the entire history of mankind.
> Victory did not spoil him, triumph did not weaken his excellent virtues, and
> power did not corrupt his character. He was incorruptible, consistent, and
> inaccessible to any notion of personal gain or glory. His words display
> dazzling light of wisdom and truth”.
>
> But as humans cannot escape the dictates of mortality, no matter the value
> and contribution of individuals, Muhammad finally succumbed to the
> invincible hands of death in 644 AD. Today, Islam’s billion plus
> congregations pronounce his name at least five times daily. Certainly a man
> who had done so much and contemplated such large designs cannot be relegated
> to an ordinary stand. Gone on a journey of eternity, his ideas strongly
> remain to us living memories of pride. His sayings, major sources of
> reference and his deeds model to the human race.
>
> Abou Jeng
>
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