Back to Basics
Little children often wonder, as do many others, as to the purpose of our creation. The story of creation in the Holy Qur’an’s longest Sura – Al Baqarah, depicts how angels seemed to have protested at the creation of man ‘who would shed blood and spread corruption’, and frequently this is held as a barometer to conclude that it may all have been in vain, after all since it is the angels who got it right this time.
But when the Almighty, declared Himself to be the Most Knowing, and then imbibed us with superior knowledge, He graduated us from a previous atomic and then embryonic stage into this worldly life, where amongst the roles we have to play are to demonstrate obedience, gratitude and patience, while waiting for our turn to pass over to the next, more permanent life in the Hereafter.
While in this world, we while our time in incogitant acts and deeds, like worrying about how someone died, or why our neighbours live the way they do, and then to eavesdrop and to spy on others and their affairs. A completely non consequnetial act that will gain us no credit for the prepapratory life we are in. The irony is that we have voluntarily stopped referring to the Holy Qur’an except for occasions like the oncoming Holy Month of Ramadhan, where again we will stop at reciting in the most pleasant of voices. That is our only striving. Allah (SWT says in Sura A’ala “We will facilitate for you the Way of Ease. So ?always? remind ?with the Quran?—?even? if the reminder is beneficial ?only to some?. Those in awe ?of Allah? will be mindful ?of it?. But it will be shunned by the most wretched,…”
As the Holy month approaches, we need to go back to basics, especially in the face of a scarily changing world order that provides ample hopelessness for many. But for those holding on to reason in matters of faith and who try to listen to the voice of the Holy book, for them, this will be yet another opportunity to remember why we are here in the first place, and while witnessing the pile up of deaths around us, to reflect as to our own end and at that point, our readiness for the next and last leg of our life travel.
Many many years have been wasted in ridiculing others’ faiths and beliefs as we have ourselves grown hollower and hollower intrinsically, not even knowing our own religion, feeling awed by the mundane successes of pagan beliefs and ideological propagandas. It is now time for us to relearn our religion and earnest perform the work for which we were sent to do here.
