The Quest for Self-Knowledge
The famous quotation "I think therefore I am" addresses the trivial question of existence, but fails to tackle the far more central question "Who am I?". This question of identity, which superficially seems like the simplest of questions, is not only the most important question we all face, but also, for reasons to be explained, the most difficult question. A write-up of the English video lecture is also given below.
There are powerful forces that work hard to deny us access to our true identities, and actively deceive us about ourselves. One of these forces is the capitalist economy, which seeks to use up and exploit all planetary resources for the production of wealth. This tendency has become so extreme that it threatens to destroy the entire planet (see speeches by?Greta Thunberg?on Climate Change). Our modern Western education was designed to turn us into human resources, instead of human beings. This is done by making us believe that we are commodities for sale in the labor market. We are taught to value the price that we will get when we are sold (the money that we make from the careers we pursue). The fact that we are valuable beyond price, the most precious of the creations of God, must be concealed from us, so that we sell our lives cheap, for the benefit of the capitalist machines for the production of wealth.
In fact, Allah T’aala informs us about the value of our lives in the Holy Quran in many different ways. Man has been created in the best of forms, and reduced to the lowest of the low. This means that in us there is potential to rise above the angels, and also the potential to become the worst of the creation. The Holy Quran tells us that if you save one life, it is as if you have saved the entire humanity. Our one life is equivalent, in the eyes of God, to the seven billion human lives currently living on the planet. How can this be? We don’t feel our own lives are that valuable. This is because we have been deceived about our true worth, made to understand that we are cheap, and that our lives are for sale. This has been done so that others can profit from our ignorance and use our precious lives for their own purposes, for making money.
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But the question is: HOW can one life be equal to billions of lives? It does not make sense from a mathematical point of view. The answer is that this is true in terms of POTENTIAL. A seed has the potential to grow into a tree, and produce thousands of seeds, which will produce even more trees and even more seeds. Just like that, if we can realize the hidden capabilities which every human being is born with, he/she can rise to a position higher than that of the angels. BUT, if we fail to realize the potential, our lives are worthless, just as a seed that fails to realize its potential and become a tree, is just another nothing.
Because we are extremely precious, there are MANY parties that would like to buy us, and use us to further their own missions. There are so many ideologies, visions, and bright and shining dreams, which appeal to our eyes and hearts, and are designed to deceive us into accepting these missions and selling our lives for their achievement. The only way that these parties can achieve their goals is by misleading us about the purpose and meaning of our lives – by DECEIVING us about our true identities. This is why it is SO DIFFICULT to learn who we are. There are so many groups who wish to buy our lives by selling us fake identities and persuading us to believe in them. So how can we learn the TRUTH about who we are, what we are designed to be, how we can make the most out of our unique and precious lives, the few moments that we have on this planet?
We have to realize that Allah T’aala Himself is ready to buy our lives! He says that he has purchased the lives and properties of the believers in return for Paradise. This is the best use we can make of our lives, to sell ourselves to God, the Creator of the entire universe. Others who seek to buy our lives are all beggars, who have nothing compared to the treasures of the Creator Himself.
It is important to understand that the potential within the seed is only realized in the PROCESS of growth. We CANNOT learn who we are by looking inside our hearts to discover our true identities, because these true identities will be revealed and created as we pursue the path of spiritual growth. This is one of the meanings of the ayat (26:69) “And those who strive for Us – We will surely guide them to Our ways.” It is in the process of the STRUGGLE to discover the potentials hidden within our souls that Allah T’aala will give us the knowledge and guidance we seek for self-discovery. It was the excitement of this self-discovery that overpowered the seeker Mansour Al-Hallaj and led him to say “I am the Truth”. The journey to discover who we are, and the amazing potentials with which we have been created is the most exciting journey of our lives. We have been taught to aim low, sell ourselves cheap, and never undertake this journey of self-discovery. In order to being this journey, we must UNLEARN all these lies that have warped our understanding of who we are. The ten-minute video linked above encourages us to explore this question with the passion and energy it deserves, despite the strength of the powerful forces which strongly discourage us from doing so.
Assistant Professor
1 年Insightful thought
Master of Public Administration (M.P.A.) at Dalhousie University, Group Manager Applied Philosophy and Community Ethics
2 年1. Your article is important as a reminder to know who you are so you can use what you found in the service of the community. It is one of best features of Islam, as I try to understand it, that community and the individual combined is the only way both can achieve a balanced well-being. It does so by embracing the wholistic nature of human life - social, economic, political and religious - and treating them as interdependent and synergistic, all of course guided by the primacy of faith and the duty that it calls for.? Yet without knowing how the capitalistic and Islamic economic systems deal differently with supply and demand, I am quite sure that imperfection haunt both. I do like the rejection of the ills of interest in the latter system - it is worth keeping in mind as western policies and regulations seek somewhat unsuccessfully to blunt those detrimental effects. The concepts of looking after one another, justice, and morality suffered badly with the separation of religion and state. Such guides should have been retained.
Assistant Professor | Shariah Advisor | PhD in Islamic finance
2 年Mashallah
Financial Services Advisor at Private Consultancy
2 年Yes, it is true that we need to realise our true potential that is taken care of in the capitalist system also. "Products are developed after identifying the need for it". The single and most important missing control is that instead of "profit maximisation" the primary objective should be "Human Benefit Maximisation". It is this control failure because of which we select the wrong products/projects for production and some times we break our own rules that result in the misuse of our scarce resources and creating problems like carbon / CFC emissions that is causing pollution and global warming. "Products are created and replaced by better products everyday" so is the case with human beings, if the goal implemented is "Human Benefit Maximisation". We must understand that we cannot runaway from the bare essentials or necessities of life. The famous slogan of food, clothing and shelter was successful politically because it takes care of the necessities of life that no one can deny. We must remember that failure of our controls related to hoarding; breaching of business ethics; not respecting the law and failure to treat fellow human beings as equals has created the mess we are facing today.
Retired Analyst at Guides Group.
2 年Allah endowed us with two powerful gifts Thinking and Reasoning and the choice of Positive and Negative approach to both tiers. Yet we fail to comprehend the difference in Interpretation and Translation between Islamic Economy and Western Economy. So far no bank in Pakistan has been able to explain Islanic concept of Profit an Loss where Interest is not used. Why does Islamic Republic of Pakistan encourage Hoarding and Dumping of consumer goods and blame others. We love the Western Technology to improve our production but use the slate and chalk to calculate and maintain records in paper files through late 19 CE and early 20 CE Bureaucratic Filing system. Both Principles of Management and Production are never applied since our policies are based on adhoc basis.