Preparing for the Discontinuity of Sustenance

Can you imagine what would happen if the entire world had insufficient oxygen to breath for 1 minute? If you are one of those who can hold their breath for well over a minute, this would not pose a big problem. However, many people would not survive such a shock and many others would come out severely, and perhaps permanently, injured. What if this unfathomable disaster lasts for 2 minutes? 

The above thought experiment brings up the issue of strength in the face of scarcity of the essentials. And that connects us to the concept of fasting in Islam. Especially the fasting during the long summer days pushes the bodies and wills to their limits. Yet the believers force themselves to obey the command of God and wait for the time of sunset to break their fast. Pondering over this worship through the perspective of the above thought experiment, we can see that God is strengthening the believers through fasting so that when a scarcity occurs, which will definitely happen throughout the course of life several times, the believers can survive not only in their bodies but also in their faiths. This last point about surviving in faith needs further scrutiny.

"And We will surely test you with something of fear and hunger and a loss of wealth and lives and fruits,..." (2/155)

Surviving in your faith automatically connotates other concepts: inflictions and challenges to your faith, strength of your faith, death in your faith or flourishing in your faith. For example, freedom and justice are essential needs of humans. An unusual delay in the delivery of justice or an irrationally long duration of an oppressive regime put people in a strenuous state of mind where they feel obliged to question the veracity of their faith and their adherence to it. Absence of basic sustenance for many while the ridiculous wealth possessed by the few and continuation of this structure over time while God's apparent indifference to this state may push people to trying life styles where they act regardless of God's commands. Such lethal situations for faith are part of the destiny, and if the believers are not prepared for them, their survival in faith is rather unlikely. If the occurrence of such trials are inevitable, how can the believers prepare for them?

The very first step in addressing any situation is properly understanding it. The trials discussed here are not simple trials that put you through hardship. These are the events that you would clearly label as "heartless, treacherous, merciless", and they compel you to question whether God is really merciful and compassionate as He says in the Quran so many times: "if He is so, then why is this situation?" These are the events that crush the connections between the believers and their adherence to the traditions narrated to them. That is, the words and actions of the prophet Muhammad (pbuh) and the people who represent his tradition come under scrutiny. This is when the believers can at last truly empathize with the atheists and understand why they are so stuck with the problem of evil!

"[Remember] when they came at you from above you and from below you, and when eyes shifted [in fear], and hearts reached the throats and you assumed about Allah [various] assumptions." (33/10)

In fact realizing the existence and severity of situations that may shake us from our foundations is not limited to the events in the adult life. From a very early stage, we humans are hardwired for detecting and coping with cases of irreversible consequences. I am talking about the early years of childhood when we learn and start thinking about death. It doesn't take too long to ask the most dreaded question: 

"Mom, dad! Are you going to die? What is going to happen to me when you die?"

One approach in solving these problems is abandoning life itself so that they won't happen. That is, you bring your own discontinuity so that the uncertainty of its otherwise occurrence becomes certain. This is the approach of the sufis or the ascetics, where they abandon the worldly life, eat less, sleep less, interact with people at minimum. They reduce their existence so that they won't face a fundamental quake in their lives, because there is nothing to shake. This way of life brought about the generations that eventually left the material world and the world of knowledge, i.e. science and technology, to those who don't have a regard for God. So, the power shifted to the people who did not prepare themselves for the life after death. 

Today, following the same route means not interfering with life at all and becoming an item of display in documentaries. It means becoming a topic or figure in epic movies but remaining passive and inactive when it comes to real life. Is this what God wants?

"O mankind, indeed We have created you from male and female and made you peoples and tribes that you may know one another. " (49/13)

"The believing men and believing women are allies of one another. They enjoin what is right and forbid what is wrong and establish prayer and give zakah and obey Allah and His Messenger. Those - Allah will have mercy upon them..." (9/71)

"They did not prevent each other from committing sins nor would they themselves stay away from them. Evil was what they had done!" (5/79)

To be among people and to have immunity against the evil that may befall you due to your faith,  an easy solution seems to be vaccination. Just like fasting on the long, scorching summer days, a practice or a set of experiences can be / must be developed so that people can prepare themselves to excruciating moments of endless misfortunes. Similar to the vaccines that can upend the spread of a pandemic, this social/psychological vaccination can ensure the survival and flourishing of the believers through the extreme challenges facing their faith. 

Then, what could that vaccination be like?

 

In Front of the Scenes

If you want to taste the cream of reason which is belief in God, listen to the following allegorical story with me.

A gullible person who lived in the early 20th century enters a vegetative state, and wakes up in our time. After he wakes up, his grand grand children takes him home, and a period of memory update begins. They show him several pictures that have been taken throughout the years while he was asleep, and they tell him what had happened in the mean time. As the technology advances through the century, the quality of the pictures shown to the man increases, and at some point, they become color photos. This fact makes him so happy that a smile shines on his face.

Another thing that happens with technology is the motion pictures. Our man watches the videos taken of him, of his loved ones and of his relatives. Enjoying them for hours in a row sometimes, he tries to update himself with his own history. Sometimes, he cries for the death of his loved ones and also having missed good moments with them; and sometimes he laughs at joyful moments.

But throughout all those days, one thing escapes the attention of everyone, including the man himself. Since no one from his time is present, and since no real life situation has happened since his recovery, and also because he is treated with respect due to his old age, his gullibility goes unnoticed.

After few months of treatment and intensive care, he recovers a normal life, albeit in an old age. To celebrate his recovery, his grand grand children take him to a theater, and they watch a movie together. Facing such a thing for the first time, the man's mind blows out with awe and bewilderment at the same time.

When they get back home, a discussion bursts between him and the grand grand children. Being an older person and haven't spoken for almost a century, he goes into a lengthy account of his experience:

It is so difficult for me to understand this. They have these people in real life, and it so happens that there are cameras to record their life, like those you showed me of our past relatives. And those people in the motion picture don't seem to be bothered by the presence of the cameras, they argue and shout, they allow the recording of their dirty moments, and even they expose their love affairs. And worst, when there is a criminal situation, the cameramen do not interfere with the people to prevent the evil. What's more, how come those serendipitous occurrences repeatedly happen in the lives of the same people? I mean, it can happen once or twice in a life time of a person. And and... Yes, how is it possible that a man would allow another to hit himself in the face or shoot him to death just for the sake of entertainment? The only explanation I have for these is that these people are like those in the Roman times. For the pleasure of the elite and the public, a few people are expended. After all, human population has increased so much in your time, and disposing of a bunch of them wouldn't make a difference, right! 

Hearing these comments, one of his grandchildren answers:

Grandpa, it is not how you are thinking. None of the actions are really happening. Those are all pretension, and the shooting stuff is staged. It looks like it on the screen, but they are using fake tools. There actually is a film director who organizes all these, and there is a script that tells the actors what to say. So, they are not really sharing their private life nor they really mean what they are saying.

The grandpa listens to these astounded. He promptly blurts:

• What about the car crashes and the explosions?
• Well, those are real but not real.
• What do you mean, real but not real?
• They are actually blowing out a car, that's true. But it is a staged explosion. Nobody is actually hurt!
• That's exactly what I am saying. They are staging things for the entertainment of others. And humans are just another tool in this stage. They are spent under the image of heroism.
• No! No humans are spent. They look like dead, but they are actually not. They are doing their jobs and making money. In fact, the actors are some of the richest and most famous among the people.
• Then show me! Where are they?
• Well, they don't really mix with people much. Only on certain occasions they come out.
• Then, how are you so sure that they are actually not spent during these actions, and that whom you see on those occasions are really them and not an imitation with make-up? Have you shaken hands with them? Have you wiped their faces to ensure there is no fake face?
• No, I haven't touched them myself. And I know that they wear make-up.
• So!?! For all practical purposes, until you prove me otherwise, those motion pictures are the proof of the wickedness of the people of your time, like the cruel Romans. How unfortunate I am to wake up in such a period in history...

Oh my soul and my dear friend! The story is over. Now comes the reality of it. We wake up into this life through birth, and try to make sense of things. But just the intellect does not account for everything that the human heart comprises. Love for the existence and longing for eternity are two foremost of such things. Witnessing injustice, suffering the devastation of beauties and seeing death countless times, human soul seeks an answer from the intellect. But reason can see only within the limits of the seen. Faith is the radiotelescope that can see beyond that limit. Therefore, reason fortified with belief in God has the sharpest vision in existence. And without it, reason becomes a means of suffering. Justice, compassion and eternity are concepts that are born with conscience, and reason is the vehicle of conscience.

An Artistic Perspective on Resurrection

In this blog, I am going to keep my writing to a minimum, because I would like to leave you face to face with an art that speaks for itself.

An artist, as the name implies, is someone who continuously makes art. An artist cannot live without art. If they finish one work, they start another one. If they erase something during an artwork, that is because they want to correct or improve something. This is so, because an artist wants to mirror a beauty that is left ignored or voice a meaning that is otherwise unheard.

With this introduction, I would like to reflect on the Great Artist. He is an artist. How do we know this?

"Indeed, in the creation of the heavens and earth, and the alternation of the night and the day, and the [great] ships which sail through the sea with that which benefits people, and what Allah has sent down from the heavens of rain, giving life thereby to the earth after its lifelessness and dispersing therein every [kind of] moving creature, and [His] directing of the winds and the clouds controlled between the heaven and the earth are signs for a people who use reason."  (Quran 2/164)

"Do you not see that Allah sends down rain from the sky, and We produce thereby fruits of varying colors? And in the mountains are tracts, white and red of varying shades and [some] extremely black. And among people and moving creatures and grazing livestock are various colors similarly." (Quran 35/27-28)

"And how many a sign within the heavens and earth do they pass over while they, therefrom, are turning away." (Quran 12/105)

Really, the art gallery of earth is so vast and full of so many works of art at both macro and micro scales that even if wanted to, we would not be able to grasp its grandeur. Even if we paid close attention, we would fail to appreciate its value and fail to praise its Maker as He deserves. But, we are going to suffice with presenting to that Artist our inability to appreciate Him sufficiently. To do so, dive into the following images:

Between fire and water, behold the beauty of nature, and look in awe at its dwellers that are further works of art:

And all this is taking place silently at a corner of the universe for millions of years. Although we call it "an unknown corner", it certainly is known by hard by its Designer. It must be known by Him, because the enthralling beauty at every corner of the universe at unimaginable scales tells that there is always and always an art on display for those who are patient and dedicated enough to watch it:

"And We have placed within the heaven great stars and have beautified it for the observers." (Quran 15/16)

Now, is it possible that an Artist who loves to make art, who pursues beauty at all scales, who leaves clues to His admirers to continuously watch Him at work, who loves His creation and who makes Himself loved, would leave all of this creation in ruin and not start a new page of art?

Rather, He might display different works of His to sharpen our thirst for new beauties, to energize our hearts and that we burn to meet Him...

And, indeed:

"I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits,
and in his word I put my hope.
I wait for the Lord
more than watchmen wait for the morning,
more than watchmen wait for the morning." (Psalm 130/5-6)

"And those who strive for Us - We will surely guide them to Our ways." (Quran 29/69)