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Amazon
Category:
Religion
Publisher: Ansar Books
ISBN-10: 0692403620
Type: Non-Fiction
Pages: 286
Copyright: April 8, 2015
ISBN-13: 9780692403624
Price: $8.95 (eBook)
A sweeping introduction into various aspects of Islamic Studies, including Islamic culture and spirituality.
A comprehensive introduction to Islam, including such topics as the origin of the religion, the descent of the Quran, Islamic Science, Science in the Quran, Islamic Spirituality, the Five Duties of Islam, including prayer and fasting, and Quranic recitation as holy worship.
Excerpt
Epilogue
Challenge and Crisis
Rhetorical questions can be like boomerangs. They are sent out into the void of this world only to come back to us with surprising answers from another world that haunt our waking moments with their persistent message. A book such as this should ultimately answer rather than ask timely questions. We have ended this work on an unexpected note, however, by asking rather than answering one final question that echoes across the pages like the melancholy sound of a solitary horn recalling distant memories and forgotten sentiments.
We ask it because the Religion of Islam avoids no questions that have a right to be asked, but we cannot answer it without betraying the mandate of every individual to expose the meaning of their lives in light of the Mystery of the Unseen (al-ghaib) that confronts people every day of their lives. Certain questions are not answered by the brain, but are lived and experienced in the heart. Indeed, we carry all such questions within us as a remembrance of the perennial mystery that lies at the heart of the life experience. The answer lies not in words but in life itself. Great ideas begin with the human mind; great societies begin with a worldview that makes sense on simple levels; great worldviews begin with individuals attempting to come to terms with the mystery of life, involving people that are willing to follow a path of return, such as we find in the Religion of Islam, in order to reach their true destination and final end in the light of God’s truth.
In many ways, the writing of this book has been like taking a journey up to the threshold of a door, to the edge of the world, “through the unknown, remembered gate” that leads to a renewed understanding of time, of nature, and of humanity, in order to uncover the essential knowledge of God in a variety of forms of revelation that must be the natural consequence of who we truly are.
While there appears to be a broad chasm separating the two dominant perspectives of traditional Islam and modern science during the modern era, the paradigm of modern science and the Religion of Islam have much in common upon which to build a new consensus of opinion that could reflect both the outer and inner aspirations of the vast majority of the contemporary people across the globe. These worldviews are, in a sense, two halves of the same truth and two sides of the same horizon; the venue of science being the outer, externalized and fully manifested world of nature, namely the lower order of the creation; the venue of traditional religion being the inner, internalized and fully spiritualized world of the supernatural, namely the higher order of the creation and the metaphysical principles associated with that creation.
If we are ever to achieve an intellectual revolution that can reach both the minds and hearts of the vast majority of modern and contemporary individuals, it must emerge from the cooperation and interaction of both modern science and the great spiritual traditions of the world. It will never come to pass if individuals who are in a position to influence the prevailing, contemporary thinking remain entrenched with a rigid and formulaic bias and take part in an intellectual framework that refuses to allow influences from other spheres of perception, to shed light on the perennial and universal mysteries that follow us like our shadows.
Perhaps the identity crisis that the modern world faces is nothing more than a challenge to meet the moment with true intelligence and heart knowledge grounded in the higher instincts and emotions of an enlightened spirituality. Beyond the threshold of this new millennium there may well exist a completely new scientific paradigm of knowledge that could be identified once again as a "sacred science" based on universal principles that would project a considerably different worldview from the one we have today. It wouldn't necessarily exclude the rich and enduring knowledge of the world religions, including their social and cultural traditions, their philosophy of life, and their sacred art, and it would definitely include the scientific facts that have been "proven" on their own level and according to the strict norms of the scientific method. The religions need a science of nature, a sacred science if you will, that could faithfully apply its metaphysical principles within the realm of nature, in order to understand the natural order in the light of the revealed truths that religions such as Islam protect and preserve. Similarly, modern science needs a philosophy of knowledge which could provide the conceptual and religious framework within which a natural science of phenomena could operate and flourish.
Sacred history has repeatedly warned that the decline and death of great civilizations has happened before and can happen again unless modern societies can bring themselves to combine the metaphysical principles of traditional knowledge with the rational discoveries of scientific knowledge. An enlightened being would learn to integrate the available knowledge of both worlds in order to develop certain potentialities and foster certain virtues in the spirit of a true evolution of consciousness that doesn't negate the defining qualities of humanity. This higher consciousness would cultivate the human potential to achieve knowledge of self and to realize this knowledge by living in harmony with our true nature and the natural world in which we live.
Is this possible? Who can say what the future will bring? The Divine Plan will make itself known, as it has always been made known, without the help or hindrance of ambitious and arrogant people here on earth. On the contrary, modern individuals need the mercy and blessing of the Divinity and rely on His sustained munificence, both now and in the future, to lead humanity toward an uncertain future and guide all seekers of true knowledge through the deepest mysteries of the universe.
Two final considerations bear mentioning within this context before we finally take our leave. Firstly, modern science need not necessarily close itself off from other levels of perception that may shed light on its professed objective to find a “theory of everything” that can serve as a universal knowledge to identify the true nature of reality. The knowledge that modern scientists seek in the distant regions of outer space and the answers they endeavor to find within the cellular life of the human body may lie, not in the mirage of distant galaxies and swarming microbes, but in an alternative medium that lies outside the spectrum of a purely physical reality.
Secondly, in the pursuit of a scientific inquiry since the time of the Renaissance, the scientific community has developed and brought to a rarefied level of expertise the five human senses through which scientists have explored nearly every aspect of nature, uncovering along the way the very seams of the world. Mankind sees and listens, but such seeing and listening do not encompass merely the physical plane of existence. There also exist extended perceptions that transcend the purely physical and corporeal experiences for a higher intuition that begins as faith and ends in certitude.
The call of the world and the call of the Spirit are the two halves of a single truth that cannot find their truest expression as isolated parts separated from the Whole. The open gate of the inner faculties, the feeling of expectation, of a hidden inner voice, of promises to be fulfilled and hopes to be realized are all there, in a sacred niche within our consciousness that we preserve as the expression of our inmost selves. It is the higher faculties of humanity that receive the essential knowledge of God and perceive the meaning of the one Reality in order to create an external life that reflects the inner person who lives it. The passing of days, the change of seasons, the success of people, the construction of all the churches and mosques across the earth, the accumulation of friends, money and fame are one and the same within the context of the world. They happen, they have their place, and then they crumble and are forgotten. The world endures and continues to turn on its axis.
From beginning to end and from periphery to center, the time-place continuum of the world is a boundary of God’s prerogative and not man’s. Plants and animals experience the gift of life within certain limits, but they do not know God. We share the life of the senses with all animals and we share the experience of our bodies with the minerals and plants. We have other qualities and faculties that we share with no one beyond the human species, namely an intelligence that can envision the Supreme Intelligence and a consciousness that can respond to the lure of the Absolute and know the Divinity. The more we fail to attune ourselves to the knowledge of God and His unique Reality, the more we begin to think we can live a life that is sufficient unto itself and without the aid of Heaven. The more we fail to recognize, indeed the more we actively deny, the forms of the eternal wisdom that are embedded within revelation, within the world of nature and within man, the more we confine ourselves to the intellectual, psychological and sentient modes of perception, and the more we become the victims of a fragmented intelligence, a fanciful imagination, a wealth of unstable emotions, and a subjective perception of right and wrong, true and false, illusory and real.
We have written this book for the modern individual within each of us, transforming ourselves once again into the spiritual beings that we are in principle and are destined to be in truth. People today live in the world now as if they will live here forever, without realizing that the world we live for will terminate and we will be forgotten. What we need to live for and defend against all odds is the world of the Spirit in which all things are possible and where all mystery is resolved. It is a world in which the intellect receives a higher knowledge and intelligence sends forth its light, a world in which reason casts a shadow and the human heart burns with the emotions of higher sentiment. The world of the spirit contains the source material for the broad range of higher conscious experience. It makes use of spiritual imagination that is the search instrument of the soul in its endeavor to expand the horizons of the mind and in its quest to internalize the essential knowledge of God.
As the ultimate spiritual treasure, the spark of knowledge that inspired human faith in God becomes an internalized knowledge that will erase personal history and return the human soul to the primordial self. The wise person embedded in Homo sapiens will finally realize that he is not alone, that there is meaning in holy intimacy, that he has lived according to the truth of his given nature, and that the truth he has always searched for and finally found has made itself felt as the experience of the one Reality, in this world as well as in the paradisal world that is promised. This and much more is a message that came to a desert Bedouin over 15 centuries ago in the black hills of Arabia Felix, a message that echoes in our ears to this day and will continue to reverberate through future generations until the end of time.
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