WHEN IGNORANCE BECOMES THE NEW TRUTH

By Muhammad Nadeem

Once upon a time, a pumpkin plant grew near an old Oak tree. The tree was huge, its roots deep buried in the past. The pumpkin plant grew fast in full bloom; white and yellow flower buds, round and orange pumpkins and lush green leaves dancing in the spring breeze.

When the pumpkin plant reached the prime of its youth, it spoke to the old Oak tree. “You’re so old, it said, “It must have taken you centuries to grow. You are so outdated. I doubt one even likes you or takes pleasure in your sight. You occupy so much space and what do you offer to nature and humans in return? We are the food and the fruit now. We grow in no time and look what a sight to see.”The old Oak tree remained silent.

Autumn came. The old Oak tree spoke. ‘Au revoir’, it said to the pumpkin plant whose leaves were now withered and pumpkins preserved for Halloween by the local farmers. What remained was washed away by the harsh winter rains and dark winds. There was no sign of the plant anymore. The old Oak tree was there, waiting to be green again.

Jahl, ignorance, is the opposite of two things;i- Ilm (Knowledge)ii- Aql (mind, intellect, reason).Aql, in Arabic, also means to restrain or to control. In a literal sense, it means ‘self-control’ so Jahl also means ‘to have no self-control’.

Jahilliyah comes in various forms— Zannul Jahilliyah (assumptions based on ignorance), Tabarujul Jahilliyah (beautification of or based on ignorance), Hammiyatul Jaahilliyah (support based on ignorance) and Hukmul Jahilliyah (decisions, verdicts, judgments based on ignorance).

Sometimes, assumptions and thinking based on ignorance give birth to an ideology that is then made attractive, beautified to gain support en masse. It becomes a new standard of morality in a society. Ignorance becomes the new truth. The truth and light of the idea are turned into the lie and darkness of ideology. The ideologies based on ignorant assumptions, no matter how beautiful to modern eyes, never sustain long.

In the West, sexual liberation began in the 1960’s with a standard understanding of what should happen. Sexual liberation would mean that people will be freed to have more of the sort of sex they really liked i.e. sex with more partners and with less embarrassment. Sexual liberation, while driven by a desire to free people of moralistic judgment, ended up putting the society in a new kind of straitjacket.

Now, just after half a century, on one hand being a virgin is considered a shame while on the other hand, women auction their virginity online. The highest bidder wins the game.In China, there are websites to hire fake boyfriends. Families feel ashamed if their daughters are young yet single. So, those who are single or want to remain single hire, fake boyfriends, online. Shame continues. Stigma, too. It just changed its target.

In media, one such standard is beautified like this;

‘If people, I don’t even know, look at me and want to f**k me, it means I really have a shot at being a model, which is great. Because there is nothing worse than being ordinary.’—Angela Hayes, in American Beauty

Naomi Wolf, whose ‘revolutionary book’ The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women is believed to initiate the Third Wave of Feminism. In The Sunday Morning Herald Wolf writes:

“The West interprets veiling as repression of women and suppression of their sexuality. But when I traveled in Muslim countries and was invited to join a discussion in women-only setting within Muslim homes, I learned that Muslim attitudes toward women’s appearance and sexuality are not rooted in repression but in a strong sense of public versus private, of what is due to God and what is due to one’s husband. It is not that Islam suppresses sexuality, but it embodies a strongly developed sense of its appropriate channeling — toward marriage, the bonds that sustain family life, and the attachment that secures a home.”

Designed to sound logical, Muslims too, fall prey.  They take pride in identifying themselves as feminists, communists, nationalists, agnostics, atheists and what not. They think (rather believe) Islam is incomplete, imperfect and not compatible with the 21^st century.

It can happen because of the insidious, specious fallacy of these ideologies. They base their verdicts not by studying and understanding the basic Islamic texts but on the offenses of Muslims. Some Muslims want to live in a circle, or in a class of people where Muslims are not accepted or respected. So, instead of changing themselves, they tend to change the religion in order to get accepted and respected by seculars and liberals.

Those with pure conscience and intellect, in the end, have always come to the conclusion that Islam is more a need than a question of choice. Islam is not only a religion but primarily the principle of the organization of the universe. Islam existed before man and it is, as the Qur'an explicitly states, a principle by which man was created. Islam is a way of living rather than a way of thinking.

In his book, Islam Between East and West, Alija Izetbegovic writes:

‘Modern man's narrow-mindedness is best shown in his belief that there is no riddle before him. His wisdom is the sum of his knowledge and his ignorance, of which he is not aware, he accepts it as knowledge. Even in the face of the greatest mystery, he behaves self-consciously and conceitedly. He does not even see the problem. It is in this that the true measure of his ignorance and prejudice is manifested.’

The meaning of art, philosophy, and religion is to direct man's attention to riddles, secrets, and questions. It sometimes leads to a certain knowledge but more often to an awareness of ignorance or to transforming our ignorance of which we are not aware into ignorance of which we are aware. This is the dividing line between the ignorant and the wise. Sometimes both of them know very little about some question, but the ignorant, contrary to the wise, takes his ignorance as knowledge and behaves accordingly.

We cannot explain life by scientific means only because life is both a miracle and a phenomenon. Wonder and admiration are the highest forms of our understanding of life.

One doesn’t have to be a scholar to understand the difference between what Islam preaches and what Muslims do. Not everything a Muslim or a Muslim society does is Islamic. Sometimes Muslims do completely opposite to what Islam stands for. It is not the fault neither the failure of Islam but of those who, knowingly or unknowingly, fail to live up to its teachings.

Islam doesn’t prevent one to take what is good in any religion or philosophy or ideology— be it oriental or occidental in nature. Good, here, means something that does not contradict or go against Islam, Qur’an, and Sunnah. Either whatever good there is in any ideology, is already present in Islam or that good is also good in the sight of Islam. If it contradicts the teachings of Islam, Qur’an, and Sunnah it neither is good nor truth. It just will be ignorance and evil beautified and veiled in the illusion of truth.

Islam is less a way of thinking, more a way of living. We live in a time where Muslims feel proud when a famous Non-Muslim praises Islam. Everyone with intellect can recognize the truth and beauty of Islam but to make their quotes the evidence of the truth of Islam is childish. The truth remains true even if no one believes in it. It never was the criteria that truth is the only truth when accepted by people. Refusing the truth is not its failure but the failure of those who refuse to believe in it. That’s the beauty of it.

Islam, from the very beginning, was the target of such ideologies based on ignorance. In Mecca, there was Quraish. Then the Munafiqoon and Jews of Medina. The superpowers of the time attacked Islam and failed. If one happens to check the Index of books published post 9/11, no religion but Islam is followed by the sub-categorization of Islamic Terrorism. There is no entry like Christian Terrorism or Hindu Terrorism.

No matter. Islam is the fastest growing religion on the face of the earth. From Tatars and Crusades to the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Islam like the old Oak tree has sustained it all. These ideologies— these new standards of morals, intellect, and honor —are all like the pumpkin plants. Come winter, the old Oak tree, as always have been─ will continue to witness the death of these pumpkin ideologies based on ignorance.