A Meaningful Existence
It’s an age old question, that
have plagued generations before me and most certainly will plague those to
follow me. Why I am here, is there any purpose to my life? What am I to do with
my life as it is now? I do not profess to have found an answer to it, nor do I
preach a ‘summum bonum’ to the readers. The question has been knocking at the
doors of by conscience and sub-conscience since my early teens and within these
years I have gone through phases of transformation. At the British Council
Library, instead of looking up a GCSE Chemistry book, I would often stand by
the ‘Philosophy section’ looking up works of Bertrand Russell. At age 16, I
picked up Russel’s History of Western Philosophy, and upon reading the chapter
on Pythagoras, came to the instant conclusion that the purpose and meaning of
life must exist in the realm of ‘mathematics’ and the domain of science in
general. Therefore, it is necessary to under understand natural sciences at the
particle level as well as astronomical level to understand the creator and its
creation. Alas that Eureka moment was
short lived. Coelho’s ‘Alchemist’ led me to the realm of omens and symbolism.
Please do not take the impression that I am an avid reader. Truly, I am not. I do
not have the mental tenacity to go though critical literature. The age of
multi-media has to some extent crippled my generation on the skill of reading.
Its simply too boring! A great source of learning for me over the years has
been the countless hours I have spent watching movies, documentaries and listening to audio books which courtesy of
the world wide web and piracy is now available at the fingertips of a boy from a third world country with
otherwise no access to such materials.
Coming back to the question, at age 15, during a month of Ramadan, as I was going to school on my car, the driver put on a waz-mahfeel by ‘Delwar Hossain Sayedee’ (by the way, he was not this heinous monster back then that seems to be common knowledge today courtesy of his conviction as war criminal serving life sentence). At first, I found the sermon rather embarrassing, I became self-conscious that no body should see me in the act of listening to something so ‘khet’. However, as the words and his powerful recitation of ‘Holy Quran’ penetrated my ears I started to ease out and pay attention to it. I had a small cassette player at home and for the next week I kept listening to the sermon again and again on ‘life after death’. By the end of that Ramadan, I fell into a state of ‘transcendental spirituality’, losing touch with the perceived sense of immediate physical reality. I vowed never to miss a rakat of salat hence forth, which at that state of mind seemed something fairly easy task to accomplish; little did I know it was not. Eid came, holidays was over , school resumed and gradually I slipped off to the mundane reality and before I knew it, I was intentionally foregoing salat and completely lost track of that spiritual side of me. I tired listening to Sayeede’s sermons again many times later, but it had no impact on me and I now find it rather hilarious than spiritually enriching. In fact it has been a roller coaster ride for me since and to this date those few days of Ramadan, the intensity of being in the zone, where you just know what you need to do, remains the most spiritual days of my life.
I have gone through phases where I have questioned whether God exists at all and whether life on planet earth is entirely meaningless. I have been inspired by Camus and Sartre’s idea of life having no inherent meaning and individuals defining their own reality within the context of their limited existence. There is no inherent ‘good’ and ‘bad’ they say, ultimately it’s a construct of man. Life is one, and you are amongst one in a billion of the current population living on planet earth today. Billons have come before you and billions will come after you. Your bedroom today will probably be a bathroom someday where some stranger takes a shit. As such my life is entirely insignificant and meaningless in the entire scheme of things; hence camus in his book ‘myth of sisyphus’ was contemplating why is it that man does not commit suicide. My life has only the meaning that I give to it in my relative context, it has no meaning to someone else. This gloom and dark view of life seems to be the message that is directly or indirectly being bombarded into our heads constantly by the popular culture. ‘Life is one’ they say, ‘ don’t have any regrets’, ‘live like a king on earth’ – these are practical manifestations of existentialist philosophy to its core.
Again I have watched countless
hours of Islamic programs in TV channels and YouTube contemplating a very
different purpose of life solely defined by Man’s spiritual connection with GOD
and the ultimate reality of transition to life after death. I have argued with
my Islamist friends about Islam and its teaching, many have been offended by my
views and asked me to refrain from reading philosophy due to its character to
confuse the mind and weaken ones ‘Iman’. Needless to say, I was not swayed by
their warning one bit. I have gone from phases where I felt rituals and strict
adherence to sunnah as unproductive, clouding ones judgment to separate good
from bad, but that is before I found Hamza Yousuf and Abdul Hakim Murad in YouTube
that completely reversed my stand on sunnah. I have no shame in admitting that
I am a half baked, half educated, self-taught student of Islam who have nothing
to contribute or teach others. Nonetheless, I felt sharing my feelings and my struggles
with others in the hope that it may clarify my own though process and can help
others who may be in a similar mental and spiritual state of confusion as I
have been for the good part of my adult life.
From a strict Islamic point of
view, the purpose of life is rather straight forward or is it ? The following
ayat is often quoted to explain purpose of life in Islam. {I have only
created jinns and humans that they may serve Me.} (Adh-Dhariyat 51:56).Note- other translations use
the word worship/ibadah in place of service. Now what is the nature of this
service/worship one may ask? Allah
is unlike man in the sense that he does not need anything from us like we may
need from our subservient. The often recited sura Ikhlas reads as follows; "He
is Allah, the One and Only. Allah is Independent of all and all are
dependent on Him.”. To
attempt to draw an analogy one may compare the nature of man’s relation with
computers. Man created computer and the computer in my household serves me in
the way I want it to perform. I need something from it. I ask it to play games,
play multimedia, check mail and it does as it is commanded by application of
binary programming. If my computer stops functioning I will be suffer due to
its absence. Surely, I can replace it with a new one, but the essential point
is that, a computer although a creation of man, is capable of affecting its
creator positively or negatively as the case may be. Now if we try to speculate
between the nature of man and its creator in light of Islam, one will observe
that it is a recurrent theme in Quran is that Allah is self-sufficient, he does not
need us, we are insignificant to him but rather it is we that need him for our sustenance.
He is our Rab (nourisher, sustainer, and provider). One may look carefully at
the ‘ayatul-kursi’ (the ayat of the throne) , 2:255 which reads as follows : “Allah! La ilaha illa Huwa (none has the right to be worshipped but
He), the Ever Living, the One Who sustains and protects all that exists.
Neither slumber, nor sleep overtake Him. To Him belongs whatever is in the
heavens and whatever is on earth. Who is he that can intercede with Him except
with His Permission? He knows what happens to them (His creatures) in this
world, and what will happen to them in the Hereafter . And they will never
compass anything of His Knowledge except that which He wills. His Kursi extends over the heavens
and the eartand He feels no fatigue in guarding and preserving them. And He is
the Most High, the Most Great.” To
my knowledge Allah has not disclosed anywhere in Quran his intentions for
creating man kind to serve any higher purpose. He is Ar-Rahman and Ar-Rahim to
us from our perspective, but it is entirely voluntary and there is no
reciprocity in this relationship.
The question therefore begs to be
asked, what is it to worship Allah then? What is it that he expects from us? it
is fairly clear from the life of our prophet Muhammad (PBUH) that Allah does
not expect a life of isolation and meditation like the Buddhist monks. We are
to live in this world, pursue the worldly aims of having a vocation, earning a
wage and raising a family. The prophet was a husband, a father, a businessman,
a politician, a spiritual leader, an army general, all under one umbrella. And
if we are to model out life on Prophet
Muhammad (PBUH) we are to do all these things also, but bearing in mind that
our sole purpose at the end of the day is to worship Allah at all material
times.
That is where I find living in
the 21st Century modern world rather challenging. I feel a consistent
dichotomy in my heart between the temporal and spiritual realm of existence.
How does an accountant carrying complex calculations over a spread sheet, or
cashier at a bank counting money all day worship Allah ? How do I worship Allah
as a lawyer, living and breathing law about 12 hours a day approximately for
the rest of my healthy moral life? One has to be highly motivated to reach the
top they say, be good at you job and attain perfection they say? And I am motivated, ambitious to be
recognized, to be good at what I do, to be taken seriously, to be rewarded for
my excellence in terms money and social recognition- this ego needs a lot of
feeding to feel good! I am the same person in evening, socializing with friends
and family at a party having idle chit chats. I am the same person at night,
playing cricket in my xbox360, completely absorbed in it, completely oblivious
to my surrounding. I am the same man that is moved by the injustice in my
society and want things to change. But I am also that man, that feels ultimately
its all meaningless, and what matters is the life after this one. At the end of
the day, if one is to live life in the modern world, one has to face this this
recurrent question – how is it that I am serving Allah in what am doing today ,
tomorrow and for the next year to follow ? Often it is suggested by scholars
that to serve Allah means to abide by the commands or rulings and injunctions
prescribed by Allah in the Holy Quran and illustrated in the sunnah of the
prophet. Proponents of ‘personal Islam’
therefore take the view that as long you are performing you daily prayers,
keeping the mandatory fasts, doing the fards, keeping away from the prescribed
harams, you are fine. What else you do with you life at most of the waking
hours of the day is therefore not relevant to you piety. Just make sure, you
are not doing something haram.
I find this black and white distinction,
of basing you Godliness on the basis of ‘dos and ‘don’t’s of Islam rather
limiting. In any case it does not give you any guidelines or direction as to
the meaning and purpose of your life. You are then left to you own devices
again to find your purpose or calling in life based on the secular methods of
determination. Therefore, it is inadequate to define life’s meaning and purpose
form an Islamic perspective based on do’s and don’t or ones tenacity to follow
the sharia to the letter. Does Islam therefore, give us something more comprehensive,
a more detailed guideline to find out true calling in life? or shall we resort
back to existentialist mode of discovery to find ones calling purely form ones
relative point of view divorced from perceived objectivity of society in any
time and place.
I have perhaps dragged on for long with this piece for and
perhaps I am starting to bore you now (if you are still reading that is). So I will end it abruptly here without
trying to draw a conclusion. Frankly, I am in search of the conclusion myself.
