بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful, whose name does not harm anything in the heavens and the earth, a name which, mentioned at the beginning of each undertaking, is a key to unlocking its blessings. And blessings be upon our master, Muhammad, who was sent as a mercy to all the worlds, and blessings and peace be also upon all of his family and companions.
With these words I begin, in a deliberately traditional way, a topic which is a contemplation of two different worlds (or paradigms), those of tradition and of modernity. The aim is to make explicit how, even for believers, the starry heavens of tradition have been dimmed by the harsh glare of modernity.
There are few people on this planet not impacted by modernity or its later development post-modernity. Its worldview is affecting the worldview of the traditional believer, changing not only our way of life but our very thoughts, beliefs and spirits. We have nostalgia for the past, and fear the future, yet few of us believe that we can go back or that going back would be desirable. However, Allah promises us in the Qur’an that he wishes to guide us to the ways of the people before us. This gives us hope that we can heal ourselves and our society, so that we might have the best of both worlds. After all, Muslims recite the prayer in the Qur’an,
ربنا آتينا في الدنيا حسنة و في الاخرة حسنة وقنا عذاب النار
O Our Lord, give us the good in this world and in the afterlife, and protect us from the punishment of the Fire. (2:201)
What have we lost with the coming of the modern age? We have lost our souls. Materialism does not allow for the existence of a spiritual dimension. There are a number of significant consequences to this which affect believers as well as atheists and agnostics. Firstly, the secularisation of the concept of the human being has meant that the human sciences ha vedeveloped independently from religion. Thus psychology – the science of the soul – means “mental” health,. Solutions for human unhappiness focus upon improving physical health, social relationships, goal setting and more helpful thought processes. These are no doubt helpful, but religion teaches that a human being only finds true happiness when one is in harmony with and connected to the divine. A human being who is alienated from the divine, disappointed in life, riddled with guilt and despair may not find sufficient solace in joining a yoga class and going to six counselling sessions with an adviser who is not trained to get to the root of his malaise.
Yet the Qur’an warns us that without faith, life will wear us down.
والعصر إن الإنسان في في خسر إلا الذين عملوا الصالحات و تواضوا بالحق و تواصوا بالصبر
By time, indeed the human being is in loss, except those who do good deeds and advise each other with truth and advise each other with patience. (103)
Similarly, when it comes to developing character, there is not a clear enough emphasis upon the need for virtue. So we talk about the need to make our children cooperative and productive for example – but what value has cooperation and productivity unless it is cooperation towards producing good things? A lot of the time in character education the traditional virtues are not even mentioned but are replaced with whatever characteristic an educationalist currently finds most lacking – such as resilience. Some virtues have been abandoned – chastity, for example. Our aspirations have shrunk – we no longer aspire to nobleness of character, virtue and honour, but merely to being a caring citizen. Yet Aristotle taught that happiness (eudaemonia) was found in living a virtuous life.
It might be argued that the Victorians with their talk of virtues and honour were huge hypocrites, and abandoning their language is merely an attempt to become a less hypocritical society. However, the point of virtues is not that they are something which everybody possesses, but that they are something to aspire towards. Nowadays, we are great believers in exposing and denouncing hypocrisy and it has made us very cynical as well as turning us away from even trying to improve. I have heard people say that they are not religious because “I don’t want to be a hypocrite,” as if religious practice were a state of instant perfection rather than a remedy for the sick. Islam is strongly critical of hypocrisy, yet still it respects the veiling of faults of oneself and others, not least because exposing them encourages others to do the same thing. Al-Ghazali talked of hypocrisy as being the shell around the nut. It is not edible or valuable in itself, but it protects the nut within. There is a Muslim saying that before saying anything one should check whether it is necessary, true or kind. If it is not at least 2 out of 3, it should not be said. It is fortunate for us that we still believe in kindness.
There is another danger, which is that the spiritual dimension is real, and if we pretend that it isn’t then we expose ourselves to danger because we reject the protection given by prayers, ablution and other practices, and do not realise the negative impact upon us of doing, listening to and watching things which are corrupting us. We generally no longer think that the things we do day-to-day can have an impact on our core human nature and beliefs, but they can.
Secondly, we have stopped viewing the world as ‘aalam – something filled with signs, through which the divine is known – and confined our knowledge of it to dunya -matter. We formerly navigated by the stars, and were aware of the symbolism of being guided by heaven. Now we send up our own satellites, and use GPS. The stars appear dimmed by our activities. We have cut ourselves off from the divine and disenchanted the world. We no longer see other humans and all things in creation as sentient creatures which belong to our Lord, but as things which have evolved by chance. This opens the door to devaluing creation; no longer a sacred trust, instead a mere resource, it is more vulnerable to being exploited.
Moreover, we do not hope for or fear divine intervention in the world and become overly worried about causes. If we do not rely upon God, then we have to rely upon ourselves, and we know in our hearts that we are just not up to the job. If we forget one thing or make one wrong decision – then everything could be ruined. It is too big a responsibility for us – no wonder we are stressed!
Whereas religion teaches submission to God, modernity is rebellious, denying absolute truth, and arguing for moral relativism and the construction of knowledge. It has enabled the growth a cacophony of voices wanting to challenge and overturn every old certainty, question every rule (should art be beautiful? Should music be harmonious?) and to make permissible what was impermissible. We have been facilitated in this by technological developments that make possible things that were impossible to past peoples.
The loss of hierarchy means that tradition, revelation, authority can no longer be appealed to as evidence. Everybody’s opinion is as good as another’s and where principles are abandoned, emotion becomes as good a guide as any. Science has opened up vast vistas in the skies above, but materialism has shrunk the spiritual distance of the heavens as rank is less and less respected. We are less and less formal, place much less emphasis on manners, and show each other less respect because we no longer agree that good manners are any more worthy of adoption than any other form of social code.
Another thing is that the new God is the marketplace, and rational economic man is extremely selfish. One example of a critique of how materialism has flattened morality in the field of economics see the starry heavens above and the moral law within: on the flatness of economics, Mirakhor (2014) The On Being Project in the US has the praiseworthy aim to treat the religious and spiritual aspects of life as seriously as we treat politics and economics, in order to promote social healing and learning to be human.
The most obvious and huge difference between us and the pre-modern age is the use of technology. Technology has enabled the development of complex systems which we are increasingly dependent upon. Muhammad Shahrawi observed that the more numerous and sophisticated the causes which deliver goods and services to us, the more we are away from Allah. If one is a farmer in the Middle Ages, and the rains fail, then the farmer will turn to Allah. But if in the modern age, that same farm is supplied with irrigated water from the water board which has a vast complex of pipes and reservoir system, and the water fails, then will the farmer turn to Allah first or to the water board?
At the same time, technology has given us the illusion of greatness because nowadays we can do all the things that were done by magic in the tales of the Middle Ages, using technology. This in itself is dangerous hubris that leads us to think we are independent of Allah. Yet, in addition this technology is enthralling us and changing the way we think to make us think more like machines to serve the logic of the machine. Yet no matter how much technology develops, it cannot create a perfect society with no problems, and we need to use it for useful purposes and not to become its slave.
This is a call to to re-sacralize our view of reality and to rediscover awe and respect, in order to heal our humanity and our world.
