Renaissance - 1

The longest part of our lives that passes in utter darkness is in our mother's womb. At a time when we are not even aware of ourselves, when we are not able to take care of any need of ours, we are treated perfectly, fostering our development. And we forget all of this story when we transition from the world of darkness to the "world of light", where we continue growing physically, mentally and spiritually. In the world of light, we see things that are beyond the imagination we had when in the realm of darkness. However, as time passes, the world of light itself becomes a veil for other things.

Just like sun makes the stars invisible, the immensity of the life events flood our conscience, and we hardly ever remember our beginning. Losing ties with our roots veils our vision that has the power to show us our Compassionate Creator. Whether we see Him or not, though, our Creator is Compassionate and Wise. He guides us through ways we are not aware of. When the adventure is over, however, we can see the intricacies of our journey, which brings us face to face with our Lord. Until then, that is until our arrival to the realm of the light, we need to act according to the rules of the game in darkness. In this article, I want to share my thoughts on one aspect of the game of darkness. But first, why darkness, in the first place?

In our lives, night is the time of darkness. This darkness is the time for resting, rejuvenating, and intimacy with your loved ones. Even for your relationship with God, your worship during the night is the most effective. Darkness is an end to everything that blocks us from thinking. It is a wall against all the turmoil of current events that blind us towards the big picture. Darkness is the birth place of tomorrow. Darkness is the womb in which new creations of God incubate.

When the dawn breaks, when the sleep is over, a new life begins. So, being a person of constant renewal, believers must use their free wills and all faculties to conceive a new tomorrow, where they are going to enjoy the fresh surprises of the destiny. Failing to do so and copying yesterday to tomorrow is the recipe for death, be it physiologically, mentally or spiritually. Evolution is the distinctive property of those alive. Then, what are the new actions for tomorrow? What is the timeless lesson from yesterday? And what is old and outdated?

Mental Fasting

Ramadan is nearing. Traditionally, the fasting during this month is perceived in terms of eating and spirituality. Not negating these interpretations, I think we need to do a mental fasting, as well, in order to develop a better understanding of where we are, how we came here and where we are headed.

In scientific studies, fasting is proven to enhance "garbage cleaning and recycling" in the cells. Even cancerous cell elimination becomes more efficient with fasting. Extreme hunger towards the evening triggers mechanisms in the brain similar to the fight-or-flight, but for a longer duration, so that new connections are established between the brain cells, improving perception.

If we project this biological concept to mental realms, we see a confirmation of what has been taught in the ancient philosophies. Staying away from the daily chores and from the stream of irrelevant news, you can clean from your memory what is not necessary and better see what is necessary.  Knowing that memory is not a particular compartment of the brain but rather a network of cells distributed all around the brain, you can realize that the mental cleaning can eliminate extra burdens from your brain in general. Remember, "neurons that wire together fire together, and neurons that fire together wire together". So, blocking some of these due to information surge automatically disrupts the performance of other functions undertaken by them.

Then let's think about the ocean of information that is deluging our brains: local news, national news, international news, politics, sports, arts, work, family, new products, children, social media, online videos, etc. If you think about these, you will quickly see that these can be categorized according to the famous "urgent/non-urgent and essential/non-essential" criteria. Some of them need daily follow-up, whereas some other need weekly or even monthly. Their really tangible impacts on our lives are also over a wide span. But treating them all as urgent and essential lessens our ability to fulfill the requirements of the really urgent and essentials. In this regard, making a categorization and acting accordingly, furthermore, reducing the size of our "non-urgent + non-essential" box, we can revitalize our memory and other brain functions.

Let's take this concept one step further. Your brain is the communication device between you and your Creator. Yes, in the common culture, due to its intangible nature, communication with God is allocated to "the heart", but Quran clearly tells that this notion is actually a function of the brain (thinking heart, e.g. 7/179, 47/24), which agrees with the modern findings about the brain. So, just like your occupation with the social media, business affairs, current events, etc. interfere with your relationship with your family and others around you, the same things interfere with your communication with your Creator, too.

From scientific studies, we know that such choking level of submerging in the immediate things around you take a toll on your ability to be patient, to see the big picture, to memorize and to learn. The way to alleviate these side effects, your brain needs to be relieved of useless burdens, i.e. mental fasting. By the same token, you can sharpen your ears towards what your Lord is telling you through mental fasting. By stopping the information bombardment in the daily life, you can silence the non-essentials. Then you can open your ears towards your Lord and hear what used to get lost in the noise. With this fresh hearing ability, you can read nature and the universe, they can become friends with you or teachers for you, as they are signs/verses of God. With your enhanced hearing and perception, you can also read and understand the Quran anew. Having acquired the power of the Quran, you can time-travel, and establish a unique connection with the last messenger of God, as if you were living in his time.

Slaughter Your Gods

It is narrated that during the idol worshiping period of the Arabs before Islam, they used to make idols from edible materials and worship them. Later, when they got hungry, they would eat them. So, expressions like make your god, carry your god, break your god, eat your god were completely rational for them. A similar situation occurred for the Israelites both before and after they escaped the grip of pharaoh with the help of God. When they were under the rule of the pharaoh, they treated him as their ultimate protector and lord, although he treated them as disposable slaves. After they witnessed so many miracles and were saved from the oppression, the Israelites reverted to an idol. Despite being narrations of the past, Quran repeatedly reminds its readers these and similar events as timeless realities (for example 6/74; 7/138; 29/17,25; 53/19-20). Why?

Although the word god is being used excessively in cartoons and movies, implying a human-like nature with only superior properties, one actually does not become a god. You are either god, or you are not. That is growing and improving are aspects for those other than God, because there is no end to the attributes of God. Plus, if you are God, you are the god whether the creatures call you so or not. Therefore, there is an unbreachable gap between god and God (112/1-4). Why am I telling these obvious facts? Simply because in daily life, we humans ascribe a status of "functional deity" to things other than God. If this sounds too far-fetched to you, know that the same phenomenon is traditionally referred to as shirk in the attributes of God, which is classified as minor shirk. So, let's explore this concept a little more.

A believer is someone who admits the unity of God with conviction. Conversely, a person who admits multiple creators at work is one who commits shirk in the person of God, hence the major shirk. It is very easy to determine this major problem. Minor shirk, on the other hand, is not as easy to determine, because on the outside, you see a believer! Inside that believer's heart, however, there is the insidious disease of minor shirk.

Why do we need to reveal something that is hidden in the hearts? Well, this is, indeed, an issue primarily for the involved people, themselves. Nevertheless, actions committed by such people affect us in our lives. Plus, how do we know that we are completely free from such flaws? So, we need to be aware of this situation in order to protect ourselves and to help each other in our belief journeys. And that's perhaps why the Quran is constantly talking about the hypocrites and the hidden diseases of the heart, and giving the examples of Arabs and Israelites as timeless facts. Accordingly, even if you are not a conscious and/or deliberate idol worshiper, in order to avoid the various forms of minor shirk, you need to monitor yourself and your actions. If you determine something alarming, relieve your heart of the burden of holding onto entities other than God; hence the title of this article.

And he who rejecteth false deities and believeth in Allah hath grasped a firm handhold which will never break. Allah is Hearer, Knower. (2/256)

Whoever submits his whole self to Allah, and is a doer of good, has grasped indeed the most trustworthy hand-hold: and with Allah rests the End and Decision of (all) affairs. (31/22)

And whoever fears Allah - He will make for him a way out. And He provides for him from (sources) he never could imagine. And if any one puts his trust in Allah, sufficient is (Allah) for him. For Allah will surely accomplish his purpose: verily, for all things has Allah appointed a due proportion. (65/2-3)

Now, let's read from the Quran the part of the Israelites' story about the idol worshiping. It begins with Moses pbuh meeting with God, where He tells Moses that his people went astray during his absence. Disappointed and angry about his people, he returns and sees them with the calf statue.

And Aaron had already told them before [the return of Moses], "O my people, you are only being tested by it, and indeed, your Lord is the Most Merciful, so follow me and obey my order." They said, "We will never cease being devoted to the calf until Moses returns to us." (20/90-91) Then Moses returned to his people in a state of anger and sorrow. He said: "O my people! Did not your Lord promise you a fair promise? Did then the promise seem to you long in coming? Or did you desire that wrath should descend from your Lord on you, so you broke your promise to me?" They said, "We did not break our promise to you by our will, but we were made to carry burdens from the ornaments of the people, so we threw them [into the fire], and thus did the Samiri throw." And he extracted for them [the statue of] a calf which had a lowing sound, and they said, "This is your god and the god of Moses, but he forgot." (20/86-88)

 At this point, God introduces a litmus paper that functions as a timeless lesson to clarify and educate the hearts:

Did they not see that it could not return to them any speech and that it did not possess for them any harm or benefit?  (20/89)

Later, in order to teach this lesson and to reduce the chances of return to misguidance, God orders the Israelites to slaughter a cow. This order weighs extremely heavy on them, because they are expected to destroy by their very hands something, which until a little ago they treated as god.

And [recall] when Moses said to his people, "Indeed, Allah commands you to slaughter a cow." They said, "Do you take us in ridicule?" He said, "I seek refuge in Allah from being among the ignorant." They said, "Call upon your Lord to make clear to us what it is." [Moses] said, "[Allah] says, 'It is a cow which is neither old nor virgin, but median between that,' so do what you are commanded." They said, "Call upon your Lord to show us what is her color." He said, "He says, 'It is a yellow cow, bright in color - pleasing to the observers.' " They said, "Call upon your Lord to make clear to us what it is. Indeed, [all] cows look alike to us. And indeed we, if Allah wills, will be guided." He said, "He says, 'It is a cow neither trained to plow the earth nor to irrigate the field, one free from fault with no spot upon her.' " They said, "Now you have come with the truth." So they slaughtered her, but they could hardly do it. And [recall] when you slew a man and disputed over it, but Allah was to bring out that which you were concealing. So, We said, "Strike the slain man with part of it." Thus does Allah bring the dead to life, and He shows you His signs that you might reason. Then your hearts became hardened after that, being like stones or even harder. For indeed, there are stones from which rivers burst forth, and there are some of them that split open and water comes out, and there are some of them that fall down for fear of Allah. And Allah is not unaware of what you do.(2/67-73)

Of course, with the death of that cow, an artificial wall between God and people was removed. What's more, people did this destruction themselves, and God granted them power and authority on the land after this event. Such chain of events is quite interesting. God, Himself, can destroy the idol (be them human or non-human), but He wants the humans to abandon them, because only then, their hearts are going to truly find God and build trust towards Him (also read Causality Worshiping). Otherwise, if people don't take any action and if God destroys the idols, this means:

1. people failed to do what's expected of  them;
2. since God gives respite to people, He is going to wait until an appointed time, and until then, people are going to suffer the consequences of clinging to false and/or functional deities; 
3. they lost the chance of great rewards both in this world and in the next;
4. the only gain for people when God destroys the idols is a temporary freedom from false gods. It is temporary, because they still have the instinct to make or acquire idols, which is going to manifest itself sooner or later.

In short, anything and everything that is assuming a position between you and God needs to be removed from your heart and mind so that you are purified in your faith and so that your actions are reflective of that purity in faith. Otherwise, you are going to be creating your own hell in the hands of "your gods". Last but not the least, if you abandon false gods, make sure that you take irreversible actions in your life so that you can not revert to those other than God.

Thousand Years Late!

Had Prophet Muhammad pbuh lived today, would he be understood differently? Given that culture is a major filter and modifier of our perception, the answer to this question is a definite "yes". Let's repeat the same question for other great messengers of God, for example Jesus pbuh and Moses pbuh; would their teachings be understood differently, had they lived among us today? Again, the answer is "yes". Then, which understanding is more accurate and pleasing to God? The one that we received through the lens of various cultures and history or the one that we would acquire without interference?

The answer to this question is not that straightforward for everyone. If you are someone with little or no relation with religion or if you are religious but have tendency for critical thinking, you would undoubtedly go with the direct acquisition. If, on the other hand, you are someone of religious affiliation, things are more complicated. First possibility is that you would have mixed thoughts. Why? On one side, your reason would say that being the direct addressee of a messenger of God is the way to go. On another side, you would ask "is there a difference", since the companions who lived with the messengers of God were also select individuals who did their best in imbibing and conveying the messengers' teachings. Second possibility for a person of religious affiliation is that you would not question in any way what has already happened, since they all have been designed and created with the perfect wisdom of the All-Mighty God. Who are we to question its alternatives? What happened is what happened, and it's the best of what could happen!

If you think of the Islamic history, you can come to the conclusion that the second group depicted above are the majority and dominant. Even today, this situation prevails. If you dig deep enough, if a person is religious, they may utter words like sharia and necessity of a religious order, etc. If you dig deeper, it would turn out that many of such people do not really know what they are saying. What's worse, they would not know what's a clear order of God and what's a practice of people that is disguised as an order of God over time. This is why some scholars say "if those people learn about what they are saying, they would run away from it or they would fail in the system they are hailing."

Consider those who have received a share of the Book. When they refer to the Book in order to judge amongst themselves, a group of them turn away with disregard. (3/23)

Nevertheless, ignorance is bliss! You just keep some words in your mouth, but you continue your life as the circumstances require. If asked, you defend yourself saying "I am not a scholar". If you ask the scholars, they say "I am not qualified enough to override the legacy of the prophet and his companions". As a result, a legacy that contains the reception of the word of God and life of His messenger is photocopied without real critical thought. This is how we are still suffering from certain troubles, even after 1400 years.

A major one of such troubles is "being power centered". This notion is expressed as, but in crude words, power worshiping. Although this crude description needs some tailoring, it points at some serious essentials as well. In Islam, worshiping anyone other than God is shirk, and is reason for you to fall out of the confines of Islam. In daily life, a believer may not do such a thing, but if they act in a way that hails the authority or power of something above God's, this is called minor shirk, and is still a problem that needs to be addressed. The funny thing is what I just told is exactly what a complete traditionalist/conservative believer would tell you in order to justify their yearning for a religious order involving the practices that have never really been questioned for the past thousand years. But what they fail to see is that by not critically thinking and by not trying to become a direct addressee of God, they are treating the human practices at the same level as the word of God, which is a form of minor shirk!

When you read the Quran, no where would you come across with a command to establish a government that dictates religious orders. Rather, you would see commands to stop evil and to race for the good. In this context, state or politics can be one way of stopping the evil and doing good, but they are definitely not the only one; and in fact, state or politics are ways that are proven to be extremely susceptible to gross errors. One such error is the replacement of the original intention with the intention to keep the power. Even if you end up using this authority properly, such replacement is a two-layered fault. One, you get into a competition with other people who are also trying to do good, but this competition is not for the good, it is for the authority. As a result, unfair actions occur during this fight. Two, what enables you to do good is God's help and accordance, not power or authority. As you focus more on power and authority, they become a thick veil covering your heart, and you start seeing God as a distant-beneficiary of your affairs, where you are the ultimate doer of the good! This is a clear path of shirk from minor to major.

It is the same power-centered mentality that gave rise to the state-controlled and/or state-oriented interpretation of Islam and a merciless clash between Islamic groups, which is still destroying virtually all social endeavors in the name of God. Looking from outside, you cannot distinguish what they are doing from a fight without a regard for God's approval, This situation can perhaps be depicted by a person who prostrates towards the Kaaba with an intention to worship it, rather than orienting towards it only because God says so. On the outside, such a person looks like a Muslim, but has nothing to do with being a Muslim. Why is this happening? Let's see this through an example.

In the Quran, the Lord instructs the believers to place their trust only in God's power, whereas the daily life events tell us that God does not miraculously interfere with what is going on. For example, you want to get a job, and you have all the qualifications for it, but someone who has significantly lower qualifications than you, even not enough for the job, gets the position due to their affiliation with a political party or due to the influence of someone at a higher level in the hierarchy of that company/organization. You are crushed due to this unfair treatment by an entity that portrays itself as Islamic. However, your misery or the injustice of the situation remains untouched in the end. That is God doesn't do anything about it! After all, it is Him who tells that He is going to give respite to the wrong-doers until death. Then, what are you going to think about your own situation and your personal affairs? For your short term benefit, you better obey the people, whether they order you to do good or evil. You do as the circumstances require, whether licit or illicit. In the long run, you can defend yourself as being innocent, since you did not deliberately seek evil, you just obeyed the system.

Is the above the description of a Muslim? Clearly not! It is the depiction of a believer who has significant confusion in their belief so that they are living like a hypocrite. That is, by surrendering to the authority of the wrong-doers with full submission, they are associating partners with God, and so, they are involved in shirk without even being aware of it.

In order to seek a way out of this misfortune, it is important to know the neurophysiological roots of this behavior. Self protection is a manifestation of the fight-or-flight response, and it is one of the quickest and automatic activities of the brain. That is, if you are not careful enough, if you are not deliberately monitoring your behaviors, you can obey this biological drive of your autopilot, i.e. brain. Fortunately, our brain is also equipped with other tools that enable willful action, even if against the basic instincts. These extra tools are slower but they have long-lasting effects. Accordingly, they require deliberate actions that last for a long time in order to take effect. So, if you want to escape the power-worshiping attitude and embrace God-worshiping solely, then you must monitor your actions before and after, and exercise your will power to stand against the fight-or-flight instincts.

There is no compulsion in religion. The right direction is henceforth distinct from error. And he who rejects false deities and believes in Allah hath grasped a firm handhold which will never break. Allah is Hearer, Knower. (2/256)

Needless to say, such difficult undertaking is not done by most believers. What's worse, since their conscience cannot justify being a believer with power-worshiping, they create rational constructs to defend their position. This is why still the Muslims seek to acquire authority as a means of serving God's religion. This is how the "scholars" come up with fatwas that justify the unjust actions of the khalifa. This is how the believers flock into one-man-shows, and retire their brains. This why, despite a millennium-long demise of the Muslim civilization, the believers cannot understand what's wrong with them.

surely Allah does not change the condition of a people until they change their own condition; and when Allah intends evil to a people, there is no averting it, and besides Him they have no protector. (13/11)

This situation is not going to get out of the stage until and unless the believers achieve a conviction with which they can say good bye to aspirations about high number of followers or influential public positions. They are not going to breath freely until and unless they give up the misguided belief that Islam's ultimate goal is to establish a religious state. Such interpretations started circulating among people soon after the death of the prophet Muhammad, and eventually killed a vibrant civilization. When are the believers going to say a definitive good-bye to such nonsense and become true believers who submit only to God?

Has not the time yet come for those who believe that their hearts should be humble for the remembrance of Allah and what has come down of the truth? And that they should not be like those who were given the Book before, but the time became prolonged to them, so their hearts hardened, and most of them are transgressors. (57/16)

Thirst for Love

One of the most devastating experiences in life happens when someone who loves you stops loving you. Just like falling in love or feeling loved can revolutionize your life, losing love can bring you to the brink of death. How can such a physical outcome occur from something as abstract as love?

There are countless books, songs and art work inspired by love, and we humans haven't exhausted this unparalleled source, yet. Love is a magical tool that frees us while enslaving. It is an elixir that makes us leave behind who we are while at the same time causing us to realize our selves to the fullest. It is a language that penetrates all cultures, while it is so vulnerable as a butterfly. It is curious that extremes are combined in this powerful feeling, making it a map and a source of energy to navigate in our personal journeys.

Love has various kinds and it is not only among humans but also between the Creator and us, His creation. Needless to say that the implications of the latter are not the same as the former, but still, love is love. Any person who discovers their personal relationship with God feels that they are loved. They feel an exhilaration as if they have just seen the Source of all Beauties. Their initial days in this discovery is no different than a happy honeymoon. But the opposite is true, too.

Among humans, for example a divorce literally rips the heart. Insincere actions or abandoning of a friend comes as a punch in the face. And when you feel left alone by your Lord, that is when you don't receive special treatment from Him, you can feel you are suffocating.

And if their evasion is difficult for you, then if you are able to seek a tunnel into the earth or a stairway into the sky to bring them a sign, [then do so]. (6/35)

Nevertheless, life is life, and we get into excruciating situations that last for too long, and the end of the gloomy days may not seem in the horizon. Then? Can you easily say that God still loves you? After experiencing periods of personal attention from your Lord, if you are treated as any other person or like an unimportant, disposable rock, wouldn't you feel heartbroken? Wouldn't you question the veracity of your initial experiences? As your hopes of the future fade, so does your conviction of the Lord's love for you.

In that depressive state, if you can recollect yourself and read His words, you see a startling call:

"surely none despairs of Allah's mercy except the unbelieving people" (12/87)

With this call, you feel polarized. You are surrounded by the grim reality, and those around you are either suffering like you or don't care about you or enjoying your doom. You are powerless to make any changes, and yet, your Creator is ordering you not to despair! This is pure irrationality. And that is exactly where love comes into the scene.

"Your Lord has not forsaken you, nor has He become displeased" (93/3)

Where ever there is love, there is hope, and where ever there is hope, there is love. Love is a telescope that can see the distances that are not available to the reason. And that 's why love is a better instrument to comprehend the infinity of the power and will of God.

"O Allah! Increase us, do not diminish us. Favor us, do not withhold from us, make us pleased and be pleased with us." (Tirmidhi,3173)

What love can glimpse at and what the reason cannot see is that despite you are deprived of minor personal treatment from your Lord at the moment, you are proceeding towards a major realization where the universe is going to work in concert to meet your needs by the will of God. You are getting thirsty for manifestations of love so that you can better appreciate the grandeur of what is coming, and so that you are transformed by that miracle when it comes.

"And soon will your Lord give you so that you shall be well pleased." (93/5)