The West and the Irrationality in Rationalism - get a grip, will you?

These are all good and religious people. But the rationalist-agnostic-atheist will have
you believe that Abul Kalam Azad, Mahatma Gandhi and Mother Theresa were good
in spite of their religious beliefs. Oh come on... And they accuse religious people of
being bigoted and condescending?

The West and The Conflict

We are not heirs to the Western conflict,

We are not participants in this debate

Between those who believe in God

And those who disbelieve…

We are not in their history,

We are not involved in their story,

We have no problems adapting,

We have no problems changing,

We have no problems tolerating

The many passions and strange obsessions of man,

Whether he is in secular study,

Or praying in religious robes…

For in their arguments

The agnostics and preachers,

The conservatives and liberals,

The Traditionalists and Progressives

All forget good manners and

Taint both rationalism and spiritualism.

May God save us from the earnest ones!

...................

I am an avid follower of American politics. And I guess I have become familiar and much acquainted with liberal progressive views propagated by the likes of Bill Maher and The Young Turks. And I am the first to admit that some of the brightest and sparkling intellectual stars do populate the agnostic atheistic constellation. I agree with a lot of what they say. They are smart, they are sexy and they are very persuasive. Just like me. Hehehe.

But I have discerned an air of smugness in the representations of their ideas against believers of God in the US. And they are starting the bad habit of pontificating, just like the Evangelicals that they abhor. This is not a good trend.

It doesn't matter what you believe to be the truth. Nobody wants to drink wine, however sweet and pure it may be, if it is served in a dirty glass. Bad manners = dirty glass.

I hope the rationalists will maintain their rationalism in their challenge against what they think to be the irrationality of religious people. "An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind", said Mahatma Gandhi.

Don't you agree, sunshine?

wa min Allah at-taufiq

Hate has no place in Islam

Love will show the Way.

A Man from Sweden and the Saints of India

Yesterday evening, I attended a meeting in a nearby hotel with an old client. Literally, he was old apart from having been with my firm since its inception in 2004. I was happy to see that his old Swede business partner was there. A man I have had the pleasure of making acquaintance a couple of times over the years. Shall we call him Ericsson?

Eric looked a little tired after traveling over 27 hours by car, train and plane to reach Kuala Lumpur from his hometown in Sweden. He too must be around my client’s age (about 67 perhaps), and was quietly working with his mobile office in the business lounge of the hotel. My client was late, so we chatted a bit.

I asked him about Sweden (“The economy is good. It is one of the strongest in the EU…”, pausing thoughtfully, “… for today. Tomorrow, who knows?”) and the sick states of Greece, Spain and Portugal. I do not know how, but our conversation drifted to his travels (he is a world traveler), and in one part he made this rather innocuous remark, “India is full of very rich and very, very poor people. The poor people live in the streets, and when I pass by them, I know that God do not exist”. He paused and looked at me, and I was wondering whether he expected me to reply or make some comment. But I didn’t. Instead I returned to our original topic and asked about Iceland. Later my client arrived and I left Eric to attend my client in a cosy private corner of the place.

After work I was exhausted, so I fell asleep early. 6 hours on, here I am - Awake and bright-eyed in the early hours of Saturday in a Mamak restaurant near my house. I was surrounded by foreign Chinese students having a late supper, and denizens of the night clubs drinking hot milky tea and eating roti canai before returning to their beds. I cannot go back to sleep because I keep recalling what Eric said. And what answer, if any, I could have given.

On the way here, I saw a sight which struck me. On the road was the lifeless body of a beautiful black kitten. It was probably run down a couple of hours earlier, perhaps when I was safe asleep in my bed. Does this also mean that God doesn’t exist?

It is easy to despair. It is a door that is always open for us to walk through. And witnessing the easy death of a beautiful cat, or the teeming hungry masses of humanity of India, despair appears the easiest path to accept. I can almost hear Despair inviting me. “Come in, Taufiq.” I hear it speaking to me. “There is no God. Otherwise I, Despair, would not exist.”

But I cannot. Not because I am a superman with some profound understanding of life. But I have seen with my own eyes the dogged determination of mankind to persevere no matter the hardship. To wake up in the morning, praising God, alhamdulillah, and to fall asleep, again thanking Him, alhamdulillah. And I have also heard the whispered oath of the caregivers – the Mother Theresas, the Gandhis, and the Mawlana Abul Kalam Azads of India… all who live for the sake of others, finding fulfillment and God Himself in caring for the sick, the needy and the homeless –

THE SELFISH SAINTS
I am a selfish person,
I cook for the hungry,
Because if I do not,
Then to me,
God ceases to exist.

I am a selfish person,
I build homes for orphans,
Because if I do not,
Then to me,
God ceases to exist.

I am a selfish person,
I give all my wealth away,
Because if I do not,
Then to me,
God ceases to exist.

I am a selfish person,
I attend to the lepers
And the dispossessed,
Because if I do not,
Then to me,
God ceases to exist.

And to be absent
From His Presence
Is to me,
The most painful lesson
That this life can offer.

God doesn’t exist in words, whether written or uttered. God is manifest in His Most Compassionate and Merciful attributes in the tireless working hands of the caregivers of this world. God bless Ericsson and all caregivers of this world. We owe them our humanity.

Have a charitable Sabbath, sunshine.

Pax Taufiqa.