A Letter to a Friend about "Old" vs. "New" in Islam
A Letter to a Friend about "Old" vs. "New" in Islam
Dr. Pasha
(Bringing Islam to the World One Concept at a Time!
Taking the Qur'an to Every Home and Heart that Needs It --
And which One Does Not?)
Assalamu Alaikum,
Allah bless you for writing. And for all good and great things you do.
And may Allah bless your family and your work and your business.
I have said before, and I am saying it again, your letters on a weekly basis are a kind of food for the soul, at least for some people. Some may even claim them as an inspiration.
And it is, maybe, a way to keep these one-or-two people who still may think and claim that they Work for Allah, and these faltering efforts that go along with that thought and that claim, going. Keep the clock ticking as it were.
The Gentleman in Charge, of course, has not yet posted your New Year letter. Busy man. Just like all the other Muslims. Chasing their tails with lightning speed.
Everybody is busy doing their own thing. Like so many gerbils running faster and faster -- on a spinning wheel.
Letter from the Other Gentleman was quite revealing. Not that any new revelation was needed.
It was W. B. Yates, not us, claiming that it was time for a new and fresh Revelation. For The Second Coming.
That, of course, we knew, and we believe, that Jesus, Son of Virgin Mary, Alaihimas Salaam, shall return.
For us, the Second Coming was a sure thing. It was a done deal. Forever.
With us, it is an Article of Faith. Not a "New" one, but an "Old" one. We have carried that belief around for over 1400 years, in this world.
And before that, it was there forever, and ever and ever. From Negative Infinity of Non-Time and Non-Space and Non-Creation to Positive Infinity of all of the above.
That is how our Rabb, Rabbul Aalameen, had decreed it.
When there was neither Knowledge, nor Faith; nor "New" nor Old. Just Rabbul Aalameen.
And everything about him was Qadeem: not Old, but "Precedent."
Here is the best paraphrase I can give of that English expression, Precedent, which I have used here to render the concept of Qadeem when referring to Allah, Rabbul Aalameen: That which "Precedes" everything else.
That which "Comes Before" everything else.
I dare not call it "Old." For, Rabuul Izzat was before everything.
That means, when there was nothing, he was. For, he was Al-Awwal: The First.
Laysa Qablahu Shayi: There was Nothing Before him.
But the Qur'an also calls him Al-Aakhir: The Last.
Laysa Ba'dahu Shayi: There is Nothing After him.
Contradiction? Of course, it is, when we use it for you and me and for the things in this world.
But when we use it in relation to Almighty Allah, and it is not we using it, but he himself calling himself both Al-Awwal and Al-Aakhir in the Qur'an, then Smart People shut up and listen.
Al-Awwalu Wal-Aakhiru,
Waz-Zaahiru Wal-Baatinu.
And Stupid People shoot their runny mouth and let their hallucination fragments run amuck paving a grand and straight course to Hell. To fool themselves and to fool the world with their inanities.
But non-Muslims, most of them do so with good purpose. It is for them a way to make money. It is a livelihood.
That is what the Media are in the modern world to do: To Make Money. And that is what the Social Media are all about. Highways to the earthly heaven of wealth, no matter how ill-gotten, and no matter achieved at what cost to the rest of the what part of God's Creation on earth.
Media being the highest Multi-Trillion wealth-grossers of the world today, those associated with the Media, that is their passport to their daily dose of money, power, intoxication and women -- or men. And to all other kinds of thrills and excitements and titillations that money can buy.
And I am referring mostly to non-Muslims when I say this. And from that point of view, it makes a good bit of sense. So, this Model is basically a Non-Muslim Model.
It is an Unbeliever's Model of the World.
For, a non-Muslim, or a non-Believer, is someone for whom This World is everything. It is the Be-All and End-All of Existence.
This Duniya is where everything is. End of story.
As the Qur'an puts it: For them it is all Here and Now.
We come and we go and that is the end of the story. In the words of the Qur'an:
Namootu wa Nahyaa,
Wa Maa Yuhlikunaa Illad Dahr!
The Muslim Model is radically different. It is rooted in the fundamental belief that This Duniya is but one Stage of Life. It is a necessary Intermediary Step in the Journey to Allah.
And to Eternal Life.
In the Long March to Allah that is no longer than the Blink of an Eye. For, how long do you have to travel to find someone who is Closer to You Than Your Jugular Vein?
Words of the Qur'an:
Wa Nahnu Aqrabu Ilaihi Min Hablil Wareed.
The Muslim Model is rooted in the totally Unshakable Belief in a World Beyond This World. Belief that the Qur'an refers to as Conviction -- Yaqeen.
The Qur'an calls that next world simply that: The Next World or Al-Aakhirah.
Allah, Allah, how beautiful this Qur'an is. And how clear and precise it is.
And how timeless and eternal and ever-lasting its words are, and its style is. And its methods and techniques are.
Wa Bil-Aakhirati Hum Yooqinoon!
So, everything associated with Almighty Allah is Qadeem. Meaning: That Which Always Was! Even from before when there was Nothing.
That is why I paraphrased that expression Qadeem as "
So, when Non-Muslims clamor for things new and exciting by every passing nanosecond, they do so for a reason. They are after their New Thrills of the Moment.
And they are after their pile of money that would buy them all those waves after waves of Unending Thrills, many of them perverse, and decadent, and destructive of all things good, and noble, and beneficial, and useful in This World.
But when Muslims dive into that Lizard's Hole, the beginning and end of their story is nothing but pure and distilled Stupidity.
Yes, things on www.IslamicSolutions.com are "Old." Nothing "New" going on there.
There never was.
Muslim Model, on the other hand, is based on learning and mastering and imbibing the Same Old Things that Allah sent down to Rasul, after Rasul, after Rasul, from the beginning of Human Life on Earth.
Till Allah himself declared the Story Complete. And the Chapter Closed.
And then he said: You don't really need anything "New" or "More" after this.
Al-Yawuma -- "On This Day,"
Akmaltu Lakum Deenakum -- "Have I completed your Deen for you."
Wa Atmamtu Alaikum Ni'amatee -- "And perfected my Blessings upon you."
Wa Radiytu Lakumul Islama Deenaa! -- "And am pleased that Islam is the Best Thing for you."
The Same "Old" Basic Message of Islam that God Almighty sent to Musa, Isa, Ibrahim, Nooh, and all the other Rusul, Alaihim Assalam.
So, the Muslim Model says Sami'naa wa Ata'naa! to the Old Model.
And the Muslim Model then takes that Old Model and sets about implementing and establishing it in this ever-changing world.
In place after place. In home after home. In heart after heart.
So, we, as Muslims, are not waiting for a New Revelation. Even though we know -- we always knew -- that there was a Second Coming of Jesus, Alaihis Salam, to take place in this world before this world ends and all signs point that the Second Coming is near. And it is approaching fast.
But that Second Coming of Isa, Alaihis Salam, will be to re-establish that Same Old Message of Islam, "Old" from a worldly point of view, but in reality Timeless and Eternal and the best suited message for all times and for all places -- new as well as old.
Read Yates and see how close he came to the Truth of Islam. And then see how he needed to cross that fine line of clarity and belief to realize that the Second Coming of Jesus, Alaihis Salam, will not be with a New Revelation, but to re-establish, and to breathe a new life into the same "Old" message of Islam with which Allah Almighty had sent him into this world 500 years before Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam.
A message of Islam that never went lifeless in this world at any time.
Read on, here is Yates:
TURNING and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming!
As everything Muslims say and do. Nothing "new" on IslamicSolutions.Com.
Who can fault this Other Gentleman for complaining? Muslims, like the rest of their human siblings, want a New Islam every day.
And so does the world.
A New Interpretation. A New Take on Things.
A New Set of Ideas.
A New Way of saying the same old things.
And that is, partly, why the world is in the Right Royal Mess it is in.
New Media tools and technologies, including Social Media, have made it mandatory that every day, every hour, every minute, every microsecond, there is a New Deadline -- a fluid and ongoing one: For New Ideas; for New Images; for New Pictures; and for New Sounds and Sights.
For new thrills and excitement.
But Islam goes on. Just the way it was.
The only questions of relevance are the following:
Who comes to it, who does not?
Who is expending what efforts and energies to learn it as best as they could?
Who is doing what to take it to every home and heart that needs it -- and which one does not?
And who is struggling tirelessly to implement and establish it in this world?
No, these questions are not "New" either. They are as "Old" as Islam itself.
END