Among Fundamental Human Needs:
Health and Education
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?)
Creatures of Need
We the humans are creatures of need.
And what need could be greater and more pressing in our life as human beings than the need for health, which means a healthy body – and not just that, but also a healthy mind.
Even though most people don’t fully understand how important a healthy mind – call it mental health if you wish – really is for the overall wellbeing of not just individuals but also of entire societies.
Healthy Body, Mind and Soul
And if you are a Muslim, or a serious believer of some sort in God, you would perhaps also say: “And, don’t forget, also a healthy soul.” For, souls get sick and afflicted just as surely as the bodies or the minds do.
May God Almighty grant those who are sick at this time among us full health and speedy recovery, which he can and does to whom he wants, however he wants to do it, following his own meticulous plan, which, if you ask me, translates to: All the time.
Dhaalikumullahu Rabbukum!
Otherwise, this world will be a pretty sick place. Much, much more than it is right now. Or anyone of us can fully comprehend it.
I guess that is why he is God. The all-knowing and the all-powerful: omniscient, omnipotent as they say.
Dhaalikumullahu Rabbukum, as the Qur’an puts it.
“That is your God, your Master.”
“If He Is Out There, Right?”
Some people would qualify this by saying “If he is out there, right?”
For, not everybody in this world is a believer. There are all kinds of people out there in this world who are nursing all kinds and degrees of disbelief and skepticism in their heart.
And that is fine too.
For, God himself allows you to think like that and to speak like that if that is how you feel. Even though he much prefers for you to accept him; to turn to him; and to throw yourself at his mercy and love every time you have a need to do that, which is every moment of your tortuous and troublesome existence on earth.
And, mind you, no one else can permit you that kind of freedom, that latitude of choice. No one else can be that secure.
Begging God for Mercy
That means for things in life, small or big, no matter how small and no matter how big, God is the one to go to, and to ask and to beg.
And that means human beings – all of us – need to develop a routine of going to him for all our needs, and shedding copious tears before him, and groveling before him.
Yes, he likes that.
He would like to see us do that, beg and cringe and cower and grovel before him, especially when he hits us with an affliction or trouble or test or disaster or calamity of some kind.
Why didn’t they come to me crying and begging and groveling, he says in the Qur’an?
La’allahum Yatadarra’oon.
Strong Belief
So, we the humans, need to be strong in the belief that God – if he is out there, as some people say, and to me he is, not just out there, but right here, where people are, and where they need him, in their most immediate environment and at closest quarter to them – is the one who gives health, and also the one, what a paradox it is, who gives sickness.
No one else has those powers. No one other than God has the power to give either health or sickness.
Moral of the Story
So, the moral of the story is: What God gives, God can also take away. And if it is illness he has given, then he can perfectly as easily remove it and make it go away. No matter how serious that illness may appear. And how challenging its known cure.
For God can do, and indeed he does, all kinds of improbable things – from our point of view of course. For, that is who he is and that is why he is God: the one who can do the impossible, and the improbable, or, as the Qur’an puts it:
“Bring out the living from the dead and bring out the dead from the living.”
Yukhrijul Hayya Minal Mayyiti wa Yukhrijul Mayyita Minal Hayyi.
Divine Methodology of Miracles
Our limited knowledge and understanding refer to them as miracles. But if you ask me, it is God's routine work. It is God’s everyday methodology.
For, that is what Miracles are. They are nothing more or less than simple Divine Methodology of everyday operations.
Translation: God gives health and God takes it away.
Solution: Those who believe, and even those who don't, pray to him like crazy.
That means pray, pray, and pray some more. And wait, and wait, and wait for results to unfold.
For, God does not operate by the Gregorian calendar on the wall. He does things as per his own perfectly designed calculus.
Doctors Are Islam
But then we humans have to do more. Whenever an ailment of some sort hits us, we have to pursue the best medical and scientific remedies available to us.
That means from an “Islamic Point of View,” if that is how you would like me to put it, not going to the best available doctors for us is nothing less than turning our back to God, who gave us a brain and gave us knowledge and showed us the way of science.
And, of course, it also means a few other things.
No Education, No Islam?
Such as, for example, for us, for Muslim societies that is, not to have the best and the finest and the most comprehensive possible educational system for all their citizens, male as well as female, is not an option.
It is a duty.
For, it is, in a manner of speaking, tantamount to Kufr – rejecting God Almighty himself and turning your back on him, not to do so.
I am not giving a Kufr Fatwa here, but only pointing out the seriousness of the situation and hinting at some of its dire implications.
Best Medical Education
And for them, Muslims I mean, to have or not to have the best possible medical schools, colleges and universities, is not a matter of choice, but a matter of fundamental human, civic and Islamic needs and requirements.
And not to do so is in effect a declaration of war on God and on his prophets, may God bless them all, and on the entire Law and System of Nature – Islam – that God has put in place to run his world.
Innaddeena Indallahil Islam.
One meaning of which could be that is how God’s Law, Islam, operates in the universe – in God’s creation.
END
