Pursuing a Couple of Projects All My Life
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?)
There have been projects in my life that I have pursued forever. Maybe a better way to express this thought is:
"There have been things -- you can call them projects -- in my life that I have wished and pined for; things I have hankered after; things I have worked to achieve or accomplish."
And I have done that for as long as I can remember.
Among them, believe it or not as they say, was -- or should I say "is," for, I never gave up my dream of that project? -- a School.
That is right:
A school that will prepare the next several generations of leadership for Islam, Muslims and the World.
Nothing less.
A Perfect School conceived, designed and created at the highest, finest and most comprehensive levels that human imagination, ingenuity, talent, resourcefulness and skill would permit.
For, Islam to me is all about education -- education, education, education. Education of the most comprehensive kind and of the highest possible quality.
Among all the other wonderful things that Allah's Deen Islam is about and that it most miraculously subsumes.
A Perfect School -- I cannot think of it any other way -- that will combine the best knowledge in every field of human interest or relevance or realm, with the finest set of skills, values and attitudes.
For, all these things combine together to form the kind of "Perfect" Human Being that Islam envisages -- and about whom philosophers and scientists from various cultural backgrounds, and in various historical time periods, have dreamed about, hoped for and written about.
Insaan Kaamil, in some ways, if you want to call it that.
A Homo Perfectus of sorts.
Did not happen. I mean the project of the Perfect School that I dreamed about all my life did not materialize.
Muslims did not, could not, share my vision and my approach and my dream. The fact is Muslims of today simply are not there. "Human Perfection" is not a value modern-day Muslims share or cherish or even understand. Muslims mostly have hitched their wagons to the slowest moving and lowest quality engines of leadership -- a leadership that is generally mercenary and often corrupt and sold-out.
Generally speaking, Muslims are happy in their mediocrity. And in their purposelessness. And in their directionless wanderings and meanderings through the vistas of life.
And in their generally loser-mentality of empty rituals and futile protests and meaningless conferences and conventions that a generally incompetent or corrupt or sold-out leadership imposes upon them at will and at random.
There is not much of a method of any kind to this madness.
As a result, the Muslim Nation is on a very different trajectory and on a very different planet altogether when compared to the more dynamic, achieving and aggressive peoples and nations of the world.
And, also, at the same time, whenever Muslim groups or nations and societies raise their heads and try to stand tall and erect, and try to chalk out a path of achievement and nation building, dominant nations of the world smash them to pieces and grind them to dust.
And these Colonial Powers of old and new often use as their tools to accomplish their nefarious political, military and social purposes their tested and tried Muslim stooges in the form of corrupt military, civilian and royal dictators that they foist and nurture and protect throughout the lands of Islam.
That pretty much has been the history of the so-called Muslim World over the past century or more.
One of the most recent examples is the bloody and barbaric smashing of the First Democratically Elected Government of Dr. Mohammad Morsi of Egypt in a coup by the Egyptian military, aided and financed by the corrupt Muslim rulers of the region, with the blessings and guidance of their foreign Colonial Masters.
Another was the most bloody and barbaric eight-year war that Iraq launched against the newly formed Islamic Republic of Iran, also, with help and money from the corrupt rulers of the regions, and also carried out at the behest and with the assistance of their foreign Colonial Masters.
Just go and check out who the rulers of various Muslim countries were and how they came to power and how they ruled or governed.
Go check out all of these:
Indonesia and General Suharto;
Somalia and General Siad Barre;
Sudan and General Nemeiri;
Libya and Colonel Qaddafi;
Iraq and Saddam Hussein;
And Syria and General Hafiz Assad!
And while you are at it, check out also:
Iran and the Shah before the 1979 Islamic Revolution;
Turkey before Justice and development Party and President Erdogan and all those military coups;
Egypt and Colonel Nasser and all the others for an uninterrupted 60 year rule of military dictatorship;
Algeria and its bloody history under the military dictatorship;
Tunisia and Ben Ali;
And Pakistan and General Yahya Khan and General Ayub Khan and all the others!
But then why leave out these, right?
Jordan and King Hussein;
Morocco and King Hassan;
Saudi Arabia and the Al Saud Family;
United Arab Emirates and the Al Nahyan Family;
Bahrain and Al Khalifah Family;
Kuwait and Al Sabah Family;
Brunei and King Bolkiah and his Family;
And Oman and Sultan Qaboos!
And so on!
This is a Muslim Profile, if you will, through the Looking Glass of the past 100 years of history. These were and continue to be more or less absolute rulers and dictators of mostly military and royal extraction whose penchant is for grinding the Muslim masses in their countries into dirt under their heels, while dancing to the tune of their Foreign Colonial Masters and Mentors.
If you never bothered to check out these things before, you owe it to yourself to do it now.
So, military, civilian and royal dictatorship has been the rule in practically every country of the Muslim world from Indonesia and Pakistan to Afghanistan, Iraq and Sudan.
So, Democracy, Nation Building and Education are not what has preoccupied the dictators in the Muslim world over all these several decades past. And a Model or Perfect School for their people was the last thing on their mind.
Not for them higher institutions of technical training like the IITs (Indian Institutes of Technology) of the kind India created.
So, it was no surprise that my cries for Muslims to create a Model or Perfect School in some part of the world fell on deaf ears. Muslims neither understood it, nor did they care for it.
And, for some reason, I did not broach this subject -- I mean the subject of the "Perfect School" -- in any great detail with Non-Muslims.
And then there is this perpetual preoccupation I have had forever with what to me is some kind of a Cultural Center -- a place from where I could project to the entire world -- to Muslims as well as to non-Muslims -- the twin-message of the Qur'an: the Best of This World as well as the Best of the Next World.
One that will train every human being on earth to live a Best Earthly Life and then look forward to the Best Heavenly Life after death!
As the Qur'an puts it:
(a) Fid Dunya Hasanah.
(b) Wa Fil Aakhirati Hasanah.
A message that is embodied in the following two most blessed and beautiful Aayats of the Most Noble Qur'an:
(1) Wa Lakum Fil Ardi Mustaqarrun Wa Matta'un Ilaa Heen.
Paraphrase:
"I have made arrangements for your temporary stay on earth."
And:
(2) Fa-Immaa Ya'tiyannakum Minnee Hudan,
Fa-Man Tabi'a Hudaaya,
Fa-Laa Khawfun Alaihim wa Laa Hum Yahzanoon.
Paraphrase:
"And you are likely to get some instructions from me on how to live your life on earth. And if you follow those instructions, you will be able to spend your days on earth -- and thereafter -- free from fear, worry and grief."
I never gave up dreaming about these two projects: The Perfect School and the Cultural Center. It is just that neither one of these two projects ever materialized.
Who knows where Allah will takes these dreams next!
END
