The Humble I

‘THE STARTING POINT of any religion is wonderment. The sheer mystery of our lives demands an explanation. From the gas clouds floating in interstellar space, to the tiniest subatomic particles, the realm of action into which we have been thrust must be understood if we are to know how to live. “The unexamined life is not worth living,” said Socrates, and this question is always true, always equally urgent. Religion, as the only means of finding an answer to this question, is thus the most important, indeed, in a sense, the only meaningful activity of man.’1

Being a Book of guidance, and a roadmap for life, the Qur’an asks the five big questions about the human saga, and provides satisfying responses to them too. The Five Big Questions being:2

1 – The cosmological question: where did everything come from? 2 – The epistemological question: how we know what we know? 3 – The ontological one: what is our nature? 4 – The teleological one: why are we here? 5 – The eschatological question: whereto are we ultimately heading?

Such ological words may seem complicated, but when you break them down to their basic meaning, they are quite straightforward. So let’s do that with each of them:

1 – THE COSMOLOGICAL QUESTION

Cosmological relates to cosmology (from Greek, kosmos, meaning ‘world’, and logia, meaning the ‘study of’): in other words, the study of the nature and origin of the universe. So the cosmological question is about how we, and the whole cosmos, came to be; about how all this beauty, awe and brilliance got here.

To this, the Qur’an says: If you ask them who created the heavens and the earth, they will say, ‘God’. [Q.39:38] Of course, while science has offered an excellent modal for how our universe began from an initial Big Bang , it doesn’t rule out an Agent behind it all. To do so would be like saying that just because we know the inner workings of an iPhone, it now means we can dismiss the existence of Steve Jobs as its designer. In philosophy, this is a failure to distinguish between mechanism and agency. As for the idea of the multiverse, empirically unproven, even if this were to be correct, it only pushes back the question. For instead of asking how one universe came into existence, ex nihilo, from nothing, we would then have to ask how the multiverse emerged from nothing? Agency is the key.

The Qur’an further asks: Or were they created out of nothing? Or were they the creators? Or did they create the heavens and the earth? No, they have no certainty! [Q.52:35-6] That is to say, a thing cannot create itself from nothing. Rather, it must have had something else to bring it into existence. That something, that ‘cause’, itself cannot have a cause, otherwise we would have an infinite set of causes going on, ad infinitum. So rationally, there must be a First Cause which has always existed without needing a cause itself. That Uncaused Cause, Islam says, is God: eternal, everlasting, whose existence is inseparable from His essence, who endows all living things with their quality of life, and who keeps all such things alive at every second of their existence. Gazing at the starry heavens or the natural world, we so readily intuit an overwhelming sense of order and design, and — if given half a chance to pause and think about it — we’d intuit there must be a Designer; and that all this enchanting awe and beauty, all this sentient life, and the universe’s fine tune, or the fact that there is something rather than nothing, couldn’t have come about by itself or by sheer random chance.

2- THE EPISTEMOLOGICAL QUESTION

If knowledge, to simplify the definition, is true, justified belief, what are its sources? Or to put it differently: We can claim to truly know something if we believe it to be true and that belief in it is justified. But what is its justification?

Muslim scholars say the sources of knowledge (madarik al-‘ulum) – i.e. our epistemology (Greek, episteme, meaning to ‘know’, ‘understand’) — come about via one of three ways: Knowledge from [i] the five senses (al-hawas al-khams); [ii] truthful reports (ikhbar sahih); and [iii] rational inquiry (al-nazr).3

If knowledge comes by way of the sound senses, truthful report, or through rational and sound reasoning, then it may be said to be justifiably true. If it comes from senses that are impaired, or a false or unreliable report, or from illogical and faulty reasoning, then believing it will be unjustified.

For Muslims, truthful reports (ikhbar sahih, khabar sadiq) include the Qur’an, which is mass-transmitted through many individuals, separately, such that it is inconceivable for them to have concurred upon a fabrication or lie, or coincidently made the same error. Such reports yield knowledge that is definitely certain (yufid al-‘ilm), or definite (qat‘i) knowledge beyond a shadow of a doubt. All other reports yield levels of knowledge that is either: likely certain, reasonably certain, probably certain, unlikely certain, highly uncertain, or clearly false.

At a more foundational level, the epistemological question — how we know what we know — is because ultimately God teaches us. The All-Merciful has taught the Qur’an, has created Man, has taught him speech. [Q.55:1-4] Speech (Ar. bayan, to ‘articulate’, ‘communicate’, ‘be eloquently expressive’) is an innate gift from God. This is why a child can construct complex sentences or manipulate the rules of grammar without being taught to do so. Yet it cannot grasp basic maths until at a later age.

After speech, humans were given another extraordinary gift, which is the ability to write: Read in the name of your Lord who created, created Man from a clinging clot. Read! Your Lord is Most Generous, who taught Man by the pen; taught Man what he knew not. [Q.95:1-5]

We humans make the world with ideas that are conveyed through words. Then words came to be written down so that the ideas and meanings of those words might be read by future generations. Our ideas and thoughts would be nigh on impossible to pass on for posterity’s sake, were it not for the ability to preserve them in writing.

3 – THE ONTOLOGICAL QUESTION

As for the ontological question (from Greek, on[tos], which means ‘being’), it is about the nature of being, and about who we essentially are.

Our nature can be seen in the Quranic word for mankind, which is insan. Lexicologists say insan is derived from nisyan, to ‘forget’, or from unsiyah, being ‘sociable’. To quote al-Raghib al-Asbahani: ‘It is said it is called this since it was created with a nature whereby it wouldn’t be able to establish [its affairs], save by being sociable [cooperating] with one another. That is why it is said: “Man is social by nature (al-insan madani bi’l-tab‘i).” … [Or] they are called this because God took a covenant from them; however, they forgot it.’

That Man, insan, is sociable relates to our nature with one another. As for insan as nisyan — a forgetful creature — this is in respect to our nature vis-a-via God and our covenant with Him: We had made a covenant with Adam before, but he forgot. [Q.20:115] It is because man has a propensity to forget, that Revelation — known in the Quran as dhikr,‘reminder’ — was revealed. Man forgets: Revelation reminds. It reminds him of the primordial pact of Alastu and of the amanah or ‘Trust’: We offered the Trust to the heavens and the earth and the mountains, but they refused to bear it and were afraid. But Man assumed it. Man is most unjust and ignorant. [Q.33:72]

4 – THE TELEOLOGICAL QUESTION

The teleological question — Why are we here? — is from telos or ‘purpose’. The Qur’an provides us with a two-fold answer, each intimately related to the other. There is much meaning to life and great purpose. It’s not, as we are being wrongly told today, all about the replication of selfish genes in a meaningless world, itself a product of a huge cosmic fluke: ‘Do you think We created you in jest and that to Us you would not be returned? [Q.23:115]

The first of the replies is Allah’s words: I did not create the jinn or mankind except that they should worship Me. [Q.51:56] Worship (‘ibadah) is our whole raison d’etre. The other deeply-intertwined reason is to know God; for we cannot worship and adore God, without first knowing Him: God is He who created the seven heavens, and of the earth a similar number. His command descends amidst them, that you may know God has power over all things, and that He encompasses everything in knowledge. [Q.65:12] The key point in the verse is the phrase: li ta‘lamu — ‘that you may know’ Him. In other words, we come into the theatre of the world for no other reason than to understand the admirable power, goodness and wisdom of the Creator of all things, to the extent possible, by contemplating the beauty of the cosmos and of the natural order, as His actions and individual works; and so we are to be swept away more ardently in praise and loving worship of Him.

5 – THE ESCHATOLOGICAL QUESTION

Finally, the question of eschatology (from Greek, eschatos, meaning‘last’ or ‘end’) has to do with where we are ultimately heading? It is the question the Qur’an asks when it asserts: fa ayna tadhhabun — ‘Where then are you going?’ [Q.81:26] This [Qur’an], it continues, is but a reminder to the worlds, for those among you who wish to walk aright. [81:27-8]

So where are we all ultimately heading? It’s not just to our graves, six feet under, as some think; but to beyond that. We will come face to face with a life after death, a final Judgement, with Paradise or Hell. We will ultimately return to God: Those who, when struck by some misfortune, say: ‘We belong to Allah and to Him shall we return.’ [Q.2:156] Injustices or crimes unpaid for in this earthly life will be paid for then. Good acts done unassumingly and unnoticed will be rewarded amply there. Sins, evil, wrongdoing, and a life of disbelief will be recompensed accordingly; nothing will be omitted and no stone shall be left unturned. Sorrows and woes born patiently for God, and while having faith (iman) in God, will be soothed and transformed into a joyous bliss unknown and unexperienced by any on earth.

The Prophet ^ﷺ said that Allah, exalted is He, said: ‘I have prepared for my righteous servants what no eye has ever seen, what no ear has ever heard and what no human heart has ever imagined.’4 Or, as the Qur’an says: For no soul knows what is kept hidden for them of the eye’s delights, as a reward for what they used to do. [Q.32:17]

So when all is said and done, when all the warnings have been given, when all the excuses are offered, and when all the calling comes to a close, then the Qur’an arrives at the moment: When the sun is darkened, when the stars fall, and when the mountains are moved … and when the seas are set boiling, and when the souls are reunited … and when the record of men’s deeds are laid open, and when the sky is torn away, and when Hell is set blazing, and when the Garden is brought near; then every soul will know what it has prepared for itself. [Q.81:1-14]

 

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1. Abdul Wadod Shalabi, Islam: Religion of Life (USA: Starlatch Press, 2001), 1.

2. This post is based on: Hamza Yusuf, 5 Big Questions in Life, at: https://youtu.be/LRI7aNnCrbc

3. See: al-Saffarini, Lawami‘ al-Anwar al-Bahiyyah Sharh al-Durrat al-Madiyyah (Riyadh: Dar al-Tawhid, 2016), 3:736-46.

4. Al-Bukhari, no.3244; Muslim, no.2824.