Where are the answers gone?

( –Well, may be we have to wait for the final answer)

In response to my original write-up titled “Islam and Cyber-Pen Warfare- What are we promoting?” Mr. Syed Mirza asked some questions and there had been a couple of back and forth responses. While I am sorry to hear that he did not get the answers yet (as he mentioned), it is encouraging to see a new set of questions from him. Looking at the glass half-full, it’s a good sign; because, many individuals got the ‘final answer’ only after flurries of questions stormed their minds. And it is the ‘final answer’ that counts most whether it is ‘who wants to be a millionaire?’ or ‘who wants to have Peace in this world and in hereafter?’.

On the other hand, it is also necessary to have a sigh and try to understand why someone may not get the answers. What follows, is my attempt of a general anatomy of why people do not get answers, especially to questions of the same nature as Mr. Mirza asked about Islam. I think this analysis is of utmost importance to identify some areas of immediate attention by the parties involved before playing the q/a game.

1. First of all, not getting the true answer is not a new phenomenon in the history of mankind. The torch-bearers of truth were blamed and persecuted as mad, magician, poet, and liar by the people who denied accepting the ‘answers’ and in some cases, eventually they got some sort of ‘final answers’ to their questions, whether they liked it or not. The top three historic reasons for their not getting the answers were arrogance, ignorance, and infatuation to power.

2. Looking at the BIG PICTURE is important to get answers. In the first write-up, I have specifically emphasized on this. If we limit ourselves only to what our eyes can see through, it will be impossible to appreciate the truth that is universal. Look, human need to go to space to understand the workings of the earth. Now to understand the truth which encompasses the universe, doesn’t one need to see beyond it? –on both the time and space dimension?

A vast majority of ‘not-getting-answer’ phenomenon really come from a jaundiced partial view of life. One of these views goes like this

-- somehow accidentally we just got to be a human and just act like any other biological being in this world and then die. That’s it!!!

This fragmented view of life and truth acts as a stumbling block to many questions. Now let us expand this view on time dimension in both directions, get all the parameters and constraints of the equation.

……….Mankind was not there. The Creator of all the universes created the mankind with a purpose to serve and resources to test, and rights and responsibilities to take care of. After a period men will die, they will be brought back again and then, they will have to return to their Lord for their due recompense. …………..

Doesn’t this comprehensive picture give a better clue to answers?

With the help of this integrated holistic worldview, it is easy to see that the source of Islam and science are same and that they are not only mutually compatible, but also complementary to each other. An integrated Big Picture of revealed and created universe is therefore useful in understanding the truth, getting the answers to a lot of mind-boggling (and apparently conflicting) science-Islam issues.

3. In relation to the above Big Picture, a fragmented segregationist way of thinking is not conducive to get answers especially to inter-community, inter-faith related questions. Many questions are asked with the assumption of a by-design conflict among different entities. This very premise is wrong. How can one expect to get a correct answer with a wrong premise? Yes, conflict is there, but that is not until people exercised their free will to differ. It did not begin that way.

The creator of all the universes is the creator of all mankind. He is the creator of all the messengers including Adam, Nuh, Ibraheem, Musa, Isa, Muhammad (Peace be upon all of them), who got the messages from the same source. The creator has made whatever is in the earth and in the universe, and also made it subservient to the mankind. Mankind is but one, universalism is the essence of the Omnipotent, Omniscient. Now, in His supreme justice, everyone will get what he/she strives for.

4. A yet another related cause for not getting the answer is a notion of purposeless non-accountable life. We the mankind in this world is with a PURPOSE for a PURPOSE. He who does not think the life has a PURPOSE, probably he does not need any answer or he may not be able to find any answer; because everything is a random permutation to him; one answer may not seem to be better than the other. Therefore the notion of a purposeful holistic view of life is important to get answer.

5. To get an answer, one would need to start with an intention of getting an answer. This sounds silly, but the lack of objective makes one wander around and make detour instead of being steadfast on a straight path to answer. If one asks question just to ‘deliberately put’ someone ‘in the danger’ (I don’t want to evaluate the intention of Mr. Mirza, but this is something he seemed to have stressed on) he may not get more than that. Yes, he may be successful in making trouble, confusion, and even danger, but getting answer will be a far cry. Why would someone expect to reap mango, while he sowed the seed of jackfruit?

6. An objective-less discussion tends to create a cloud of confusion that eventually becomes plagued with i) mere arguments over positions, ii) illogical applications of logic, iii) personal vendetta, iv) subjective criticism with labeling (‘Mullah’ seems to be an easy pick these days), vilifying, v) finding faults at trivial things, and vi) distracting issues. Discussions are good and facilitating, but this cloud of confusion and diffusion is never congenial to see the answer. At the best it may end up in a zero-sum Byzantine debate as we see quite often in many forums. Remember the Byzantines? They were in a debate of whether angels were male or female even when the enemies were at their door-steps.

7. One may not get an answer, if he constrains himself only to an expected answer hidden in his mind. For example, Mr. Mirza complained why I didn’t choose an answer from his own (hidden) multiple choice set. So, when he said he didn’t get the answer, what he really meant was, he didn’t get the answer he had in mind. Interesting. How many of us remember playing a game called “Ami jaha Jani Tumi ki Jano?” (forgot its nickname) in our childhood? You would assume something in your mind, and your opponent had to read your mind. The opponent would not be considered getting the answer, if he could not read your mind. Isn’t there a parallel of this childlike game here?

8. Often, an unfortunate reason of not getting answer is the self-contradictory actions of many muslims (yes, including myself). But the following principle will help getting the answer in this case. Muslims are to be judged by Islam; but Islam is not to be blamed for misdeeds of ‘muslim’.

9. Sometimes, a true answer being broadcasted may not get to an individual receiver, which may not be properly tuned. Mr. Mirza mentioned that the answers were not ‘acceptable to’ him. How does one know what is acceptable or not acceptable to someone else? Acceptance or rejection is a matter of exercise of free will of an individual. The best a transmitter can do is to package it in a format digestible to a reasonable and logical mind (and yes, customizing to the receiver is important but not at the cost of a wrong answer). The rest of the interpretation is on the shoulder of the receiver.

10. Yes, the noise in the transmitter is also a hindrance to the receiver’s not getting the answers. Yes, I have mistakenly used the word ‘world’ instead of ‘universe’ in one sentence as Mr Mirza rightly pointed out. It was a good call and I thank him for this. But unfortunately, it was blown out of proportion which is not healthy in an objective discussion.

11. And, yes, there will always be some nonsensical and prejudiced allegations and questions for which the best answer may be not to give any answer in haste. I think the readers can pick up examples on that. At the least, that will not create the cloud of misinformation, mistrust, and confusion, which will be an impediment to getting answer.

In my view, these are some of the critical aspects to be addressed in a positive way by all parties involved. This is by no means an exhaustive list; neither is it pointed to a specific situation. And I seek forgiveness from Allah (SWT) for any mistakes and remain to be corrected by the readers.

Finally, I’ll say this. Please don’t let your questions obstruct you to look at the Big Picture and it may not be necessary to get all the answers from others right away. Please make the best use of your own inquisitive mind and brain.

Farid Ahmed

fahmed_00@yahoo.com