Born a Scientist

A father is uniquely positioned to observe the growth and development of his son. And Ibrahim has provided me with such an opportunity.


I observed him playing and exploring his hands and now I see him discovering his feet. The expression on his face, one of wonder.



How much do we really know when we are born into this World? Off course we forget that once we knew neither our hands nor our feet. And that once we had to discover those very sacred trusts that have we have been vouchsafed.



This impacts little on "Nature or Nurture"; how much of us is what we have been given, and how much what we make of ourselves?



The Cradle.

But it says a lot about knowledge and the quest for it. Muhammad (saw) said that a man, or woman, should seek knowledge from the cradle to the grave.



By this he (saw) emphasized that that search is a life-times endeavour, indeed a mission without end. But this prescription also houses a description of what we were and what we should continue to be.



Just like our Father, Adam (as), who bit into the apple, we too are all born inquisitive. We observe, we learn through experimentation and we acquire knowledge. We are all born Scientists.



Muhammad (saw) also said every child is born a muslim and it is their parents that make them a Jew or Christian. But don't we believe that the first Jews and Christians were muslims, obedient to GOD, until the first rebelled and the second went astray. And isn't it a fact that we who are born Muslims yet learn what it means to be a Muslim from our parents and society.



And so the sense of the word muslim, as it is used here, must be in its operative form being "submission to GOD". However Islam can never be a passive submission, and is ever and always an act of volition. The first choice that we all make is that we choose to cry, to live, to bite that apple. And that first and primary choice is an act of submission and not rebellion.



This is because, we are informed in a hadith qudsi, Allah t'ala (GOD most High) created that HE might be known. And to live, to experience, is the first step on our road to knowledge.



But Islam asks that a man go beyond the Scientist that he is born to be, and that he reflect on all things big and small. (Al-Qur'an ... Have you not considered the Heavens, how WE raised them... And the Earth, how WE spread it out? AND... Verily Allah t'ala (GOD most High) is not ashamed to set forth the parable of a mosquito.)





To bite that Apple?

To seek to know GOD through reflection on HIS creation is indeed a sacred vocation. And in this the Qur'an is truly a guide, for it provides the measure of all knowledge whatever and wherever it may be ("Seek knowledge even as far as China" another Prophetic Hadith tells us).



What Muslims have forgotten over the past couple of centuries is that in order to fulfil the sacred duty of reflection one must first be foremost in acquiring knowledge of creation.



This first knowledge of our World, of the Sciences and myriad other disciplines, is cumulative and transmittable.



Whereas the reflection, that every man needs and must undertake for himself in order to find Truth, is not communicable, nor accumulatable... but only discoverable by and within your own self.



It is truly a unique journey for all who undertake it. A journey without end..but full of meaning.





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