To know it is to be blessed, to live in it is to live for an eternity......
to Know?
We wish to know things to satisfy our most intensive need for solidity, in an uncertain World.
But what does it mean to know something?
The short answer is that we know through our interaction, by changing and being changed, with the thing we seek to know. (For a fuller answer please see a previous blog if mine called "What Can We Know" 28 Aug 2007).
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Knowing the Unseen.
Just as the primary means of knowing are through our senses, the primary means of being changed is through the fulfilment of our needs. However the question that then presents itself is one of whether we can only know through the fulfilment of those, being our needs.
And if this is the case, then how can we ever know the objective truth whilst our only recourse to knowledge is through our subjective needs.
An Objective Truth?
Perhaps it is our very subjective needs that cause us to believe in a singular objective truth surrounding us all?
For, of course, a wrongly held belief in an objective truth would satisfy that most basic need for solidity.
So, can we safely assume such a singular objective truth?
But by our questioning, we know that we all have subjective needs. And furthermore we know that these needs are not dissimilar, even down to the need for a solid "unified" objective truth. And this of itself is sufficient to prove that there must be one. (*1)
That is the Invisible World that surrounds us.
An Unseen World.
The Real World.
Is it Knowable?
However, in essence, every action and interaction we have with our World is in search of fulfilment.
And so it would seem that we cannot know through our senses, the hidden objective world around us.
That GOD, being al-Haqq "the Ultimate Objective Truth", is not knowable!
Materialists and Scientists.
Materialists can only acknowledge what they can see and measure.
They deny an unseen reality.
But after the Kuhnian Scientific revolution even Scientists, the bastions of materialism, are recognized as holding acclaim within their respective scientific fraternities in equal import, if not greater, than the truth.
Theirs is not an objective truth, any more than any and all of us who seek to make sense of our World.
We are all tainted with the same problem of subjective needs.
And thus to dismiss the Unseen World is not rational!
The Qur'an.
It is Religion that teaches us that the un-see-able can be known.
And it is the Qur'an suggests that it is possible that the conundrum of knowing the unseen through your senses is possible.
To see the Invisible.
By in essence, acting such that you remove yourself from being the centre of your known world.
For not all the actions that we might do, seek to fulfil our needs solely.
Some of them we do for primarily for the benefit of others, and secondarily for ourselves. It is through these actions and interactions with our World that we might glimpse the eternal with our very own senses.
This is S. Baqara (S. 2)
"Those who believe in the Unseen and who establish the prayer and give out of what WE have given to them".
For the prayer is the centre-point of doing good to the people as a community. And the charity is the centre-point of doing good to a person as an individual. And the invisible is the reality we cannot see.
And these are part of the small miracles that we can perceive. When we see a true good dream, or when we feel the whispher into our hearts of the salutations of the Angels saying Peace. Or when you do Dhikr in a Masgid, or in the depths of the night, and you feel sakina and you taste a remarkable taste. Or when you smell a beautiful perfume as you walk in the dirt of the street towards the Masgid and the ordained Prayer.
These are the miracles that happened to our Predecessors when they gave what had been given to them, of their lives and their possessions, to do good to their fellow-man. They perceived the Angels with their sight, and smelt the fragrance of the eternal garden.
To cast the veils from your eyes, ears, nose, taste and to feel eternity within your heart.... believe and do good!
That is to be blessed...
To Reason.
The Qur'an continues "Those who believe in what has been sent down to you (O Muhammad (saw)).." S. Baqara (S. 2) Contd.
For the Qur'an, for one, appeals to man's higher faculties of knowing, being reasoning as a means of knowing the hidden World.
To reason is to know. And reasoning is to progress by way of argument from what we do know to what we don't know. And what is the Unseen World other than the greatest of unknowns.
Does this knowledge affect us and do we affect it?
In the classification of this theory of knowledge such a question is of importance, since I have said that we know a thing through it's interaction with ourselves. Through our changing of it and it's changing of us.
And it is this that the Qur'an itself lays emphasis on this "Have you not seen the one who denies the Religion. Do they not repulse the orphan, and urge not the feeding of the poor" (Al-Qur'an S. Maun).
And the Hadeeth Qudsi inform us that GOD Says "I am as MY servant thinks of ME!" and "If you come to ME walking, then I will run to you"..
So ever is the True Unseen World, a World that changes with your perception of it and changes you for the better. It is a thing that makes you better than who you are, more upright, more trusting and more willing to give.
Thus to know the Unseen, is the supreme knowledge... it can change you as nothing else can change you.
And the Qur'an's main subject matter is the unseen World, and yet contrarily its arguments are fully rational.
It suggests that it is through our rational minds that we might come to know of the World that we cannot normally perceive.
Al-Qur'an "Have you not considered the camels and how they are created? And the Heavens and how they are raised..."etc.. (S. Ghashiya).
" And look at the World, and look again at it and your gaze and sight will come back to you dazed and confused (because of the perfection you will find there)" Paraphrased Al-Qur'an.
Revelation.
And the Qur'an continues "And that which was sent down before your time." S. Baqara (S. 2) Contd.
It says this in reference to the revelation from before, and revelation in general.
In general we know thorough direct sensual perception and reasoning based upon that perception.
However there is another way beyond reasoning that we often glimpse. This is intuition and inspiration, the ah-hah feeling of eureka, that comes from a place we know not where. In Arabic this is ilham, the sister of Wahiy (revelation).
The Ways of KNOWING...
And so just one verse of the Qur'an lays down the hierarchy of how we may come to know the True Invisible World that surrounds us, and is independent of our subjective needs.
"Those who believe in the Unseen and establish the Prayer and who give out of that which WE have given to them. They are the ones who believe in what has been sent down to you (O Muhammad (saw)), and what has been sent down before your time (O the Prophets and Messengers of old, amongst them being Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus (as))... And they are the righly guided, the successful!" S Baqara (Chp2, v2..)
The Certain Knowledge (Ilm al Yakeen of S at-Takathur Chp 102) is
seeing it, feeling it and knowing it. And this is conditional on first believing in it. That there are things that you cannot see and cannot know, directly.
This first means of perception is the most intimate and direct, and the least detailed. It is to make yourself not the centre of your World, to give without count.. that GOD might give you without count or measure.. abundantly from HIS mercies.
And when you do that even in the most basic of forms, you feel good! As Allah t'ala declares in Al-Qur'an "And what is (can be?) the recompense of Good, other than Good". No evolution or Darwinism can explain that feeling. Doing good for the sake of Goodness, itself!
And when you do it collectively and individually, following the Way of Muhammad (saw), you shall taste it in your mouth, smell it in your nose, and feel it in your heart.... a far superior means of knowing, that which is promised.
The last is the most detailed and the least direct. It is to believe in the Truth of Muhammad (saw), who forever will be blessed.. and then to follow him. The question is not whether his morality agrees with your morality, but whether he was as he claimed to be "the seal of the Prophets and the last Messenger sent from GOD" to the whole of Mankind. And to believe in him and follow his way is to know the unseen with your senses and your mind.
In the middle is reasoning applied, and it is to know somewhat of the unseen.. but it is forever the maid of it's premises.. of it's beliefs.
PARADOXICALLY.
Islam as a religion is counter-intuitive. It seeks to teach man the REAL, Unseen World about us through not renouncing the World. Instead the Muslim lives fully in this World, sensually, but makes not this World his centre. That is the Whys and Wherefores of so much of our religion.
To give to others abundantly, without count, so that GOD might say "I am the Magnanimous, the Most Generous" which HE is, that HE might give to us.. even beyond our wildest dreams.
That is why when we fast, we wake for Sobh and sin not by delaying the breaking of the fast. For we fast not to eschew the World, but to feel the pains of hunger and the feelings of satiety. That we might feel, and be alive.
That is the why of our daily ablutions. To wake our senses from their slumber.
That is why when we go to our wives, we make wudhu.. to better enjoy and better give pleasure.
That is our prayer and our Hajj.. a Worldly Prayer and Hajj.. with GOD, the Most Gracious at It's Centre.
So To END
Knowledge of the Unseen is of three types. Direct and Sensual, which is available to us all when we make not ourselves the centre of our Worlds. Indirectly we can know the Unseen, even as Abraham (as) became convinced of the reality of a Benevolent GOD by reasoning based on observing the World and it's intricacies and beauties. The third way is through the acceptance of a BOOK, the revelation that was sent down to Muhammad (saw) the Messenger of GOD. This of itself blesses us with an abundance of knowledge, wisdom and depth whereby we might know the Unseen World about us.
Your Brother in PEACE...
Shafeesthoughts
FOOTNOTES
*1: Because even as I write questioning an objective truth, I am affected and concerned by it, and as you read it you are yourself concerned with it. So that at the very least we are, the two of us, concerned with the same problem. And then this need becomes at once something not solely belonging to us.
A VERY Tired Shafeesthoughts
I will revise this later!
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Location:London
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