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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Colonialism, Orientalism and the Significant Other.

Colonialism, Orientalism
and the Significant Other.

Reading Edward Said's celebrated work on Orientalism, by that name, leaves a believer thinking on the malaise both now and before that allowed such a thing to happen.

Off course Muslims and Islam are the significant other that deserve study, but Orientalists have always done so with little to no respect for either.

Being brought up stradling both East and West leaves me wondering at how a system of thought as deep as Islam could be swept away by one as shallow as everything propounded by the West. For even as Descartes observed everything propounded by the West is at once disputed by the West. They do not know, cannot know and futhermore believe that this anarchy ,of a type, is their greatest virtue.

In the words of the Qur'an, are the seeing and the blind equal? Are the ones who know, and those who dispute comparable?

But then the problem of how we came to be colonialised and conquered, instead of disappearing in a mire of self conceipt and gloating, should become all the more disturbing.

For to be dominated by such unashmed not-knowing shallowness must mean that we have become shallower still. That our knowledge and the knowledge of our brightest Scholarly Stars is but paper thin. For as the historically verefied dictum states "knowledge is power". We are powerless because of our lack of knowledge and more importantly because of our lack of understanding of what knowledge is.

Most of us believe that all good and usefull knowledge is Qur'an and Sunnah, even whilst Allah t'ala disdains not in making a gnat a parable for us. And even our contemporary thinkers, such a Ziauddin Sardar, see the islamization of knowledge at roots as being an undermining of Islamic ideals.

That is not to say that the Islamization of Knowledge movement has no faults. Rather when Allah t'ala took a gnat as an example of the perfection of the signs (or proofs) within creation it was, and should continue to be, for us all an example of how ALL knowledge is GOD's knowledge, and is and should be our knowledge.

For as with all work started with the words of dedication, so to with all knowledge begun with the BasmaAllah, all is sacred devotion. And that is even the case where it's usefullness might be called into question, for why else would Allah t'ala use the least of things to teach us what is holy and what is not?

The aquisition of all Worldly Knowledge is not a thing to be Islamicised, for it is already Holy.

And it is because of this, among many other erreonous concepts that pertain to what knowledge is and what are it's functions, that I blog in that field. Because it is the theories of knowledge that underpin all that is not well with us now, and yet underpinned all that was great about us before.


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The Right of Ascension, a Hereditary Problem

Apaloosa, Kings & Islam

Yesterday I was in the mood for a Western, so I watched Apaloosa. It's funny how the genre has moved on from being completely absurd (John Wayne, who I can't stand) to being absurdly realistic.

The Spaghetti Westerns, personified by "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly", are classics on three fronts: their score, the close-ups and the long drawn out silences. The imagery is one of solitude, and that imagery continues throughout the genre.

At the frontiers, of absolutely anything, you must be prepared to go it alone. But then whether you achieve, or not, depends on the slow movement of civilization. And it is that system of organization that is necessary, both for your survival and your posterity (that which you leave behind after you have gone).

Clash of Civilizations?
Of course the civilization I talk of here is not one of absolutes, or norms.

And so that frontier, there, was not one of Civilization versus Non-Civilization. And that the Western Civilization eventually destroyed the Native Indian Civilization, does not mean that it was necessarily any better. But in order to effect the destruction of another Civilization it is imperative to create chaos and lawlessness, so your claim of superiority might better be believed. And that was the Wild West.

And maybe we are seeing that same dynamic in action in Baghdad, Kabul and now Pakistan; the onslaught of one Civilization against another.

But then maybe, just maybe, the real frontier is someplace else. Maybe that frontier is in this blog that I pen.

This because Islam is not a place, but a most powerful and relevant ideal.

But what, I hear you ask, has this all to do with Kings and Islam?

Kingships.
In Apaloosa in order to deal with the lawlessness of the frontier, the people were forced to give over the right to make LAW to a hired hand. The PEACE-maker, as he called himself, came with a ready solution. He held in his hand a document that once signed into statute, allowed him to become the LAW.

Ibn Khaldun, the first analytical historian, argued that that Royal Authority, to become the Law and make War or Peace, is a function of the measure of bonding between a people (Assabiyah) and hence their needs. For adversity, normally, causes people to rediscover their commonality and ignore their differences.

And just as in Apaloosa, I can well imagine a time when banditry and lawlessness were the order of the day, and where every man, family, town and city was forced to seek shelter and normality in Kingship.

And so at the beginning the common need for security drove people to make Kings. But Kingship is unnatural. A King cannot be free, but of a necessity has to be bound by convention. Every King of Men is a King on the proviso that the people maintain him as such. The taller the tree, the harder the fall. And so a King’s continuous pre-occupation must always be the maintenance of his authority, so that it might not vanish. And then of course Absolute Power corrupts Absolutely.

Thus every King of Men is crushed between one of two extremes: the ability to fulfill his every whim, and the desperate need to maintain his standing both for himself and his posterity.

In Apaloosa we see the absurdity of that conundrum come into play.

And Ibn Khalid noted the temporariness of Kingships in the Maghreb; that in general they lasted but three generations. Whereas other un-natural Kingships are shorn up by convention, in our Muslim lands our GOD-given conventions make poor ground for Kingships.

The Natural Way.
This because of our Deen-al-Fitra.
For Muslims call their faith "Deen al-Fitra", the way of man's natural inclination, and usually explain this with reference to man's inward and psychological life. That to worship is a natural element of what it means to be a man, and that then the sole remaining question is who deserves to be worshiped? One who is deaf, dumb, blind and in need, or the ONE who is free from all needs, sees, hears and knows all? Truly the ONE who deserves is the Creator, the Able, the Living, the Ever-Living.

But surely we all also know that man is a sociable creature. And that thus it is natural that we would want to organize ourselves in a way that adds to that natural sociability. Therefore an aspect of our religion being "Deen al-Fitra" must encompass the means of our Social and hence Political organization.

And the most fundamental matter in respect of all Political Authority is the matter of succession.

And this matter must have been especially urgent for our Prophet (saw), most especially because of his foretelling of all the problems that would come upon his Nation following his departure from this World.

The end of Kingdoms.
And with the coming of Muhammad (saw) Kingship ended.

Such portents were evident in the first years of the Meccan period when Quraish offered up Kingship to Muhammad (saw), on condition of his abandonment of the ONE God. His (saw) refusal was the first indication in his life that he was sent to abolish Kingships.

And then later on in the late Meccan period ALLAH t’ala revealed HIS direct Kingship of not just the Heavens but most importantly of the Earth and ALL on it and ALL in it and ALL between them (Heaven and Earth).

And still later in the early Medinan period ALLAH t’ala revealed to us Man’s stewardship over the Earth and all on it. Those verses reveal a time at the very beginning of archetypal Man’s Creation (Nabi Adam (as)) when ALLAH t’ala designed our creation and thereafter when HE empowered us with the knowledge of Words (S. Baqara).

Thus what was portended in Muhammad (saw)’s refusal of the Quraishi Kingship, was fulfilled in the Words of ALLAH t’ala where HE gave over to us the sacred trust of our World. That Kingship ended, and all ownership became the calling, of all of us, to account at the appointed time, on the Day of Truth. And all LAW became the Sacred Law, and its fulfillment and application, through interpretation, for the betterment of all of us.

The Rights of Succession.
And when Muhammad (saw) said "Obey those placed in authority over you" he did not mean, as many people misrepresent, "Do not rock the boat". For that was an argument of the Kings before him, and also of the Kings that came after him, that theirs was a GOD given authority.

Nor did he (saw) mean the rule of the Imams, for critically examining “Choose the one who best knows the Qur’an” will cause you to realize it’s specificity as opposed to its generality.

For did not Khalid bin Walid (ra) lead Abu Ubaydullah bin al-Jarrah (ra) whilst they both were in Khalid’s army? Evidently they understood it to mean “Choose the one who best knows the Qur’an” when no designated leader is available or present. Our Imams may be the inheritors of the Prophets in Knowledge, but not of their political authority.

However, Muhammad (saw) did teach us that "The Leader of a People is the one who best serves them."

In the instance of the urgency of a multitude of problems, to have left without specifying a successor in all but extremely vague terms can only mean that Muhammad (saw) wished the people to choose their leader for themselves.

A Great Legacy.
And so by these tokens the people were empowered to appoint leaders unto themselves, on the proviso that those leaders would seek to fulfill Mans obligations to ALLAH t’ala (GOD, Most High) (the fardh of the true religion) and then secondarily fulfill man’s obligation to his fellow man (enact justice), and then to do good to the people.

This most perfect form of social organization found expression in the Medina of our Prophet (saw) where every man and woman, irrespective of social status, was given the right to extend protection to whomsoever they wished on the proviso that those so protected would not seek to harm any other member of Medina. The power to make and declare PEACE traditionally lay with a King, and Muhammad (saw) extended that power of PEACE to every man and woman irrespective. Not for naught is this the religion of PEACE.

And not for naught is Islam known as the true religion of Democracy.

The rule of Enlightened Philosopher Kings as advocated by the Greek Philosophers, or Marcus Aerulius (Roman Emperor), was not for Muhammad (saw). Nor was the rule for any Imam or Religious Leader. Rather for Muhammad (saw) the rule to enact GOD’s way was for those who do good to the people and those who are chosen by them.

Muhammad (saw) must, at the very least, be credited with the creation of an open / vibrant society that took the whole World out of the dark ages. And that empowered every individual with the means to work for our collective betterment, all of us. A truly open and free society.
May ALLAH t’ala reward Muhammad (saw) abundantly, for but for him we would never have believed. I bear witness that there is no god but ALLAH t’ala, and I bear witness that Muhammad (saw) is HIS true Messenger and Prophet, who fulfilled that which he was obliged to fulfill, who delivered the True Message even unto us down through the centuries. Ameen.


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When Denial of Shirk (multiplicity of gods) becomes an Oppression!

When Denial of Shirk (multiplicity of gods) becomes an Oppression!

In the Qur'an we learn of the sage Luqman's (alay his-salaam) bequest to his children, "Indeed Shirk (the association of others with GOD) is the greatest of Oppressions".

For it is an oppression against your own self since GOD had taken the oath from you when you were but atoms issued from the loins of Adam (as), at the beginnings of our creation (Surah Araf).

It is an oppression against the whole of mankind, since without the recognition of a transcendental singular GOD, who can conceive and put into action a Universal Justice.

(http://shafeesthoughts.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/fallacy-of-shirk-polytheism-agnosticism_07.html?m=1)

And it is an oppression against the whole of Creation that cries out against and only bears man's insolence because the command of

GOD preceded and took precedence over it.

However even given all that, we live in a singular time when those who make it their primary business to deny Shirk (the multiplicity of gods) have become the greatest oppression against us.

For the people I speak of may well be my brothers is religion, but that should only encourage me to stop them when they err.

They are those who believe themselves to be the blessed, the guided, the Ahl ul Sunnah wa'l Jamat. Are we not all?

But these particular ones hold three fold program that they believe purifies them above all others. 

That program consists of the

affirmation of the primacy of the Qur'an and Sunnah, the fear of Biddah (innovation), and the denial of Shirk. 

In reality, all in reverse order.

And it is this misplaced and indeed over-emphasis on Shirk denial that is the root cause of their oppression on us.

For Muhammad (saw) said of us, being his Ummah, that he feared not for us to revert back to Shirk, but for us to become neglectful of our minor duties and responsibilities that men hold over men. And so it has been throughout our ages that the five rights that GOD holds over us

have never been neglected, save possibly one. 

And that one whilst it is GOD's

right, and our duty to perform in obedience to HIM, it is the one whose benefit to others is abundantly clear. 

It is the Zakat; the right that the poor, needy and traveller hold over us through GOD's grace. 

The portent of Muhammad (saw)

is true, that whilst we uphold those things we neglect the right of a brother over a brother; the salaam, the overlooking of errors, and when they can't be overlooked then the consideration of excuses, and the brotherly goodness in all that it entails.

And it is these people in their pursuit of the denial of Shirk that run roughshod over our rights.

For they do not understand that the denial of Shirk does not of itself lend one to belief.

Whilst the accursed devil recognised the supremacy of God, he failed in his submission to HIM. And even supplicated for an everlasting life that he might lay in wait for the children of Adam on every highway and pass.

The Cornerstone of Belief.

The denial of Shirk is not the cornerstone of our belief.

Rather it is the doing of good; the smile, the social acts, and the upholding of all that is right and the fight against all that is wrong.

For Muhammad (saw) told us as much when he said that belief has seventy branches and the least of it is the removal of harm from the paths that men walk.

And not the denial, nor the rail, against Shirk.

And it is this over-emphasis on the thing that Muhammad (saw) under-emphasised for us that have visited a great oppression on the Ummah of Rasulullah.

Our HERITAGE.

For the house of al-Saud, and their ideology of

the ahlul-sunnah, has destroyed and continues to destroy our heritage: the

places that witnessed a phenomenal time that was the Prophet's life.

Where another would keep historical sites and use

them as a means of education for the people, they un-keep them, destroy them

and ignore them.

A very precious heritage on the verge of being

lost, because they fear that which Muhammad (saw) did not fear.

And even if they were right in regard to the few,

why squander for the many, that which would greatly benefit us all.

Reasonable Belief v/s Unreasonable SCIENCE: From Nothingness to Creation in 3 easy steps.

PREAMBLE

I believe in Creation, and in an intent, and will, that Created. 

I believe in a Sustainer, a Provider and a Giver above all. 

I do not hold that a proof of my belief necessarily exist in this life. 

Nor that a proof is even desirable. 

But what I do hold is that it is REASONABLE to believe, and unreasonable to not. 

When we come to ideas on the coming into existence of existence itself, we often come down to an argument of a thing becoming from nothing. 

Whilst we would be hard put to to empirically show such an event, the fact that we can conceive of it means that the idea must be entertained. 

The first modern Scientific postulate of an unobservable object, following on from Einstein's general theory, were the aptly named Black Holes. Until that is a clever dick showed that there would even be a radiation emitted from those esoteric cosmological oddities caused by the spontaneous eruption of mirror particles on the Black Hole's event horizon. 

It would seem then that even things that we presume are unobservable, are in fact observable, only you need to know where to look and what for. 

The Qur'an in its first stanza lays a clear foundation:

1-That is the BOOK without doubt.

(A place to look). 

2-A guide to the humble. 

3- Those who believe in the unseen, who establish prayer and spend out if what WE have bestowed upon them (of their wealth to the poor and needy).

The first characteristic for those seeking guidance is humility in the sight of something higher than yourself. 

The second clarifies the first; true and lasting humility comes only to those who believe in an unseen World. 

Thereafter the Quran guides us in the application of those things, but at outset it differentiates the Muslims as being those who believe in an Unseen World. 

ARGUMENT 1-

Then it would be reasonable to say that a man either-

1- believes in an Unseen World, or 

2-believes that the World is all that can be seen, or all that he can see and observe. 

In case 1, the person in question would have no trouble conceiving of something coming from nothing, and the Quran follows this with guidance sure. 

That such people should examine the root of all Books that came before, the original teachers and not their followers. 

For there they will find the purity of monotheism that only today resides within Muslim beliefs. 

ARGUMENT 2

In the case of 2, such a man, being an empiricist, cannot conceive of nothingness since nothingness is by its very definition unobservable. 

And if he did then surely he would not remain true to his principle. 

For it is unobservable, and hence impossible. 

Or he says that there always was a thing; an infinite regression of things. 

But since he is a finite empiricist, not in an infinite number of lifetimes, will he be able to observe a thing without a beginning. 

He will never be able to show with any degree of certainty a thing without a beginning. 

Both of which he would be hard put to observe; something coming from nothing, or an everlasting thing. 

In fact for an empiricist, a true materialist, explaining existence is a conundrum which will only bring them grief. 

Their ideas fail and contradict. 

Their only recourse is to deny their principle on the greatest of questions. 

Now tell me, who off the two is more reasonable?

The one who believes in an unseen World and that a thing can become from Nothing, or the one who says that all that there is, is all that can be seen, and then conjures something coming from nothing, or conjures an unobservable infinite series of beginnings, neither of which he can observe.

ARGUMENT 3

And there you have a contradiction, between his principle and what he'd have to admit. 

Such a man falls in his principle and in his methodology for by attempting to lay claim to the greatest question that mankind has posed of himself; the question if origin; he has admitted his need for those things that he cannot observe. 

Or if he were to hold true to his methodology, and his principle, then he would be forced to discount and ignore the ultimate question of origin. 

Yes he might pander around its limits, but never could he address the essence of the thing. 

And such a man would be incomplete. 

For it is the nature of all men, who would be whole, to question their origin. 

And GOD is the best of Judges, WHO will repay all in full those who lie and fail to be true to themselves. 

Shafeesthoughts. 

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Location:London

The Truth is.....

What is TRUTH?

The funny thing about this question is that we all "know" what Truth is, and yet somehow that doesn't help us. Knowledge is measured by the clarity and relevance of expression, and yet when we try to answer the question of "What is Truth?", we stumble.

We can all give examples of Truth, but that is precisely because we all know what it is. But to explain it in itself, without recourse to our examples, is a totally different matter.

Some definitions...       
If pushed you might be tempted to use a circular argument...

"Truth is truth" obviously.... And then laugh nervously.

Or even a truncated, or reversed, circular argument ..
"Truth" ...is..."What IS!"...

Or you just might try to sound even more profound with the equivalent..
"That which IS".

Which are all really just saying ...
"Truth is that which is TRUE."

More Trials...        
And then realising the foolishness of your circularity, you might say...

"That which is Self Evident."    Think again, is that Truth REALLY?

How many times have you presumed something to be Self-Evident only to find later that it isn't?

And after that thought you might add the proviso..."That which is self evident to US as a collective", or even "to the majority of US". And then on consideration you might remember the many instances in History where vast numbers of people have been deluded. Or even that at one time vast numbers of people "Knew" that the World was Flat.

Kindergarten Child.             

The more we think on it, the more intractable and the more escapable it all becomes. And yet even a kindergarten child knows what it is and what it isn't!

It is that obvious, that self evident.

And when a child's innocence is broken, when he learns that there are lies too, does not his face screw up in disgust? Because he instinctively knows that Truth is beautiful, and Truth is good.

Just as we all instinctively know that there is but one Truth and not a plurality of truths.

This is the conundrum of Truth, that even a child knows it and yet we adults cannot lay our finger on it.

The language of Mathematics....

Of all of us, it is our Mathematicians and Philosophers who have best tried to capture and contain it. For them Truth is a property of a statement, or a well-behaved function of a statement that gives one of two values either "true" or "false".

In plain speech all this means, is what we already know, that Truth is not falsehood and that falsehood can never be true. And that any well-behaved statement must either be true or false.

Godel proved that there are statements (within any systematic language) whose "truth" or "validity" can never be proved. Within the language of maths, axioms are given and not proven. Godel went one step further and showed that even when we exclude our given axioms, no language can ever be sufficiently powerful or perfect enough when it comes to expressions of Truth or Falsity.

Truth remains and has remained the greatest of enigmas.

A Supplication.             

I started on this thought process by thinking on the supplication of the greatest of men, Muhammad ibn Abdullah (saw), Rasul Allah (the last Messenger of GOD sent to Mankind). May he (saw) forever be blessed, abundantly and infinitely.

For he (saw) asked of Allah t'ala, GOD Most High, "O Allah show us the nature of things as they TRUELY are!" and we ask "O Allah, show us the Truth as Truth, and Falsehood as Falsehood and give us the courage and strength to follow the Truth and deny Falsehood".

For a Muslim Truth is higher than Love.

And ALLAH t'ala is AL-HAQQ.... the Supreme Truth.

As I was thinking on the issue... I ah-hahed... and I realised the similarities between the Truth I spoke of above, and the Nature of GOD as we Muslims understand HIM.

Allah t'ala, GOD Most High.        

For us Muslims GOD is self- evident.

HE is obvious, without doubt.

In the Chapter of Purity, Surah Ikhlas, we read.. "GOD is the Self-Subsisting".. Sufficient is HE for HIMSELF, and HE has no need of anyone. Just like Truth which can only really be defined as and of itself and not in relation to any other. "GOD is Unique and ONE".

And just like the Kindergarten Children, We know GOD to be beautiful and the ever doer of Good!

For Muhammad (saw) said.. "GOD is beautiful and loves those things that are beautiful".

And GOD is AL-HAQQ, the Supreme Truth above all, and upon which all are dependant.

And all glory belongs to HIM who nourishes us and provides for us and opens our eyes that we might see. And we ask Allah t'ala to bless Muhammad (saw) abundantly and with the best of blessings for that he (saw) showed us the way. Ameen.

Shafi.

Transcendentalism and the Origin of the Written Word

Transcendentalism and the Word:..:

"Wherefore lies the origin of the written word?"

 No doubt "a picture paints a thousand words", but one "well placed" word cuts through a mountain of irrelevance to the essence of a thing.

"The Origins of Writing."

Writing began with pictures that were used to tell stories. And then Pictograms, stylised pictures, were used to represent objects just like in early Hieroglyphics.

And so we know from the study of ancient Hieroglyphics that over time, as it's writing was also used to document everyday life, it became more cursive. And thus more flowing and distant from it's origins.

But the most incredible jump in all technology, ever, came when those symbols began to be used to represent sounds or syllables. And then their further abstraction formed sounding letters and a complete circumscribed alphabet.

It boggles me as to WHAT could ever have caused the Homo Sapiens genus to abandon the use of simple pictograms, representing objects, and then adopt abstract alphabets?

Certainly there were countless benefits, but these of themselves cannot explain that momentous leap.

"Countless Benefits."

Can you imagine having to remember a unique identifier-symbol specific to every word that you knew? Only a few gifted people would have been literate!

As social organisations grew in complexity; as kings annexed more land and grew in authority; the needs to administer their people effectively would have been most pressing.

BUT

But in order to evaluate the ease of conversion from one form of writing to the other it is not sufficient to look with hindsight on the World of our forbears. Rather when we put ourselves in their shoes, only then can we fully realise the momentousness of that change and the vast implications it would have had for the thought processes of Mankind.

Abstract Concepts & Ideas.

For with abstract alphabets came the possibility, and the concurrent ease, with which we might express abstract (and invisible) ideas and concepts.

Before that, what concrete symbols could people have used to transmit knowledge of Truth and Justice, Good and Bad?

That is not to say that they couldn't conceive of those principles, nor speak of them. But they wouldn't have been able to lay their thoughts down in black and white, and thence systemise or think deeply about them. And they wouldn't have been able to transmit this knowledge to people they had never met.

Historical Analysis.

The Historical Analysis of this question should be no different from any other form of rational analysis. All of rationality works in one direction only, being a movement from what is known to what is unknown. The known informs us with regard to the unknown and not vice versa.

What we know is who and what we are this day. And so to theorise about the origins of our abstract alphabets, and literacy, it is enough of a starting point to examine literacy in our day and time.

1 in 4 people throughout the World are Muslim, and even though not all of them understand their Arabic Qur'an, most of them read it. For some of them it may not make them literate, but even for those literacy is a thing to be sought, and books are a thing to honour in whichever language they are written.

Possibly for a Millennium a like phenomenon was found in Christendom where their most widely read book was the Bible.

In Judaism, the first of the three (Abrahamic Faiths), the scribes who write the scripture are honoured as one of the religious classes.

The Word and The Pen.

"In the beginning there was the Word and the Word was with GOD" is the beginning of Genesis, the beginning of beginnings.

In Islam the first thing that Allah t'ala created was the pen, and HE commanded it to write and it wrote all that would be.

What Muslims KNOW.

Muslims honour, and call true, all of the Messengers and Prophet sent from GOD to Mankind. These start with Adam (as), the father off all men, and include Noah, Idris, Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Solomon, John (the Baptist), Jesus and finally Muhammad (Peace and Blessings be upon them all).

Of these Muslims call five the greatest of Prophets sent to Mankind, these being Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad (pbut). However Muslims recognise a difference between a Messenger from GOD and a Prophet of GOD. For all Messengers of GOD are necessarily Prophets of GOD, but not all Prophets of GOD are Messengers. The defining difference between the two is that a Messenger receives a revealed Book and a Law. All of the five except Noah received a Book.

Noah (as).

That Noah (as) is amongst the five greatest and yet did not receive a Book, and hence is known to be a Prophet but not a Messenger, suggests that in his age there were no books and no writing.

He preached amongst his people a marathon 950 years, and then made his famous supplication that brought upon them the deluge: "They will never believe!"

Even if we believe that the lifespan of his people numbered into the thousands, 950 years of calling people to the same singular truth, of there being an Originator, a Sustainer and a Caller to Account of all things, is incomprehensible by any standards.

Until, that is, we consider the differing potentials between the absence of writing (or even the sole use of concrete symbols for writing purposes) and "abstract alphabets".

The lack of an abstract alphabet, given by the absence of a book, meant that Noah's (as) people found it difficult to perceive the hidden / objective World that surrounds us all. It's absence further compounded their lack of sensitivity, so that they could not perceive just arguments nor truth.

And it is this absence that must have necessitated 950years of intense work, because GOD is not unjust. And GOD will not punish a people (in this World) without first giving them the opportunity of believing.

The Heavenly Books.

Muslims believe that GOD literally sent down from Heaven the Books that were given to the Messengers.

From Abraham's and Zathrustra's Scriptures to Moses Tablets and David's Psalms to the countless Books lost to antiquity. It is these Books that must have shown the way, by example, to what could be achieved by the adoption of abstract alphabets.

And this is possibly what ALLAH t'ala referred to in the first revelation that came to Muhammad (saw) from the Qur'an (a recital of the last such Heavenly Book to descend which never reached our Earth):

"Read in the name of your LORD who Created.

Created mankind from a lifeless bit of congealed blood.

Read (a command),

and your LORD (O Mankind) is most bounteous (giving/generous).

HE it is who TAUGHT (Mankind) by the PEN.

TAUGHT (Mankind) that which he knew naught."

S Alaq, Al-Qur'an.

 

 

A Sobering Thought.

We live in a Modern World in which progress is denial of all that came before. However the basis of our Law and Ethics are rooted firmly in the revealed religions.

More than that.

And the very words that we talk, the very concepts that we hold true, are a direct result of the Heavenly Books that ALLAH t'ala (GOD, most High) sent down to Mankind.

The last of which was the Holy Qur'an.

Paradoxically it is a verbal Message sent down upon an unlettered Messenger. Muhammad (saw) who rewrote all that it means to be a Man, a Leader and a Conqueror.

May ALLAH t'ala reward him (saw) abundantly, without measure, forever and ever. Ameen.

Shafi.

I will post more detailed commentary later.