Imitate the Best

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Yesterday we had our usual fortnightly reading club session at the department in the afternoon. One of our esteemed teachers, Mr Faisal Nazir, gave a presentation on Orhan Pamuk's The Black Book. In the beginning he gave an overview of Pamuk's other works and his extremely subtle, 'artistic and intellectual' criticism of the Muslim culture and history (nothing unusual when it comes to the 'postcolonial mimics'!), and then he spoke specifically about The Black Book. What greatly interested me was the chapter (probably the second last in the book) he discussed at length - 'The Story of the Crown Prince'. 

I will write more about the story once I get hold of that particular chapter but let me here discuss the theme on which it was based on - the quest for individuality which ends in "nothingness". According to the postmodern parodic paradigm of looking at things, everything is a copy WITHOUT an original. No matter how much you desire to attain individuality you are eventually doomed to failure. This is because one cannot get rid of the voices of the 'others' that speak in one's head! That's true, because none of us, as Dr Iftikhar Shafi puts it, grows up in vacuum. All of us have our share of experiences that shape our personalities. The way we talk, the way we walk, the way we eat or do anything (yes, practically ANYTHING) is an imitation of some 'other's' influence that we have absorbed completely. So if we cannot escape imitation, then the question of who to imitate arises. Mr Faisal put it very succinctly in the following words:

Since we cannot escape imitation, then we must imitate the BEST, i.e. the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wassallam. My entire quest in that regard would be as to how NOT TO BE original!

And that is absolutely true. For a Muslim, personal individuality loses all meaning when it comes to the personality of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wassallam. As Mr Faisal further pointed out that earlier on, the standard for judging someone was how purified a heart a person had. One's appearance did not matter; whether you were tall, short, fat, thin, that would not mean anything at all. Nowadays, on the contrary, a persona's 'heart' is considered to be his 'personal matter'. You just have to take care of the world 'without' and not the world 'within' ...

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During the discussion, I asked Mr Faisal a question to which he gave a very comprehensive and concise answer and many of my confusions were resolved. Alhamdulillah. My question was, "is it possible to absorb something and not get influenced by it at the same time? For example, in order to refute philosophy, you have to get yourself absorbed into it and then come up with a counterattack (I had Imam Ghazzaali Rahimahullah in my mind at that moment), so is it possible?" The response (paraphrased): 'many of us think that reading Salman Rushdie, for example, would harm our beliefs et cetera, but I feel that we first need to train our hearts - something that is not emphasised upon in our system of education - in such a manner that whatever goes into it comes out purified!' What a profound and wise response it was indeed! 

Personally I would not recommend anyone to read Salman Rushdie (and his likes) who does not know how to keep a critical distance from a text while reading it. Keeping a critical distance would require great training in the literary studies on the part of the reader who wishes to undertake the task of deconstructing such texts. However, something that is of far greater importance is that the reader should have "trained" his heart before plunging himself into such a task. Those who know me personally also know how highly I regard the personality of Syed Abul Hasan Ali Nadwi (May Allah have Mercy on him, increase him in his stations in jannah and fill his grave with noor). I think those who wish to undertake the responsibility of critical reading and responding to certain kinds of texts in an intellectual manner MUST read his works!