Strange Times
Strange Times
By Naeema Akram
So Heaven has given us to live in interesting times; we are entering
the greatest global crises in many decades; and it is right for Muslims to
reflect, taking advantage of these newly long and quiet days… - Shaykh Abdal
Hakim Murad in ‘A Perspective on the Pandemic’
May 2020
Diary,
The world is closing in on me. In fact, it must be
closing in upon many people these days. These are strange times. Extremely
strange. I never thought I would be among those who would live to see these
strange times. Here I am, surviving with the will of Allah – the best of
planners. These times would make good stories for my grandchildren, if I live
to see them. A virus has taken over the entire world - the Corona, literally the
one who wears a crown. There are so many perspectives regarding it; so many
conspiracy theories as well. Let’s keep everything, all theories aside. The
fact of the matter is that tables have been turned. Our mindless marathon in
this material, transitory world has suddenly stopped. Every human being in the
world, at the moment, is told to stay away from another. ‘Social distancing,’
they call it. Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad describes it quite aptly that “no one
wishes to stand too close to Azrail, the Angel of Death.” Shivers run down my
spine when I think of the Angel of Death being so near. Unfortunately, that is
my state of Iman. I do not despair of
the mercy of my Lord. What scares me is the scarcity of provision on the way
that eventually leads to Him. The only hope rests in His infinite mercy. There
is nothing without it. These are strange, reflective times …
****
Diary,
We are spending this Ramadan being locked down. Sounds
funny. Who could have locked our mindless endeavours down? Allah, indeed, is
the best of planners. Who knew things would turn completely upside down like
they have now? Man had created so much chaos in the world that there seemed to
be a need to bring everything to a halt. It was needed that the humanity be
brought back to its senses. A poet once said,
سمت کی کوئی خبر ہے نہ ستارے کا پتا
چلتے رہنے کو ہی یہ لوگ سفر جانتے ہیں
سمت کی کوئی خبر ہے نہ ستارے کا پتا
چلتے رہنے کو ہی یہ لوگ سفر جانتے ہیں
(No sense of the way, no guiding star/the journey is
naught but (an aimless) stroll)
That is how it was. We were merely walking without having
any sense of direction or purpose. We had lost our guiding stars. And without
those, there was so much darkness around. It seemed like we had been
sleepwalking. The Shaykh (Abdal Hakim Murad) thinks that “the consumer
carnival, the Mardi Gras of our product-addicted age is over; this feels like a
morning-after, a hangover. We used to reach happily for the goods in the shops,
which shone and sparkled before our entranced and childish eyes. Now we
hesitate and touch gingerly, reluctantly, as though touching the skin of a
corpse.” This might sound like a distasteful comparison to many. Well, distaste
is what we associate death with. But how true is this! It feels as if we, being
the part of the herd, were sleepwalking and have suddenly woken up. Have we
woken up to a pleasant or an unpleasant world is for us to decide. Pleasantness
is relative here. For many, this break from the usual running after the world
might be a breath of fresh of air, whereas, others might be lamenting over
having to stay at home all day long. Whether we like it or not, it has
happened. We have been locked down, and this time the choice is not ours.
Nature seems to be in a vengeful mood …
*****
Diary,
“Even the atheist brain knows ours for a time of hubris:
we madly ravage and violate nature and walk upon the moon; every other species
cringes from us as ecosystems die; our gamed financial system is increasingly
parasitical upon the poor. From our human perspective Covid-19 is an infection
which disorders our world; but seen from the world’s perspective humanity
itself has, over the past age, become a still more deadly disease: like a
fungus or a hookworm we suck the blood of the host, multiplying insanely until
the ecosystem itself, the planet which we vampirize, starts to sicken and die.
Bani Adam, released from the natural restraints urged by religion, has itself
become a disease, in its planning and its wisdom no more intelligent than a
microbe. We have become a Qarun-virus.” (Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad)
I cannot agree more. We did not even realize that we had
become vampires sucking on the blood of our planet, an amanah, Allah had trusted us with. Such mindlessness! They tell me
dolphins have returned to the waters in Venice! And it is after ages that the
waters have become crystal-clear. People, isolated in their homes, are now
witnessing the rare sight of deer and foxes roaming freely in an otherwise busy
Dubai neighborhood. They say that wildlife in the Margalla Hills of Islamabad
has returned. The smog filled air of Lahore has cleared. The birds now can
actually be heard chirping. Nature, it seems, is rejoicing and enjoying the
sight of people ‘encaged’ in their homes. As I said, tables have turned …
*****
Diary,
The pandemic, like an octopus, still has the world held
tight in its tentacles. Death and disease has made people immensely fearful. Is
fear the right response to the condition in which we find ourselves at the
moment? The Shaykh explained that the Premodern Muslim medics and scholars,
when thought about contagion, “assumed a social world in which expectations
from life and dunya were modest.”
Well, there’s the rub. hazaaron
khawhishe~ aisi ke har khawhish pe dam nikle (thousands of desires that I
wish to die for,) … Long hopes, and infinite desires that we had started living
for. Our consumerism had come to a point of no return, to the point of harming
our own environment in which we and our future generations would breathe. We
had forgotten death and it had become a subject so distasteful that it had no
place in our thoughts or conversations. We had forgotten the important lesson
of this world being nothing but play and that the eternal life was still to
begin. What happened then? All of a sudden the entire world stopped, with fear
in its eyes because death was gazing back at it. “Terrors about death and a
love of abundance are more the sunna of
Nimrod and Pharoah; they are the ways of Abu Jahl, not that of the Seal of the
Messengers,” says the Shaykh.
The Pandemic, it seems, has come forth to jolt us from
our forgetfulness; to revisit our lives, and priorities; to review the state of
the world torn apart by wars and cruelty; to help us share in the pain and fear
of those living in the constant fear of being bombed. Where has all the
‘terrorism’ suddenly disappeared? What became of Syria? Palestine? Kashmir?
Where has all the news vanished? The Corona, a little virus that has donned the
crown, seems to have gobbled up all. Are we going to be witnessing a completely
new world after this contagion is gone? It still remains to be seen…
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