If you had ever fasted for a very long period of time (lets say 1 month) or deprived yourself of liquid for a long period of time, the hunger you feel becomes numb, and the thirst you feel becomes numb. For me, I have become numb to the fact that I have been deprived of knowledge. But one would say to me - hey, you have just completed a degree from Imperial what are you on about, EEE is probably one of the most intensive course you would ever take. How could you be deprived of knowledge?
There are generally 2 types of knowledge out there: secular knowledge and religious knowledge, and it was the religious knowledge I have been so deprived of. Furthermore, it was I who deprived myself of this. I remember this feeling I am feeling today as the days when I did A-levels Religious Studies. I just came back from a 2.5 days of full on 9 hours/day of Islam Course called the “Light of Guidance, Fundamental of Faith 101″. A world-renown Sheikh (given as a title to the elders of the tribe, but now to an Islamic Scholar): Sheikh Yasir Qadhi [can click on his name for a wiki link] from Texas, yes, Texas in USA where George W. Bush is from, is giving a 2 weekend long course on the fundamental iman (faith) of Islam. For the first time in more than 5 years I feel myself in this state of piousness, peacefulness and calmness that I cannot explain. I started another post regarding a personal miracle I have experienced but I don’t think I have time to finish that today. It will only take time before I can really sit down to write a few proper blogs on some of these concepts after I do more reading and research into it.
One thing I want to mention which I find very interesting after attending his lectures that I want to share at this point in time. It is the belief that everyone is born a Muslim. With this knowledge which he gave me perhaps I can shed a few lights upon this issue which I had not been able to explain before. Its the idea of Fitrah, which can loosely be translated as “conscience” in English. That God created each and everyone of us with this conscience, and with it was the embedded knowledge of a God. So, I found it very interesting when I was told that in fact the belief in God was the single most logical thing which the Qur’an assumes. It was only recent history when we found the concept of atheism, I believe its during the European Enlightenment, the late 19th Century when German Philosophers such as Nietchze and Feuerbach purpose idea such as “God is dead”. Indeed, we saw the consequences of such dangerous ideologies leading up to World War II. But by any means, we are subconsciously aware of a supernatural being by birth, and without the influence of the world, everyone will become a Muslim by name, which literally mean “The one who submits to God”. I’ll expand more on that in future posts.
To finish off, I just want to finish off my analogy I gave on the beginning of my blog of the numbness you feel. The thing was, after 9 whole hours for 2 days, I feel that suddenly I am awake again. The world makes sense to me again. I have goals in life again. It feels like the first breath of air after being nearly strangled to death. I know now that there is so much to learn, and this is just the mere beginning.