“God has not created men equal in\nknowledge and that in every generation there are only a few to whom the others\nmust turn in times of crisis.” – Shams al-D\u012bn Mu\u1e25ammad ibn \u2018Abd al-Ra\u1e25m\u0101n\nal-Sakh\u0101wi (d. 902H\/1497CE)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the current times of crisis, it seems to me\nthat this fundamental insight that the people of spiritual discernment, sages,\nand Prophets throughout the ages understood is either forgotten or ignored.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The duty of some sections of mankind, the\neducated ones, and the possessors of command (ulu al-amr; the rulers and\ngovernments) is to recognize that there are such people in every period of\nhistory and that we need to acknowledge them and to act accordingly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This reality concerning humanity is important\nfor us to recognize and acknowledge against the current backdrop of widespread\nattitudinal tendency of \u2018levelling\u2019 of everyone in our society, and in times\nwhen we need imaginative and breakthrough solutions to the crisis we are facing\nwhich is systemic in nature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That fundamental insight, aside from what is\nalluded to by al-Sakhawi in the aforementioned quote, has also been hinted at by\nJalaluddin Rumi in his Masnavi<\/em> as\nfollows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf intellects join\nforces that is best\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n More light shines and\nthe path\u2019s made manifest, <\/p>\n\n\n\n While carnal souls\nwhen paired, just like the night <\/p>\n\n\n\n Cause darkness to\nobscure the path from sight.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n For the Muslims,\nthere is a basis in the Qur\u2019an on the fact that some believers would have\ndeeper intellectual-spiritual perception than others: \u201cGod raises by degrees\nthose of you who are believers and are granted knowledge by degrees\u201d (58:11),\nand also, \u201cCan those who Know be of the same level as those who do not know?\u201d\n(39:9) \u2013 two verses which Imam al-Ghazali (d. 1111) draws our attention to at\nthe beginning of his Chapter on Knowledge in his monumental and vastly\ninfluential Revival of the Religious Sciences (Ihya Ulum al-Din). <\/p>\n\n\n\n In other words, it is part of God\u2019s customary\nway of acting (sunnatuLlah) for there to be men and women of deeper perception\non the realities of things or wisdom (hikmah) and it is the moral duty for\nothers to turn to in times of crisis. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This is also connected to the question of returning\nthe trust (amanah) to its rightful keepers\u2014a command of God according to Qur\u2019an\n(4: 58)\u2014and this matter is drawn to our attention in its contemporary context\nby the luminary, Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas, in his more recent book, On\nJustice and the Nature of Man (2015). In it he states, among other things, that\n\u201cit is assumed that the Keeper of trust must possess moral integrity and\nauthentic knowledge of what is entrusted in order to be worthy of the trust\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In my\nhumble opinion, the habitual neglect of the aforementioned considerations could perhaps be one of the reasons why we\nfail time and time again to think holistically or systemically about our\nproblems and continue to think in isolation and fragmentation in the major\nproblems confronting us in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The best way to think about any given issue is\nvia the more \u201csystemic\u201d, or interconnected way as how the great luminaries of\nthe past have shown us \u2013 instead of the fragmented way of allowing our narrow\nspecializations to dictate the framing and solution of a problem a feature\npeculiar to the modern secularised mode of thought under the guise of\n\u201cscientific training\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The inability to think systemically while being\ninformed with wisdom will result in solutions which maybe ad hoc, piece meal, reductionist\nor in-effective. <\/p>\n\n\n\n For example when the sagacious in Islamic\ntradition speak of \u201cjustice\u201d (\u2018adl), they understand it as a condition of\nthings being in its proper place in relation to the \u201csystem\u201d it is in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Such insights is necessary to move beyond\nsuperficial, reductionist or pseudo-solutions which perhaps many who are in\npositions of decision making may tend to adopt uncritically. For example,\nglobal health frameworks may sometimes need to be adjusted to local contexts as\nthey may not be addressing local limitations and ethical failures and even\nindigenous viable solutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A pool of select individuals with moral integrity and\nauthentic knowledge of different generations can help to synergize systemic changes\nwhich many specialists may tend to overlook. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Considering the views of the sagacious will\nfill a much needed gap in existing modes of thinking by authonities on\n\u201ctransformation\u201d and \u201crecovery\u201d plans which may mostly be simply process-driven\nand implementation-based only.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For the Muslims it is particularly urgent\nconsidering that the Prophet Muhammad, upon him be peace, once said: “When\nauthority is given to those who are not the keepers (ahl) of trust, then wait\nfor the Hour.” (Sahih al-Bukhari, 6496)<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Muslims have numerous historical track\nrecords where this fundamental insight and principle is made operative: it is\nwell documented in history that the founding fathers of the Ottoman State held\nclose relations with sagacious individuals\u2014the most prominent case in point being\nOsman Ghazi and Shaykh Edebali, and Sultan Mehmet Fatih and Ak Shamsuddin; and\nseen from the broader arc of history, such convergence is the reason why we are\nable to glean a vast yet orderly and harmonious \u201ccivilisation-state\u201d which\nsought to fashion history as an instrument of the Divine Will.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cGod has not created men equal in knowledge and that in every generation there are only a few to whom the others must turn in times of crisis.\u201d \u2013 Shams al-D\u012bn Mu\u1e25ammad ibn \u2018Abd al-Ra\u1e25m\u0101n al-Sakh\u0101wi …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_analytify_skip_tracking":false,"_wpzoom_pinterest_image_url":"","_wpzoom_pinterest_hidden_image":"0","_wpzoom_pinterest_description":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[139],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-straits-times","category-139","description-off"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29701"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29701\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}