| Mystries of creation |
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Spatio-temporal existence and conceptual mirages
Part-1 (Human creation).
Pain & Suffering (Bala) are encountered frequently in daily life. We often wonder if it is the life, and if so why is it so? Philosophically speaking It manifest very profound and subtle meanings when pondered upon the prism of life cycle
(Coming into existence of the life-Conception-its passage-Deliverance- and then ending-Death) from the point of view of creation.
Although Life is a marvelous gift of the Creator, it often than not, is marred with hardships, pain, suffering, testing and training.
In primordial times life’s descendence on earth was caused by testing and training. Prophet Adam (AS) was sent down as a punishment for eating the forbidden fruit. Satan was also expelled from Heavens as a punishment for refusing to bowing down to Adam (AS). In other words the start of the human life on earth was, preceded by the Cause and Effect, imbued with pain, suffering, testing and training ushering the commensurate reward and punishment. In Qura’an (Ch: 2 V: 36,38) Creator declared to Adam (AS)- all souls to descend into temporality to experience separation, conflict and struggle of time.
( Ch:67 V:2, Ch: 90 V:4 CH;2 V:155)
Just imagine, if it wasn’t so ordained and predestined what would have been there to write, talk, relish or be saddened about?
It would have been mechanical, monotonous, robotic flow of events, which already existed in other worlds e.g. in the worlds of Angels and Inanimated matters. Assuming human life without intellect, feelings and actions: which are the main causations of life’s vicissitudes, the primary purpose of creating human beings would have been defeated and rendered meaningless.
The Religions, Sacred Scriptures, and Prophets all would have become unnecessary, unwarranted. In that case the definition of human being, as we know it, as well would have not existed simply because we would have been in the category of Angels or alike: which would have, again rendered the creation of human beings as a separate being absolutely meaningless.
What makes human being different from other creations is the cobweb of all these attractions, distractions and allurements within the constraint of temporality, transient and fleeting reality of this universe and yet emerging steadfast in observance of the Devine injunctions. This is what makes human beings His (swt) viceregent and the Crown of Creation.
Human-being obviously being of the paramount order in the chain of creation as the other creatures and creations are for support, benefit and use of him as the same is confirmed in Holy Qura’an
(Ch:2 V:22,29 & Ch:14 V: 32,33 & Ch:67 V:15), thus designating us the “Crown of Creation“. (Ch;2 V:30,34 & Ch:95 V:4).
Definationally the “Crown of Creation“ has to be the way he is- experiencing, observing, complaining, gratifying, submitting, transgressing, enduring the pain and suffering OR test and training during the life span.
There is also a very distinct but subtle difference between Human-beings and the Angels. The former bear the mysterious knowledge of the Creator and His Essence along with a Freedom of Divergence, whereas the later, only the knowledge of the entire spectrum of the creation with absolute servitude. Having understood the subtle difference and accepting the status of human-being, lends us the opportunity to delve into the purpose of it all.
Reason for creation.
God would have been unknown, unfounded, had Human not been created. That is succinctly explained in Sahih-Hadith al Qudsi where God (swt) responds, “I was hidden treasure: I wished to be known and I created the World”-in response to David (AS)’s question posed directly to Him (swt) as to where was He (swt) before creation.
From human perspective, however; it can be said that, God (swt) was created just the same instant as the Prophet Adam (AS). Theologians, however may not subscribe to this hypothesis and negate it from theological and metaphysical point of view, as Beginning and End are not ascribable to God (swt), which is the negation of His (swt) omnipotence, immortality and infiniteness. The beginning and end are the characteristics of the created beings thus can not be that of the Creator, which clearly distinguishes and defines the Creator (swt).
Purpose of Creation.
When Adam (AS) was created Angels were made to ask the Creator. Why are you creating human beings who will create havoc and bloodletting on the earth? God (swt) replied. Your do not know what I know.(Ch:2 V:30)
The underlying message was that, you do what you are ordained to do. You are given Neither the free will Nor the distractions.
By creating Human being, I want to see that despite all the distractions and allurements Pain and sufferings, testing and training he still devotes himself to me.
Pain & Sufferings.
A brief pause between creation & death
(SPATIO-TEMPORALITY) is the center stage where enactment of cosmic drama takes place-the slaves/actors-perform the designated roles and hence an Experiential/ Sensory exprrimentation is enacted and Devine manifestation witnessed.
As mentioned above, the human descent to earth, along with the elements of goodness and evil, was reasoned on transgression
sacrifice, repentance and ultimate forgiveness (Ch:29 V:1-5).
It was punctuated with the prophet hood, Devine injunctions, reward and punishment during this transitory period and in the hereafter. (Ch:3 V:142)
As a potential motive to perform as per the Scheme, a Need for Achievement and Satisfaction was instilled. The functioning of which is endurance of pain and sufferings OR test and training in pursuit of these goals. The pain and sufferings are inevitable, as is the transmigration regardless of the goals, as this is “The essence” of our being. Pain and sufferings are however reducible to some extent by conforming to the Devine will. The intensity of the pain and sufferings, however increases manifold due to pursuance of the goals not in consonance with the Devine will.
In nutshell the sensual reality of the present, not in confluence with Human divergent ego-self, is Pain & sufferings.
Schematically two groups of people thus produced are described here briefly.
Zlimun
Arrogant transgressors develop a fallacy of independence (Ch:90 V:5,7) based on the faculty of “Acquired knowledge“. Their whole life is thus characterized with selfish and basal pursuits. This may be conscious negation or pure materialistic, secularist, non spiritual mind set where God is seldom remembered. (Ch:90 V:8-11)
Salihun
God fearing, humble, satisfied, content and always looking for ways to please Allah (swt).The deeper they delve into the real Ocean of the knowledge more conviction of the purpose they develop. The real purpose of being, which is solemnly praising, praying and longing to return to Him( Swt), in all sets of circumstances, is achieved (Ch 51, V 56,).
Selected ones or Sufis.
Some Salihun -chosen ones- touch the zenith of their devotion and attain the higher echelon of spirituality, a higher realm, which is attainable by few and far between. They in general are known as Sufis. Their world is unidirectional and that is the love of the Creator. Any thing and everything else becomes inconsequential or meaningless. The sense of pain and suffering for these Novice becomes alien and even non existent. There are no pleasure giving
or pain giving acts; there are only ego sustaining or ego dissolving acts. It is the deed which prepares ego for dissolution or discipline.
In Sufi Triqa (way) there comes a stage when the Ego-self (Nafs) is completely annihilated as this is the station of submergence into the Creator (swt). The separation transform into the gatheredness and unitary witnessing remains. There is no scope of dualism here at this inwardly stage of existence, but undeniable final reality, i.e. the annihilation of the “ego-self”. Here the outwardly physical existence is “Obedient/Conformist/satisfied ego “submerged into the Devine-Ego, as process of Emanation.
There is another way to put it. Those who accomplish this station, diving, swimming into the realm of meanings of virtues (Sifat and not Dhat), beyond the scope of owutwardliness of experiencing and witnessing, are virtually annihilated and yet persisting in the outwardly physical existence. Their mere existence in this world is sustained just for the benefit of the fellow human beings as an extension of Creator’s compassion for His (swt) creation.
The limited consciousness of the human is lost in the unlimited consciousness of the Creator (swt). Here human has no consciousness of other than God (swt). God (swt) become actor and the human (abd) becomes his instrumentality (Qurb-i-frayiz).
Here a man (abd) transforms from man of reason (Zawilaql) to man of sight (Zawilayn). He sees the real in evidence and the world is hidden.
The pervasive Reality is the Creator (swt)’s, Virtual Domain from where every thing is manifested, organized and synchronized.
Part-2 ( Conceptual mirages of Time and space)
The unique distinction between Creator and creation (as mentioned earlier) puts us up against a dilemma of “Time and Space“. No permanence or absolutism prevail in the realm of created beings. The concept of time and space is one such thing, though we human are accustomed to determining/perceiving every thing around us in the realm of time and space.
Now here arises the mind boggling Question, what is “Time & space”? An extensive scientific, philosophical, theological and spiritual study of the phenomenon reveals that the time & space or space-time are of non physical domain therefore, it is of higher knowledge, reality or domain beyond the paradigm of experimentation, empiricism, mathematization or quantification.
According to some scholars the Domain of time and space is relevant only to the world of creation (Khalq).
It, however, is not applicable to the world of Devine Order (Amr).
We, with the acquired faculty of knowledge evolved over time, think deterministically, mechanically, logically and rationally. The reality of time and space or space-time, however lies beyond our fixity of conceptualization.
It is indivisibly unitary in essence and that it’s passage is just a conceptual mirage. It is not independently observable and can only be analyzed and experienced referentially. It is only the present and there is no distinctively disconnected past and future. It is just what we are observing and experiencing at the moment. The passage of time is visualized due to the transformation or reconfiguration of the matter, organisms (including human beings) from one stage to the another. We, despite our inherently ingrained perceptions of the past and future, are incapable of visiting either of those simply because these percepts exist as non entity in non physical domain. The domain of imagination of the memory.
To our amazement, the scientifical, philosophical, theological and spiritual dictums confirm this fact. Sufic perspective and explanation, however, provides much of the logical credence to these dictums, as the sufic intellect, like scriptural injunctions and revelations emanates directly from the “Devine intellect” which is the most authentic, universally accepted source of knowledge beyond any and all doubts.
Scientific point of view.
Einstein’s greatest insight was the realization that time is relative and it speeds up and slows down depending how fast one thing is moving in relation to another and then his famous experiment of “twin paradox“ conclusively demonstrates the relativity of time.
According to a famous physicist Kurt Godel in his lesser known paper published in 1949 says “ The passage of time is an illusion, instead past, present and future of the universe are just different regions of a single vast spacetime. Time is part of spacetime but spacetime is a higher reality existing outside of time”
17th Century physicist Issac Barrow says “ time is something which exist independently of motion or change and existed even before God (swt) created Matter in universe.” (Islamic theology concludes that the time and space are creation of God (swt)).
Isaac Newton agreeing with the above says “time and space are an infinitely large container for all events. Space and time are not substance but like substance not being dependent on matter or motion or anything else except God (swt)”( This conforms the notion that God (swt) is the sustainer.)
Philosophical point of view.
In Block/Eternalism theory the most popular view is that there are no significant ontological differences in the past, present and future.
Presentists argue that, necessarily the present objects/experiences are real and we conscious beings recognize this in the special vividness of the present experience.
According to Aristotle- time is simply measure of Change. Descartes says- It is divine Process of recreation. St. Augustine claimed- “Time being creation of God (swt) and there was simply NO-BEFORE.” The 20th century scientists agreed with St. Augustine that the time in finite is less than 14 Billion Years. ( It is simply a conjecture as no valid empirical proof has been presented as yet).
Scriptural point of view.
Holly Qura’an where alludes to the people of the coming generations and Hereafter it nevertheless, does negate the spatio-temporal perception of time and space at several places such as the “Night of Power” equal to 1000 months. The advent of Prophet Mohammad(PBUH)’s Journey to the havens, which existentially took place in an instant though the gradual encounters narrated would suffice to compile a book.
Story of the “People of Cave” (Known in the west as “7 sleepers of Ephesus“) in Surah Al Kahaf, where people woke up from a long sleep/death while the World around them had witnessed the progression of centuries gone by.(Ch:18 V:9-19)
There is yet another example of prophet Uzayr/Ezra/Ezikel (AS),
who was asleep/dead for 100 years and when woke up his own kins failed to recognize him until he passed the test of reciting the Torah, which he knew by heart, tallied with the old saved scripture. When Allah (swt) asked how long he tarried? He said a day long or a part thereof. Allah (swt) said Nay, but you have tarried for 100 long years. Look at the dead donkey nothing is left except few fragments of bones and dust. On the other hand look at the food-which Uzayr/Ezra/Ezikel (AS) was carrying-is still fresh.
(Ch:2 V:259)
According to a Hadith (saying of the Prophet-PBUH) On the day of judgment God (swt) will asks us as to how long have we (human) been underneath the earth in the sleep of death ? He then will Confirm; it has been just an instant and not centuries as you perceive.
According to Einstein the passage of time is subject to one’s state of mind: a dull and boring moment could encompass an hour whereas a happy hour could pass in a flick of moment.
The duration or longevity of time, inter-alia, is a conceptual mirage. It is just an elongated present and nothing else that is why, logically, as mentioned earlier, the concept of “Before/After time “ does not apply to the Creator (swt). All of these examples defy the terrestrial concepts/confines of time and space.
This is most equitably assertive and compelling reason why Islamic theology asserts that Holy Qura’an and Sunnah (Islamic Jurisprudence) are relevant and practicable in any given situation and are not rudimentary, antiquated, redundant as perceived and propagated by secular, agnostic, and atheistic intellectuals and scholars. It appeals to the very nature of human being, which is in- transmutable and immune to the volatility of time.
Sufic Explanation.
A learned Sufi Shaykh Al-Akbar has said “the Future is positive pole and the Past is the negative brought together constantly transforming into the electrical charge of the present” He further explains “It is not connected to the past or future, as two disconnected points in different times, it designate your State at the time of the State, when real is recognized.” Vital reality of the time/state recognized is the present living moment realized only.
Here I would like to quote from a spiritualist Deepak Chopra on the subject which is borrowed from the sufic expounding.
The past present and future are all properties of consciousness.
The past is collection of memories, the future is anticipation and the present is (pure) awareness Therefore time is the movement of thoughts both past and future are borne in the imagination; only
the present, which is (Pure) awareness is real and eternal.
Part-3
Other Conceptual mirages.
Nothingness, Nowhere-to-Now here.
Meta physical Science of today, though belatedly, confirms the concepts of “Nothingness & Nowhere-to-Now here”. Science has discovered that sub atomic particles, of any outwardly existent body/matter, constitute of nothing but empty space and if the process of this analysis continue further and further yet there is nothing but the empty space (Nothingness) at every level and pulsating energy which relays the information to the organism constituting the outwardly physical existence.
Therefore, what we experience as the solid state in every state of existence from human body to rock, stars, galaxies, trees and so on, validation of the sensory experiences, is in actuality, a perceptive mirage. Meta physics concludes that Quantum domain has no visible constructs in it, the material world is sub-set of the quantum world and every thing visible in it is the manifestation of energy and info, beyond the reaches of five senses, a pure potentiality.
These concepts had long been the subject of sufic contemplation and been expounded in detail.
God (swt) simply says “BE” and it is there from Nowhere to Now here as every thing is created from nothingness. ( Ch: 36: V:82)
SOUL or Hukme-Rabbi
Science also explains that RNA (part of DNA) is an active agent in any living being and functions as a message relaying catalyst to other cells. Each cell not only perform its own billion functions but also interacts with One thousand billion cells, constituting human body, relaying and getting information for the smooth running of the body as a whole. They do not have time but react under the guidance of “non local intelligence” with synchronicity
Now the question is what is this force, power or energy which functions so meticulously, scrupulously, and precisely ?
Is is not “Soul” or the “Divine-Intent (Hukm-e-Rabbi)” ?
Soul (Ruh) is defined in Holy Qur’an in (Ch:17 V;85) as “Oh Prophet (PBUH), when people ask you as to what is “Ruh“-the Soul- tell them it is the Order of the Creator (swt),of which we have been given very little knowledge” I wonder if there could be any better, compelling explanation of it otherwise.
AL AMA- The original void
Let us, NOW, delve further into the mind boggling emptiness and nothingness. Islam, especially sufic interpretation and explanation, talks about this emptiness in terms of “void” and surfing towards the “Original Void “which is also confirmed in an authentic Hadith Quoted from Tirmidhi.
The Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) was also asked by Abizarara (RAA) as to where was GOD (swt) before the creation, the answer was in “AL-AMA “ which means great mist. which is without any constructs, air or forms in it. Al Ama” is interpreted by the sufic scholars as the original void, utter emptiness, non existence.
Similar question was also posed to Caliph/Imam Ali (RAA) who replied: when you ask where was God (swt), you are asking about a place. God (swt) was without aboveness and belowness in non space non time, then he created time and space and He (swt) is as He (swt) was before time and space. David (AS) also posed the same question directly to God (swt).
The quantum physics now comes to terms with Islamic philosophy/theology accepting that “ The level of Non-Local-Reality operates beyond time and space” it has no ending no beginning and can be everywhere and nowhere at once causing multiple effects ,causal and acausal, in multiple locations.
Gatheredness/Oneness/Unity.
It is amazing to know that the entire universe is designed so intelligently that each and every thing, howsoever distant, is well connected and in constant communication with each other in some mysterious ways. Any act or the slightest vibration, even thought at some level or plane is creating a phenomenal activity in the cosmos at large to bring about the required change.
Conclusion.
In Surah 185(Ale-Imran) it is clearly mentioned that the comforts of this world are illusionary, deceptive or fleeting vanity. Therefore the “Reality lies with and in GOD (swt) in the domain of unknown-Ghaib” which is beyond human grasp as no knowledge known to human is of totality but of partiality only.
Scientists, intellectuals, philosophers while conducting the scientific and non scientific researches with secular, agnostic or atheistic mind-set, do come across these very concepts of emptiness, non space and non time but, despite being at the brink of reality, fail to grasp it accurately since they are devoid of the universal knowledge of Islam. However, there are some who do gain peripheral knowledge of these concepts but do not have the audacity to acknowledge for reasons enumerated hereunder, despite quantum Physics proving these vividly.
1) it is hard for them to articulate and be convincing due to the lack of in depth knowledge.
2) for the sake of material gains. (they hide the truth)
3) Acknowledgement shall constitute the validation of the Devine religions (which they contemptuously call organized religions) and scriptures which is “Political incorrectness”, therefore, even GOD (swt) -out of sheer arrogance, sense of fallacious freedom,-is mentioned in Oblique terms, such as “intelligent being” “Designer” “power of Intent” etc.
Some are yet clinging to the doctrine of “scientism”- where any thing which can not be proved or unproved is a wasteful and futile exercise of energy and time.
Modern man, in general, with his philosophies of criticism and scientific specialism finds himself in a strange predicament. His
Naturalism has given him an unprecedented control over the
forces of nature, but has robbed him of faith in his own nature.
Muslims, however, can rightly claim to be “the blessed” and the Best of the Crown of Creation who have been endowed not only with the knowledge but also the passion to acknowledge and embrace the Creator (swt) rightly, without being tangled in the philosophies of unfruitful criticism and scientism.
(Ch:98 V:7 & Ch:3 V:110)
The write would welcome reasonably sensible discussion or comments through ruqaya@Bellsouth.net
Shakir Mumtaz. 2596 South Hills, Riverdale GA 30296
Ph3 770-256-5391 Fx # 770-996-7564
Notes:
1) The Annihilation-“Fana“, in Arabic mean the termination of the “Ego-Self” the “Nufs”or “Ana” or the word “I”
2) Several books on Sufism, spirituality and Science and many articles and research papers authored by Muslims and non Muslims and above all Holy Qur’an and Ahadith have been resourced/referenced for this article.
3) swt-- stands for abbreviation of-Subhana wa taala-an Arabic phrase meaning: “Allah the most high”
4) PBUH--is an abbreviation of -Peace Be Upon Him.
5) RAA--means Allah most high be pleased with him.
6) Although every care and prudence has been exercised to the utmost any wrong quote or misinterpretation, nonetheless found, is deemed to be my mistake and I ask for forgiveness from the Creator (Swt) with guidance to the truth.
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