On Deadbeats and the Islamic proverb ‘it is compulsory that when you undertake a task do it with perfection’.

Muslims calling into work sick (when they’re just fine), billing 10 hours and working 3 hours, lying in the workplace and all based on the rationale ‘well, everyone takes advantage of the system so why not me?’ This applies even more so to those who depend on and abuse the ‘system’, that is the benefit system.

The Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, the epitome of virtues said ‘Indeed Allah loves when some one of you undertakes to do something that he does it to the best of his ability’ and ‘Indeed Allah made it compulsory for Muslims that when they do things, to do them perfectly’

 He ﷺ made clear that getting sustenance from one’s work is an Act of Worship and we have to always strive to be the best in everything we do - that’s not optional. We cannot sit and reflect without taking care of our responsibilities. Everything done perfectly is an Act of Worship. Whether that is working in your day job as a lawyer, journalist, doctor, dentist, artist or in your ritual prayer.

There is a great story to illustrate the importance of work. One day Umar ibn Khattab (close companion of the Prophet ﷺ) walked in to a mosque and saw three young men doing dhikr (rememberance of Allah). He returned and for 3 days he would see them there drinking and eating abundantly. He asked them on the third day, ‘how do you get this drink and food when you do not work?’ They replied – ‘our cousin works and provides it for us.’ To this Umar said – ‘your cousin is better than you for he is working hard to provide for you and striving for perfection in his role’.

As for Muslims who think it’s acceptable to live off the system or to not work. Wrong again. None of the Prophet’s ﷺ family took charity ‘Sadaqah’. They were Shephards and labourers learning skills that they could utilise to provide and feed their families with.

Many argue that working a normal day job simply doesn’t sit with a lifestyle of learning and practicing Islam or is ‘soul destroying’ (a line I’ve heard all too often). They spend all their days in worship, growing long beards and breeding children.

This argument comes from those who seem to miss the critical point about Islam. The Prophet ﷺ made it clear that our faith is the combination of Deen and Muamalat, that is, faith and interaction with Society. It is simply too easy to sit at home and practice our faith, the same way that marriage is considered half of your religion, not because of anything but the trials and tribulations that one will face on this journey.

The Quran makes our position clear, ‘You are the Middle people’, ‘kowm wasat’. That is, you are neither extreme nor those who have no rules, you are always to take the middle path and be moderate in everything.

 Some Muslims argue but my wealth is written for me, so whatever I will get I will get, whether I spend my time working or not. Again these Muslims have missed some key directions on this subject. The following example of an incident at the Prophet’s ﷺ time illustrates. There was once a Bedouin who did not tie his camel and the Prophet ﷺ said to him why did you not tie your comel? 
The Bedouin answered, “I placed my trust in Allah.” 
At that, the Prophet ﷺ said, “Tie
your camel and place your trust in Allah” ‘ Umar ibn Al-Khattab (the close companion of The Prophetﷺ), used to stress this point by telling people, “Never should anyone of you think that du`aa (supplication) for sustenance without work will avail him, for heaven never rains gold nor silver”

Scholars consistently reiterate then that the practice of a Muslim is to strive to achieve perfection in all their daily acts, from earning a sustenance to their ritual forms of worship. The concept of reliance or begging is specifically outlawed in Islam with a famous scholar Sheikh Abd Al-Qadir Al-Jilani saying on this issue ‘O you who are deprived, do not let go of earning in exchange for reliance on what people possess, and what you can beg from them. For then you will be ungrateful for the blessings of destiny [al-qaddar], and Allah will be displeased with you and keep you at a distance. 

To give up earning and go begging from people is a punishment from Allah for His servant.’

The traditions relate how The Prophet ﷺ turned a man who came to him begging into a productive member of the society by teaching him how to work and provide for himself. The Chinese proverb ‘teach a man to fish and feed him for a lifetime’ therefore resonates strongly in Islamic tradition.

In many places in the Qur’an it is made clear that time should not be wasted and that humanity should contribute positively to the earth, that is, it should work to make use of the abundant resources created for its benefit. We are born with potential, it is up to us to develop that potential as another important Islamic Scholar - Imam Al-Ghazali described, “Knowledge exists potentially in the human soul like the seed in the soil; by learning the potential becomes actual.”

Islam has laid out a practical framework for every stage of our lives. Islam strives to eradicate social ills and vices that result from unemployment, idleness, and poverty, by instructing the youth to rise up to the challenge of shouldering responsibility at an early age, and for everyone to add noticeably to a working and productive society.

There is no room in Islam for laziness or idleness. The Prophet ﷺ used to pray seeking God’s refuge from laziness or idleness.  There is a great classical narration of one morning where The Prophet ﷺ and his companions gathered after the morning prayer (as they did each morning) and The Prophet asked his companions who has visited the sick today.

One of the companions said Oh Muhammad ﷺ but it’s only just dawn, the day hasn’t even started, how could we have done this? Another of the Companions Abubaker, (likely to be considered to be the closest to The Prophetﷺ) said I heard that this man was not well and I went to see him on the way to the mosque. The Prophet ﷺ then asked did you go and give charity today? Another companion responded, but Oh Muhammad ﷺ, how could we have, it is only dawn? Abubaker put his hand up and said, ‘on the way to the mosque there was a poor man on the streets and so I have him some dinars which I had’.

This is the level of occupation a Muslim should have in doing anything there beneficial for people. For a Muslim there is a requirement that he not eat should his neighbours be hungry and in modern scholarly opinion neigbours is taken to mean 40 houses to each side – that’s a lot of responsibility and a lot of productiveness required to bear our responsibilities. 

We have been granted a gift of intellect and great potential; it is our duty to use this intellect and exercise and develop this potential.

We don’t know the complete wisdom ’hikma’ behind anything but some scholars discuss the wearing of a hijab or beard by a man as symbols of Muslims. Traditionally in the market when someone wanted to ensure they would not be cheated and would be dealt with by a man of piety, they would look for the man with a beard.

When we hold ourselves out as Muslims with our Muslim name, hijab or beard we become ambassadors of our religion. Any act which we do or don’t do then becomes associated with and a reflection on Islam.

Even before he was chosen as a messenger of God, he was a hardworking person. This earned him the respect of his employer, Khadijah, who later proposed marriage to him because of all the merits and virtues she saw in him. He later became a lawyer, counselor, entrepreneur, arbiter a physician.

For a Musilm therefore he should never despair for he has confidence and total trust that what is meant for him, is in his destiny will come to him and no one can take this from him. However, he has to work and fulfill his potential ability to earn this as we are told the sky does not rain gold or silver.

The Golden Age of the Polymath, An Islamic Perspective

Humanities cuts announced by the Government.  Are we surprised? A reinforcement of a Government committed to robbing us of our ‘intellect’. The government is insistent on narrowing down our abilities through increased specialization and vocationalisation. It wants to develop incurious producers whose sole purpose is to add direct foreseeable revenue to our economy.

It is this contemporary thinking that leads us to compartmentalise our skills, ‘doctor’ or ‘lawyer’, ‘artist’ or ‘banker’. What happened to Polymaths who were standard in the Golden Age?

Definition; A person who excels in or is an expert a significant number of different subject areas. The concept was coined during a period where numerous great thinkers excelled in multiple fields of the arts and science, As an accomplished Leon Battista Alberti  said(1404–1472) “a man can do all things if he will.”

In early Islamic civilization there was no single authority that controlled the educational system. Education was, however, considered compulsory and more worthy than any form of superogatory worship. The purpose of education was to equip an individual to be an upstanding citizen in every facet of daily life and to create an individual consciously aware of his responsibilities to the world, to society and to his Lord. The Islamic view is that only through knowledge can one understand the benefits that his Lord has given him and so be in a state of obedience. This importance on knowledge is so great that scholars remark it is an obligation ‘fard’ to seek knowledge and scholarly opinion stretches to describe the lack of many Muslims knowledge of the Arabic language as akin to them being in a state of intoxication when reading the Quran or making their ritual prayers. This would invalidate the prayer.

The Prophet ﷺ is the archetype, who through intimate knowledge became a physician, judge, arbitrator, lawyer, healer and counselor. A famously quoted saying of hisﷺ was ‘and seek education from birth to death even if it is in China’ (China being deemed to be a distant place). That education was to be broad and cover astronomy, law, theology, poetry, science, philosophy and particularly encourage the etiquettes of learning. This in itself brings about mastery in an individual. Taking poetry as an example, a famous scholar Imam Al-Ghazali describes the learning of poetry as fundamental to developing the use of rhetoric, the ability to be eloquent and to speak succinctly, which, in itself would develop an individual’s character. Greek, Roman & all classical education systems placed emphasis on memorizing poetry for this reason. Quintillian highlights this in his Educational theories where he says ‘There is no foundation for the complaint that only a small minority of human beings have been given the power to understand what is taught to them, the majority being so slow-witted that they waste time and labor. On the contrary, you will find that the greater number quick to reason and prompt to learn. This is natural to man: as birds are born for flying, horses for speed, beasts of prey for ferocity, so are we for mental activity and resourcefulness.’

It was this system that led to the rise of scientists and the flourishing of the rational sciences in the Golden Age and subsequently was reflected in the prosperity of the Islamic Empire (the longest running empire in history, lasting over 600 years). Mathematicians, astronomers, physicians, engineers and other kinds of scientists were abundant. The system conformed to the law of supply and demand but this wasn’t the sole purpose of education. Education was one of our fundamental obligations as individuals in order to develop our potential and was sought for itself and not for a particular job, status or position in society, which we have seen has become a distinct difference in purpose today.

We know three things about intelligence, we know it is diverse, that it is dynamic and interactive. The brain isn’t divided into compartments. Creativity more often than not comes through the interaction of different disciplinary ways of doing something. The 3^rd thing about intelligence is that it is distinct. Time and again, innovations come from a fresh eye or from another discipline. Most scientists devote their careers to solving the everyday problems in their specialism. Everyone knows what they are and it takes ingenuity and perseverance to crack them. But breakthroughs more often come from other fields. The studies in the early 20th century indicating how nerves work and, later, how DNA is structured originally came from a marriage of physics and biology.

Well known Polymaths who had great impact on our civilization today include Ibn Sina (Avicenna), al-Razzi, and Husayn bin Ishak al-Ibadi, who developed the medical sciences. Razi (860-940) is reported to have written 200 books on medicine, one of them on medical ethics, and the Hawi, a 25 volume practical encyclopedia. Ibn Sina (980-1037) became a famed physician at 18 who wrote 16 books. His corpus also includes writing on philosophy, astronomy, alchemy, geology, psychology, Islamic theology, logic, mathematics, physics, as well as poetry. He is regarded as the most famous and influential polymath of the Islamic Golden Age.

Recent studies and discussions through platforms such as Ted have started to voice grave concerns about our current system of education and what we value as ‘intelligence’. There is deep concern that we are genuinely killing creativity. 

(http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html.)

We are being institutionalised and having our intelligence ‘dumbed down ‘through a serial form of programming’ or as Sir Ken Robinson (recognized leader in the development of education, creativity and innovation) describes it as ‘education’.

In his Ted presentation ‘Schools kill creativity he says, ‘We see extraordinary evidence of human creativity’ and ‘All kids have tremendous talents and we squander them ruthlessly’. Picasso said ‘all children are born as Artists, the problem is to remain artists when we grow up’. What concerns me and should concern all of us is that we are effectively educating children out of creativity and this is being done at an institutional level.

The most alarming statistic Sir Ken provides is from a study on divergent thinking published in Breakpoint and Beyond. It doesn’t surprise me in the slightest and is something I’ve been advocating for years. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0962660523?ie=UTF8&tag=dradowthevis-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0962660523

Divergent thinking is the ability to think of many answers to a specific problem, this is the first step to problem solving before we get analytical and make the best decision. 98% of 1500 kindergartners scored at the genius level for divergent thinking. Their scores dropped dramatically as they progressed in the education system i.e. as they were ‘educated’. This shows us two things, that we all have this innate potential and that it mostly deteriorates. We are therefore becoming ‘dumber’ and I definitely speak from personal experience. As a child I was on track to be a great polymath scoring 99% in virtually all subjects, winning every Mathematics, science, English and Spelling award there was. However, as I progressed through the system I genuinely found myself losing the desire and ability to maintain this standard. I got ‘bored’ of the education I was being taught.

The UK Education system is one of the most prescriptive in educating out of creativity. Students are made to select 3 or 4 subjects by A-level. I still fought this – starting with 5 A-levels (the old pre 2001 Al-levels) and to date I’m sure if the teaching and methods had been different I may have been able to excel at all 5. They were diverse from Physics to Mathematics to Psychology to Electronics and so really would have offered me a great foundation for a polymath career!

Carl Djerassi, possibly one of the few polymaths existing today describes the UK system as a mistake, “There’ll be students here at age 16 or 17 who are much better than many Americans at French or maths or something, but abysmally ignorant in another area,” he says. “We really preach intellectual monogamy more and more in this day and age.’ Children in schools are repeatedly told there is one answer, and it’s at the back of the book, and you’re not to copy or look because this would be cheating. This systematic programming isn’t the fault of the teachers but it is destroying the fabric of a productive society, which is based on ‘looking’ and working together, otherwise known as collaboration outside schools.

So how did we end up where we are? Modern education as we know it now was coined only in the 19^th Century and as a system designed to meet the needs of industrialism. It is only natural then that it will seek to develop a core type of character, one that suits the needs of the market. We as humans are now considered as just a commodity to fill market demands. Schools are a production line. Robinson says ‘Our minds have been mined the way we mine the earth for a particular commodity’ The broader concept and appreciation of Education as a fundamental virtue not for a means to an end but as an end in itself has been lost. This is a distinct shift in thinking from days past.

Our system is designed to create an individual to do a job and go home and indulge in enjoyment and usurpation of the world solely for his pleasure in the rest of his time. Thought is dangerous to the power structure of our society. Hence we are consistently distracted from it by entertainment and consumption. The education system itself naturally stigmatizes certain subjects as more important than others. So sciences and maths are given more attention than the humanities and then Arts and Music as subjects which, are more likely to lead to direct economic employment.

Even if you somehow manage to escape or regain some shred of creativity after the attempts to institutionalize and educate you out of creativity and you decide you want to be writer and a lawyer and an economist, you end up in the same dilemma. The society we live in today just doesn’t believe in the idea that any individual can be a polymath. We live in the age of the cult of the monomath. According to today’s theory of knowledge it simply isn’t possible to be a specialist in numerous areas. Knowing things makes you weird not powerful. We have an engrained idea about our purpose and what we should all be like. Monomaths are not just the new standard, but the only realistic possibility, writing off those who wish to specialize in a number of areas ‘dabblers’. As described by Edward Carr of (The Economist) (http://moreintelligentlife.com/content/edward-carr/last-days-polymath)

These monomaths are also unwilling to let new polymaths enter their industry. The monomaths have developed cults erecting barricades to fend off the generalists and convince themselves that what they are doing is really difficult and challenging. They do this through creation of specialized vocabularies and develop what they regard as rigorous methodologies, often mathematical. For someone who hasn’t spent as many years in this area to come in and criticize them, this would be simply too hard to swallow.

As a Muslim I find this unfamiliar territory. I appreciate the high virtue that is seeking knowledge in every corner of the Earth and am striving to constantly ‘reducate’ myself. We need to understand the richness of human capacity. We are gifted with intellect and we have to be careful to use that gift wisely, that’s our responsibility. As humans we are the cause of the state of our world today and the destruction and suffering we are seeing. Whilst we are alive we still have an opportunity to effect change, so let’s pin our hopes on our children and help to educate them to retain their creativity and multifaceted skills. As Jonah sulk described so accurately of our state today; ‘if all the insects were to disappear from the earth then within 50 years all life on earth would end If all human beings disappeared from the earth within 50 years all forms of life would flourish.’

‘We were born with wings,

You were born with potential

You were born with goodness and trust

You were born with ideals and dreams

You were born with greatness

Rumi.

Marriage is a blessing but isn’t everything.

I don’t need to tell you about the flurry of articles everywhere about marriage this year. We’re almost certainly affected by the Celebrity culture and the current baby and marriage boom. Articles are appearing in their droves on why women can’t get married or why we ought to want to get married.

Let’s me clarify, I’m no feminist, far from it, as many who know me will tell you. I’m a pure simple traditionalist who takes my role and status from that which my faith, Islam, prescribes for me. This may be shocking to some, but that status is that my husband is the closest I should ever get to bowing in respect (something which Muslims do daily in their prayer to their Lord). For a Muslim woman the status of her husband in her life is so high that it was said if there were anyone other than God who a woman would have been obliged to worship – it would have been her husband. Many of you may suddenly think ‘oh how typically oppressive’, ‘unsuprisingly backwards’. Let me elaborate. A Man has such an elevated position because I as a woman have an even greater position in his life. As the famous 12 C scholar Shaykh Abdul Qadir Al described ‘On being a husband ‘He must not eat, unless they have already eaten. In relation to his dependents, he must be like a trusted agent and a servant, and like a slave with his master. When it comes to eating, he must adjust his diet to suit their tastes and not oblige them to follow his own appetite’.

 So now would you mind doing anything for the pleasure of a man who would do anything for your pleasure? Isn’t that what Love is?

Given that I am a big traditionalist and love the romance, chivalry, gentlemanly character I almost certainly would choose marriage over singledom, however, I’m not willing to be married to someone who won’t treat me as the above- for the sake of ‘being married alone’. Many people across international cultures argue regularly that we will never find our perfect image of man and we have to compromise and take a good man. I have to admit I have wondered, should I too start to look to compromise because surely I ‘have to’ get married.

The argument from many women today is that there just aren’t enough good suitable men. The question is – what is a good suitable man? I explored this to some extent before but what I didn’t say is, for many of these woman and particularly Pakistani and Gulf women I’ve seen an expectation that the man has to be someone who comes from the exact same cultural background and even ‘caste’ to some extent. Recently, in conversation with a Pakistani 36 year old friend she said her parents had not only expected her to marry another doctor but her suggested candidate was unsuitable because he was from a different village many centuries ago!

Many of these parents are practicing Muslims who would otherwise class themselves as very religious. Yet my issue is this generation who can use the phrase ‘I am a Muslim’ so lightly. Being a Muslim is being in total submission of His (The Mighty Lord’s) will. His will is that we for one are not racist (another big problem amongst Asians and Arabs unfortunately) and furthermore, that we understand that these cultural ‘castes’ etc are not from Islam. How can we start to get things in order if we’re not willing to actually submit to the clear rules we’re given. I’m not even talking about a Pakistani girl bringing home a guy from Sudan, I’m just talking about her bringing someone else from another village in Pakistan (not that any issue should ever be made of the first circumstance either)

So first steps are, let’s help our parents to understand that we all as humans have more in common with each other than we do in difference. Secondly let’s realize we can marry who ever we want and Islam (subject to his religion) does not limit us in any way whatsoever. 

Now let’s just say we have even tried this and there simply isn’t anyone suitable then what? What does Islam say about this? If you’ve read my first article on marriage (link) I expound on the idea that marriage and children is valued as one of the highest acts and is a fundamental purpose of the creation man and woman in their compatible form.  However, as I investigated further with the scholars what I discovered was enlightening and quite frankly something I think more Women from cultures who consider marriage as the be all and end all need to know.

 In contemporary times men and women are not quite what they used to be. People don’t appreciate the blessings, value and position of marriage. Men don’t realise the heavy nature of the responsibility and position they have and women don’t seem to realise the station of marriage. We also have the issue of women succeeding in higher education  & entering skilled professions in much high numbers, which is causing a mismatch. http://articles.cnn.com/2010-04-20/living/census.women.advanced.degrees_1_degrees-census-bureau-asian-population?_s=PM:LIVING

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/5429181/Women-doctors-will-outnumber-men-within-a-decade-research.html]

Scholarly opinion based on the contemporary situation, says in these times the act of marriage may actually lead one to move further away from one’s faith. As many married couples will tell you marriage isn’t easy. Attending to another person and satisfying their desires whilst fulfilling your own duties and responsibilities can be difficult. Some argue then that the responsibilities, attending to the shopping, cleaning, partner’s desires etc ends up taking more of your attention and moving your attention and focus away from the pleasure of God, which is our ultimate duty. One of my (Islamic) teachers said to me, even though my husband has always provided the best for us – there are times when he does something, which really upsets me. That moment I think – that is a blessing from God, a way for me to remember Him (the Almighty & Glorious) and not preoccupy myself in my husband all the time. It reminds me that he is not infalliable and only God is worthy of that unconditional love.

So let’s not fixate on marriage as the sole purpose of our existence. Yes it has great virtues, great pleasure, great reward and benefit but if it doesn’t happen now then let’s redirect that attention in pursuit of greater goals like continuing our learning which is an obligation upon us. Let’s look at how we can develop our relationship and intimacy with our Lord because that’s our ultimate purpose. We might just earn a partner of Paradise and really live happily ever after.