Hindsight is Essential for Foresight
By Dr Basheer Ahmed Khan
Garden Grove, CA
Editor Akhtar Faruqui’s article on Dr I. H. Usmani (Pakistan Link, August 31, 2018) was nostalgic, educative and reflective about the man with whom he worked for a long time as a staff officer. This nostalgia could be misconstrued as an attempt by our generation to turn the clock back on the advancing times. No, this nostalgia is essential to take stock of what we have lost in the euphoria of uncertain gains.
The article evoked in me my own nostalgic memories of the time when I as a student was trying to understand the world I bequeathed, the world in which I live, and the world in which I will be raising my progeny.
That was the time when we were living in the Post-Renaissance period and in transition to Post-Modern Era and were undergoing the pangs and pain of this transition. In the Pre-Renaissance Era the farmers and the artisans were creating the wealth that was plundered by the kings and clergy leading to Renaissance to clip their hold on the people and power. This was a bold move that needed honesty and sincerity on the part of its herald bearers to understand and rectify the mistakes of the past.
While people like Martin Luther and Rumi were trying to reform religion, people like Descartes and Yahya Munairi were trying to impress upon the people the reality of their existence in what they believed as an illusory world. People like Rousseau were trying to give an alternative system to replace the autocracy of kings. The scientific community was producing genuine scientists to fight disease, increase production, and ease the rigors of agriculturists, build houses of comfort, etc. They knew that the tangible results of their sincerity and honesty were vital for the success of Renaissance. They could not afford to lose this enterprise of Renaissance through their insincerity and selfishness. They tried to understand the obscure spirit and the visible body, the visible world and invisible God, not through the lens of blind belief but through enquiry. Darwin, Marx, Hagel and others shook us out of the shackles of blind faith to bring us into the reality of this universe and our existence in it. They were all religious and honest thinkers.
All the tangible discoveries and inventions with attendant benefits and hazards were known to man by the sixth decade of the twentieth century. Son of Adam, who was not satisfied with the life of the Garden of Eden, was not content with these discoveries and inventions; he wanted more, he wanted a life of eternity and absolute power to control the universe. This led him to use the calculative potential of silicon chip to invent artificial intelligence to control man and his universe. Having discarded the normal human intellect and the moral compass, this erratic man now is a slave of the artificial intellect which he has created himself to determine everything from the identity of an individual, the disease he suffers to the effectiveness of its treatment. Beyond this he used this AI to design algorithms that worked for his benefit to control the markets and public opinion to give him absolute hold on people and power in the world. As man was created in the image of God and not as God, he is failing miserably in an attempt to become God.
As this was all going on the religious fanatics and the rabid liberals were working hard in every nation to gain control of this Post-Modern World. The Cons hijacked the mission of the scholars of Renaissance to lead mankind into a Godless hedonistic society by offering them pleasures and keeping them oblivious to their pain. The phantoms of religious bigotry they had encouraged took over the realm of religion to discredit it. The complacency of bearers of truth in religion and science has obviated the sense of balance from individuals and societies.
Dr Usmani was a person who could foresee the things to come. Besides being a genuine scientist and a builder of scientific enterprise for the budding nation he was a visionary and a patriot. His vision was not colored by prejudices and his patriotism was not a fig leaf to conceal his selfish ambitions; they were to help the nation and its people, and that is reflected in the sayings that Faruqui has attributed to him.
He wanted to keep Urdu simple so that it does not become the language of scholars to spread their irrational ideas among their protégé, but remains the language of the common man to communicate and achieve their common hopes and aspirations. He did not want the ministry of science to be clubbed with the ministry of commerce because he did not want science to become business enterprise and serve the interest of business community but to serve the common good of man. By ignoring this advise we have subordinated the utility of scientific discoveries to the vagaries of the stock market to allow the virtual wealth to be generated in the Post Modern World to destabilize the Real World.
Jalaluddin was a man of letter and law before becoming a man of love and spirituality. When he met his mentor, Shams Tabrizi, Shams asked him: What is the purpose of your struggle and all your learning. Jalaluddin replied: To discipline yourself and to know the law pertaining to issue that you face. Shams, quoting a couplet from Sanai, said: The purpose of your acquiring knowledge is flawed and is worse than ignorance. Jalaluddin was taken aback. Shams further said your learning should lead you to know what is known. Shams’ definition of learning looks silly at the outset, but if one ponders over it he will know its reality. When Jalaluddin learnt the reality of this statement in company of Shams breaking his connections with what he was involved in, this locally known speaker and jurist became the world renowned Maulana Rum. Shams lifted Jalaluddin from the level of logos of theology, logic and law to the Gnosis of God and values which are eternal. If we abandon God and the eternal values we will be left with commercialized science, divisive politics and lots of virtual wealth trying to acquire the real assets generated by artisans and peasants with painful effort resulting in perpetual conflict between races and nations. In an attempt to create such a utopia few misguided “intellectuals” are turning this world into a living hell for a lot of people.
An article should not only give information to its reader but also raise questions and carry forward the dialogue and answer these questions. I am sure the article on Dr Usmani will do exactly this. The flowery language of the writer makes the article more interesting, readable and reflective.
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