Departure Lounge
By Mowahid Hussain Shah

 

With the media immersed in controversy about the Panama Leaks, it is pertinent to recall Hazrat Ali’s admonition: “Knowledge is better than wealth; for knowledge guards you, while you have to guard wealth.” The immediate benefit of following that counsel of 14 centuries ago would have been to avert the current embarrassment. Wealth can sometimes be a millstone around one’s neck. 

It seems that those bedazzled by avarice, accumulation, and hoarding perceive their finite time on earth in terms of eternity and infinity.  They sometimes fail to recognize the fragility of life and don’t see themselves ever sitting in the departure lounge of life.

It is fascinating, this notion of the reality of human frailty, when juxtaposed against the false illusion of immortality. It is what one leaves behind that is important.

There have been many shipwrecks in the sea of greed. Few survive the wreck. And fewer still learn from them.

Thomas Andrews, naval architect of the Titanic, is said to have remarked that the ship was nearly perfect, and a company employee reportedly boasted at the Titanic’s launch, on May 31, 1911, that even God couldn’t sink the ship. Yet the “unsinkable” sank on its maiden voyage.

There is a tale from the past of an opulent Muslim ruler in Baghdad who loved to hoard gold. This ruler of Baghdad tried to save himself from the Mongol marauder, Hulagu Khan, when he sacked Baghdad in 1258, by offering him a pool of gold hidden in the palace. Hulagu Khan had the ruler caliph arrested and slaughtered by wrapping him in a rug and trampling him with horses.

There is another tale that the Persian ruler Shapur is said to have killed Roman Emperor Valerian by pouring molten gold down his throat.

In this region, there used to be sati. It was a brutal way to eliminate the widow, who stood to inherit her husband’s property. Today, property has become the enemy of tranquility and family solidarity.

The noted madrasa-schooled Hindu reformer, Ram Mohan Roy (1772-1833), who published in Persian Tuhfat-ul-Mowahiddin (Gift to Monotheists), was a valiant opponent of the social evil of sati and caste hate. But this did not avert the 1839 atrocity at Lahore when, in violation of Sikh teachings, four queens and seven slave girls burnt themselves on the funeral pyre of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. 

Avarice – amongst the seven most deadly sins – led to the downfall of the Shah of Iran and of Hosni Mubarak more recently in the Middle East.  The colossal amount they stashed abroad they were never meant to see, let alone splurge in revelry. The fact is that, without the chador of super money, the emperor has no clothes. The only thing some would leave behind might be an empty mausoleum. 

So what endures? It is the ethos of the Dervish. Their legacy is imperishable. They are a living inspiration of high thinking and simple living.

Flaunting of wealth through ostentatious display of furnishings, clothing, houses, and cars is meant to arouse envy while seeking to impress people.  At the end, the departure lounge inevitably awaits the temporary custodians.