"Each soul is the hostage of its own deeds."
Quran, 74:38
While prepping for class tomorrow I was thumbing with my absolutely beat-up old Quran (my copy of Nasr's jazzy hardcover Study Quran, which, truthfully, is getting a little beat-up as well is at school). Like all beloved books it is falling to pieces and if I don't open it gently pages fall out. It also has notes written all over it; as I tell my students, if you haven't written all over your books then you don't love them. Sadly, this is not a generation of readers. It's sad not only because it makes my job more difficult, but also because I feel sorry that they haven't grown up with the joy of reading. Anyway, as I was thumbing through it and stumbled across this passage that I had highlighted from surah 74, which is sometimes referred to as "The Cloaked One." This specific passage is also translated as, "Each soul will be held in pledge for its deeds."
I frequently tell my students that on a basic everyday level Islam is, I guess naturally enough, very much like Buddhism and also like Marcus Aurelius's Meditations. And, truthfully, this is probably the part of the faith that I enjoy the most. This particular passage emphasizes the fact that you are solely responsible for your own deeds, and, truthfully, that's the way we should view the world. What do we actually control other than them? I remember giving a talk at our mosque and I made that point. We really can't control God or often even understand God, but we can hopefully control our own actions. One of the reasons why Muslims don't believe that Jesus died for the sins of the world is that we don't believe anyone can die for the sins of the world. You own your deeds and sins and no one else can be judged for them or erase them. One the one hand I guess this relates to the notion of you being judged at the end of all ends, but, truthfully, I think that is more of a metaphoric way of explaining the importance of owning your deeds. What we say and do has meaning, and we need to think about everything that we say and do, not simply because of their relation to our ultimate fate (or enlightenment, hearkening back to the Buddhists) but rather their relationship the people we interact with every day. In Nasr's The Heart of Islam he talks about our fascination with human rights, but our failure to consider human responsibilities. In the end, I think we owe kindness to every living soul. It sounds cheesy, I guess, but if we truthfully followed that approach most of the world's problems would be over in about a day and a half.
Quran, 74:38
While prepping for class tomorrow I was thumbing with my absolutely beat-up old Quran (my copy of Nasr's jazzy hardcover Study Quran, which, truthfully, is getting a little beat-up as well is at school). Like all beloved books it is falling to pieces and if I don't open it gently pages fall out. It also has notes written all over it; as I tell my students, if you haven't written all over your books then you don't love them. Sadly, this is not a generation of readers. It's sad not only because it makes my job more difficult, but also because I feel sorry that they haven't grown up with the joy of reading. Anyway, as I was thumbing through it and stumbled across this passage that I had highlighted from surah 74, which is sometimes referred to as "The Cloaked One." This specific passage is also translated as, "Each soul will be held in pledge for its deeds."
I frequently tell my students that on a basic everyday level Islam is, I guess naturally enough, very much like Buddhism and also like Marcus Aurelius's Meditations. And, truthfully, this is probably the part of the faith that I enjoy the most. This particular passage emphasizes the fact that you are solely responsible for your own deeds, and, truthfully, that's the way we should view the world. What do we actually control other than them? I remember giving a talk at our mosque and I made that point. We really can't control God or often even understand God, but we can hopefully control our own actions. One of the reasons why Muslims don't believe that Jesus died for the sins of the world is that we don't believe anyone can die for the sins of the world. You own your deeds and sins and no one else can be judged for them or erase them. One the one hand I guess this relates to the notion of you being judged at the end of all ends, but, truthfully, I think that is more of a metaphoric way of explaining the importance of owning your deeds. What we say and do has meaning, and we need to think about everything that we say and do, not simply because of their relation to our ultimate fate (or enlightenment, hearkening back to the Buddhists) but rather their relationship the people we interact with every day. In Nasr's The Heart of Islam he talks about our fascination with human rights, but our failure to consider human responsibilities. In the end, I think we owe kindness to every living soul. It sounds cheesy, I guess, but if we truthfully followed that approach most of the world's problems would be over in about a day and a half.
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