" . . . truly man is ungrateful to his Lord, and truly he is a witness to that, and truly he is fierce in his love for good things . . ."
Quran 100:6-8
Lately I seem to be pulling out material from surahs that I've never discussed before, in this case al-Adiyat, the 100th surah, here rendered as "The Chargers." In this case, because al-Adiyat is so close to the end of the Quran it means that it is a very short surah, so this may be our only visit. This is another of the innumerable reminders in the Quran of humankind's fascination with the fleeting affairs of this world as compared to the less tangible but more eternal world of the divine. Doubtless I could go through every religion in the world and come up with similar admonitions. An obvious example would be how the Hindus discuss maya, the illusion of this world that distracts us from the greater spiritual reality. Of course, Plato is makes a very similar point in regards to the impermanence and ethereal intangibility of this world as compared to the world of forms. I read an article the other day about Muslims leaving Islam, and I found myself thinking that the piece served, on one level, as anti-Islamic clickbait material because the article should have instead focused on people across the religious spectrum leaving organized religion. It could well be because of the well-documented institutional crimes of every one of them or that they simply don't "matter" in the same way in today's world or their inability to speak to today's people. I wonder if it's something as simple as our collective lack of patience and inability to conceive of a bigger world. Before class every day I see my students glued to their phones, and increasingly every year we have more and more students come in who can barely make eye contact (it's often painful to witness). Our we so addicted to immediate response (and entertainment) that it's increasingly impossible to think of another world beyond this one - or this screen. One of the reasons why I began the Proust blog project a couple years ago was to force myself to slow my mind down, to step away from my phone and social media and live more on this moment. If you can't even live in this moment, how can you wrap your brain around the much bigger question of a world beyond our immediate perception?
Quran 100:6-8
Lately I seem to be pulling out material from surahs that I've never discussed before, in this case al-Adiyat, the 100th surah, here rendered as "The Chargers." In this case, because al-Adiyat is so close to the end of the Quran it means that it is a very short surah, so this may be our only visit. This is another of the innumerable reminders in the Quran of humankind's fascination with the fleeting affairs of this world as compared to the less tangible but more eternal world of the divine. Doubtless I could go through every religion in the world and come up with similar admonitions. An obvious example would be how the Hindus discuss maya, the illusion of this world that distracts us from the greater spiritual reality. Of course, Plato is makes a very similar point in regards to the impermanence and ethereal intangibility of this world as compared to the world of forms. I read an article the other day about Muslims leaving Islam, and I found myself thinking that the piece served, on one level, as anti-Islamic clickbait material because the article should have instead focused on people across the religious spectrum leaving organized religion. It could well be because of the well-documented institutional crimes of every one of them or that they simply don't "matter" in the same way in today's world or their inability to speak to today's people. I wonder if it's something as simple as our collective lack of patience and inability to conceive of a bigger world. Before class every day I see my students glued to their phones, and increasingly every year we have more and more students come in who can barely make eye contact (it's often painful to witness). Our we so addicted to immediate response (and entertainment) that it's increasingly impossible to think of another world beyond this one - or this screen. One of the reasons why I began the Proust blog project a couple years ago was to force myself to slow my mind down, to step away from my phone and social media and live more on this moment. If you can't even live in this moment, how can you wrap your brain around the much bigger question of a world beyond our immediate perception?
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