Everyone around me is busy preparing for the New Year. Homes are getting cleaned, hairs are being done, nails are being polished, clothes are being picked out from wardrobes, food is being prepared, a musical repertoire is being chosen...all in preparation for the upcoming year, which by the will of Allah, unless some major catastrophic event occurs beforehand, will take place in a matter of hours...
Armed with hope and positive belief, everyone hopes that 2010 will be better than the previous years...
You hear all the time - 2009 was a terrible year, but am positive that 2010 will be better...
This is some kind of personal new year resolution one holds onto with the belief --It will be better.
Each year, the same mantra is repeated - It will be, get better...and I suppose this has been going on for centuries...
And while everyone else is rushing to meet this new year with high hopes and wishful thinking -- I, on the other hand woke up, thinking about the Age of Ignorance.
The Age of Ignorance in Islam is called the Jahiliya.
Each people have a time of "before" which they consider to be their age of Ignorance. In each history book you come across, there will always be a reference to a "dark period" -- i.e to an age of Ignorance.
Today, I thought deeply about this age of Ignorance - this Jahiliya.
In the history of Islam, Jahaliya was characterized by several things : the worshiping of false gods, injustices, greed, oppression, exploitation, corruption, the wrongful spilling of blood, superstitions, prostitution, the sacrifice of females - i.e the Feminine... to name but a few...
I am sure that in other cultures and religious systems, they also have this dark period characterized by all the wrong doings of man.
But today in 2009, we all like to believe that the age of Ignorance is no longer. That it is a thing of the past, that we have overcome all those dark forces because the truth has been revealed to us, either through a particular religion, a system of belief or through some Guru who acts as our intercessor and guides in the field of Truth...or through the sciences, a particular ideology or a political model holding promises of freedom from Ignorance.
We like to believe that the Age of Ignorance does not apply to us, personally, individually, and we consider it to be simply a historical period involving a collectivity somewhere, somewhere else, far back or far ago...
On the surface of things, there might some truth in that, considering the evolution and development of our societies, the scientific and technological breakthroughs, the refinement of the arts and cultures, the development of learning institutions, the seeming establishment of international laws and protocols...and the rest...
But are we really past the age of Ignorance ? I am not sure about that, despite all the outward appearances of it being so, despite the outward illusions of it being so...
Today I woke up with a new level of understanding of what the age of Ignorance means...
People are too focused on out there...other people, society, government, information coming from the external world - through teachers and books - the printed word, in all its forms....and they convince themselves that they have finally managed to have it figured out somehow...or at least partially figured out.
But I woke up with a different level of understanding, and inspiring myself from religious concepts and allegories, I have come to realize that the age of Ignorance - ie. the Jahiliya lives in everyone of us, inside of ourselves...
The period of idol worshiping, lies, corruption, injustices, oppression, exploitation, superstitions, and the sacrifice of the Feminine is an inside - inner age. It is not only a historical period back then, out there...no, it is a period inside, right here, right now...
And concomitantly, other stories, myths and allegories derived from religious texts visited me, and the 40 years of exodus, wandering in the desert, is also an inside job, an inner path...
Historically, all prophets were born in times of Ignorance and wandered alone for many years, in exile, in search of the "promised land"...
And in their struggles, sacrifices, solitude and exile, they understood that this "promised land" can only be achieved by doing away with the age of Ignorance and all of its manifestations i.e wandering in the darkness of the soul, like in a desert, so the promised land can be finally reached (and that seems to be a Divine promise) and thereafter laboring it so it can bloom...
The Ayat from the Koran that said " God will not change a people (their condition) unless the people change in themselves " is the Truth.
My wish for you for 2010, is to do away with your own age of ignorance and find your own, new promised land and labor it until it blooms...
Happy New Year.
