and then our exile

Birthed in an earlier older world, it flared up as the sea of true faith swept brilliantly across distant lands, catalyzing a single civilization and a new order of mortal life, true inheritor of all previous sincerity, and drew to itself those with clear minds and clear hearts. What are we?, the selfish Cartesian question asked, and answer: we are the legacy and children of Adam, who was taught the Names and made vicegerent of earth, created by the Almighty God in differing colours and tongues, that we might know one another. How do we know?, the ever-logical consequence, and then a hydra seeking knowledge steps into the open, and Herculaean disciplines of sacred knowledge stand by to quench each of its exploring wonderments. The development of centuries and honed to a rare edge, they called upon men and women of the keenest intellectual and spiritual insight to perfect the sciences of tajweed, the proper recitation of the Qur'an, the uncreated speech of God sent as the last revelation to all humanity; tafseer, the study, commentary, and exegesis of the same text, revealed to Muhammad^s the last Prophet; seerah, the biography of this same individual^s, sent as a mercy to all mankind; hadith, the words and deeds attributed to him^s; mustalh and 'ilm al-rijal, the complementary disciplines necessary to verify and safeguard the hadith from errors in transmission; fiqh, the practical jurisprudence derived from the principles of the Qur’an and hadith, guiding every step in one's physical life; usul al-fiqh, the system for organizing and deriving the principles themselves; 'aqeedah, the doctrines of credal belief and theology; tasawwuf, the purification of the soul as it travels the path to God...these, sundry other fields of knowledge, and even secondary sciences necessary to reach sequiturs within the above (such as formal logic and language studies, for example) all came into existence within the Islamic context centred around and exploring the consequences of the defining verses of the human condition, "We have not created men and jinn except to worship Us (Q. 51:56)".

But what is the relevance in the modern world?, the satiated animism, Even given that such a heritage is vast as a breathing sea, to us living in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, in 2005, all these things are nice and interesting to know about, but this will not help me in my university classes, or my family-raising, or my money-gathering, or my tribal bickering. And the simple answer: as human beings, the fundamental questions of our condition do not change. The external trappings such as the forms of society may and do change, but essentially, we are still mortal, still human, must still answer for ourselves the defining qualities of our lives, which are still--in their most basic form--quests to live for truth. Our questions may have degrees of difference to those asked centuries ago, but fundamentally they are identical. The substratal quality of humanity is not chivalry or medicine or evolution, it is the real need to determine truth and live following it.

And how fortunate the homo sapiens today, because this path is one well travelled. Islamic tradition, as the culminating heir of all those previous, has not died, disappeared, nor dissolved--true, that those teaching and those learning are frightfully few, but they yet exist, to transmit in an unbroken chain reaching through the years to the Teacher himself, the disciplines of sacred knowledge formulated to quicken dead souls and soften obdurate hearts. Although the quest is an intrinsically personal one there are yet guides to objective truth; in the mosques of Damascus and Cairo, the villages of Yemen and the Indian subcontinent--throughout the Muslim world, in fact--there are yet teachers of the traditional sciences, teaching in traditional ways, passing on the tradition. But how few!, and when they pass, who will take their place? The onus is on us, to cast aside the distractions which cloud our sight, and study the consequences of our existence. To draw from the depths of this sea; to have our human community in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, in 2005, learn from those who have passed this same way before; to live our lives as they were meant to be lived, not in the ways of chivalry medicine or evolution, but in search of truth.

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If you read this and say 'hah, basit, you're such a hypocrite', i'll tell you to talk to the hand 'cause the ears ain't listening.

Farooq and Muntaqa asked for an article on sacred knowledge and the obligation to seek it, which sounds very theoretical. Instead I am giving them a practical outline and some rhetoric as a traditionalist manifesto.

Amusing too, to see how easily little miscellaneous things creep into metaphors--things i watched, or read, or came across, and worked into a single piece of writing. i would like to think i'm less impressionable than the days when i used to say "interesting", but well what can you do.