When symbols replace values

Symbols

“Are you a good Muslim?” A student asked Ziauddin Sardar.

Ziauddin Sardar is a writer born in Pakistan and living in England. He is a multi-faceted personality who has made a mark as a scholar, cultural critic, and an intellectual who specialises in Muslim thought. [Now don’t ask me whether Muslims think. Some of them do, I assure you.]

The above question was hurled at Sardar when he visited a madrasa in Pakistan in 1985. Let me quote a part of that conversation from his book Desperately Seeking Paradise. [The quotes are not verbatim.]

Student: Are you a good Muslim?

Sardar: I am a Muslim. Good or not, I don’t know.

Student: If you are a Muslim, why don’t you grow your beard?

Sardar: A beard is not a necessary mark of a Muslim.

Student: The beard is an essential part of the Prophet’s Sunnah. Those who disregard the Sunnah are not good Muslims.

Sardar: Do you use a camel for your travels? Do you ride on a camel’s back?

Student: What do you mean?

Sardar: The camel is Sunnah because the Prophet used the camel for his travels.

Student: But we have cars and buses today. Why would I use a camel?

Sardar: Exactly. If there was a safety razor in those days, the Prophet would have shaved off his face hair too.

All gods and their scriptures belong to specific periods of history. What the Prophet said and did in his time is no more valid today than what Jesus or Krishna or the Buddha said and did in their times. The time has changed. The old gods and their prophets have become outdated. No scripture can ever be eternally valid. No religion can make sense to intelligent people unless it adapts itself to the changing times. Most parts of the Bible and the Koran and the Upanishads or the Gita or any scripture will be rubbished today by any thinking brain.

If those ancient and outdated and absurd scriptures continue to rule us today, it is because we haven’t learnt to think. We are still idiots. We are governed by idiots who love riots and wars. Idiots who wear fancy dresses. Idiots who want to capture nuclear stations. Some idiots have teashops to boast about. Some have Rasputin. Most have a god, one god, their own god, their own ego.

Egos of certain individuals replace the essential teachings of religions. That is how a religion dies. The hijab is a symbol. The saffron is a symbol. It is very easy to make people fight in the name of symbols. Idiotic leaders do just that: make people fight in the name of symbols.

Tail question: Why doesn’t the world ever go beyond stupid leaders?

Answer: No leader can be greater than their people.