I “believe’. Really? Do I?

Every human being once brought up in any society, starts to think on his own. Teachings of society and his own learnings gets him to understand some ideas that are necessary to cope with the multidimensional world.

In other words, he senses the existence of some simple cause and effect principles and applies them in his day-to-day life. For example, he notices that to live he has to eat. For eating he has to find food. For food he has to prepare it or find somewhere prepared etc. Simple cause and effect facts.

But After sometime he realises that those simple facts are not enough to deal with the brute reality. The reality of death to be supreme of all accompanied with the reality of having unwanted feelings, the reality of suffering, the reality of pain and joy, the reality of consciousness and the reality of having the sense of right and wrong (conscientiousness) . He can’t control any of them. So, he must find a way to deal with them because those bothers him. Most importantly the question of right and wrong perplexes him.

He must be under the impression of an idea, any belief or any philosophy that can give him a refuge, which can satiate his eternal thirst, his longing for the understanding of reality and most importantly which can set to a rest his forage to find the purpose behind those realities. Because there must be one. There must be a reason behind it. That’s what bothers him. Even if he consciously doesn’t follow any philosophy or an ideology and doesn’t give it a name, he still follows one of them.

It could be hedonism, Animism, Polytheism, Monotheism, Dualism, Materialism, Idealism

Empiricism, Rationalism, Skepticism, Pragmatism, Existentialism, Humanism, Utilitarianism, Nihilism, Postmodernism, Transhumanism, Environmentalism, Afrocentrism, Confucianism

Taoism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Judaism, Stoicism, Epicureanism,

Aristotelianism, Platonism, Cynicism, Daoism, Legalism, Mohism, Jainism, Sikhism, Shinto

Pyrrhonism, Neoplatonism, Neostoicism, Neo-Confucianism, Neo-Taoism, Nationalism or may be any other.

Whichever philosophy he adopts, he consciously or unconsciously applies it in every aspect of his life, whether Psychological, social, economic or political.

Why? Simply Because that ideology underlies a worldview and an entire cosmological understanding of the universe. That understanding is then reflected in every sphere of life.

For example, if there is a pragmatist atheist, he would strive his best to fulfil his worldly desires and predilections without caring for the life hereafter since latter doesn’t exist for him. For him, self is above than the collective, political above than the moral, and fact above than the value. Similarly take any of those philosophies and one can find how they are being applied in all those spheres of life.

Here comes two questions and I believe the 2nd is most important and my concern here as well.

1- What if that ideology is wrong and a mere fluke that could make you pay a price even bigger than the one you pay in the form of worldly suffering?

2- What if I do not live my life upon the very ideology I claim to be true and do not apply it in every sphere of my life whether political, social, psychological or economic?

For now, I’ll leave the first question to the one adhering to those respective ideologies. However, as for as the second question is concerned, I claim my ideology, Islam, to be an ultimate truth. All muslims do. And by that very claim I assert that my entire cosmological understanding of the universe is different than any of the rest of ideologies. Every single action that I take, every single activity I perform, every word I utter is directly linked to the life hereafter. Every single thing I do is being noted down in transcendental ledger. Then Why do I not strive to apply this philosophy in every sphere of my life?

When I believe it to be an apodictic truth then what stops me from applying it?

Why don’t I call spade a spade. Why don’t I call wrong the wrong and right the right?

When my criteria for right and wrong is the commands of Allah and his Prophet (PBUH) then why I shy away from speaking the truth? Why do I not call for the commands of Allah to be applied in a supposedly Islamic country?

Is fear of death stops me doing that?

But isn’t it that I myself accepted the existence of life hereafter and I firmly believe in that and that is the foundation of very ideology/philosophy I adhere to? Then why do I accept the obligation of ‘Fasting’ as an obligation but find excuses when it comes to the obligation of ‘Qitaal’ while the same ‘obligatory’ words are being used in Holy Quran for both of those obligations? Why don’t I call for the help of the oppressed with military means against the oppressors? Why do I become oblivious to the commands of Allah when around 40000 Palestinians are massacred including over 15000 babies in broad daylight? Why do I forget that stopping the oppressor with hand or power is the most accepted form of my ‘belief’?

Or is it the fear of being tagged/labelled as an ‘extremist’ that stops me?

But who formulated the definition of ‘extremism’ and on what base? Is that base stronger than the base set by Allah and his Prophet (PBUH)? Is that base epistemologically consistent, well-grounded and well-sound?

If the answer is in ‘negative’ then the only reason left behind which restricts me to fulfil those obligations is either the ‘high inferiority complex’ or ‘Low (belief) Emaan on the existence of God and hereafter’ or maybe both. In that situation, a man has to go back to those basic realities where he started from until he learns the truth again.