But today, as I looked outside this very same window, the scene was changed. There was no gold or blue. There were rows of skeletal, brittle teeth where leafy branches once had been. Dull, murky clouds blocked the sun and choked the mountains, enveloping them in a haze of grey.

How many times has this change occurred? Twice a year, every year, from gold to grey and back again. Year after year, for hundreds of years, for thousands of years, the world changed colors. I began to wonder about the kinds of people who had lived on this land before me. They too had witnessed this change throughout their lives, this marvelous transformation of the earth around them. Some of these people had made their mark in this place and countless more had not. They simply vanished into the chasm of history, swallowed by the hungry mouth of the past. They are nameless and faceless to me, and yet they too beheld this glorious tableau of color.

I began to think about these strangers. Like me, the beauty of this scene had probably touched them. This beauty must have flooded them with incomprehensible wonder and awe, if only for a moment. Then the moment would have passed.  They would have gone on, like me, to work, eat, sleep, play, laugh, worry and pray. Then, at some point, they would have passed from this life to the next, a journey that is as inevitable for me as it was for them. And the leaves would have fallen all the same, insensible to the breath of any man.

I have always loved history because it allows me to extrapolate my life and set it against the background of ages past – so very different, and yet similar, because they too had seen the sky as flawless as a polished sapphire and trees as incandescent as flames. And they too had lived their lives with the same sense of immediacy that I do. Without the stories of those that came before us, all that we know is ourselves, here and now. All the people, places, and things we know, we know through the lens of our own experiences and our own understandings.

And this is why history is beautiful. It can flood the senses; transport one into a novel frame of thought – a new dimension of perception. It can reveal patterns, cause and effect, consequence and outcome. It can shatter these very same patterns, diverge from the trodden path, meander into horror and violence, impart a sense of shock and disgust. But history bequeaths knowledge and the gift of common sense. History teaches us about death and about life. History tells us about splendor slipping into dullness and insipidity blooming into color.

It sometimes occurs to me how little history is valued in this day and age. Ours is a time of urgency, of the holiness of now. As our society moves at a hyper-kinetic pace, it is difficult to view history without a heightened sense of contrast to the present age. Humanity has never seen progress such as this: nanotechnology, the internet, airplanes, television, automobiles.

One cannot help but think, however, that the pyramid-mounting ancient Egyptians and the astronomically advanced Mayans must have felt much the same way.

I cannot say that history is as exact as science, or that it is interpreted and told the same in all places and by all people. In my age, science is considered the best approach in the quest towards truth. Science and technology has conquered an array of infectious disease and bested the villainy of pests, infestations, germs, extreme heat, and cold. But I hold that an appreciation and respect of history can only benefit us and allow us to think in that additional dimension: above and beyond the immediacy of our present desires and concerns, stretching into the time before and after us.

As a Muslim, history has always been an integral part of my life. When I was very little, I remember my mother telling me a story about a man who lived a long time ago, in a land far away. This was a man who came from a long line of prophets before him, and he was at once like them and very different. He was different from anyone that had come before him and from anyone that would come after him. This man was gentle, kind, loving, strong, wise, patient, spiritual and courageous. My mother told me of an incident during his lifetime where his neighbor would throw garbage at him as he walked through the street, on his way to prayer. Every single day, a volley of garbage came flying down at him as he went on his way. One day, however, no garbage fell upon him.  Now this man, Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, worried about the health of his garbage-throwing neighbor and went to see her. He inquired about her well-being and helped her in her time of sickness.

This piece of history struck a chord within me as a child, and it continues to do so. It was a beautiful act, and this was a beautiful man, and his presence leaped boldly across the span of fourteen hundred years to resonate in my thoughts. This makes me feel the same sense of awe I felt seeing the liquid amber of leaves against a cerulean sky.

I think of him, walking on sunlit golden sands under the bright desert sky, leading humanity behind him.

And these are just the slings and arrows from the outside. There is also the vast ocean of self-induced pain. One could argue all of the onslaught, from within and without, is due to self-injurious action. Whether it’s racism or petty politics, community-wide rifts, gender wars, disharmony within families, or friction between generations, we are facing discord on multiple fronts.

I bring up these states of humiliation because I see them as one cause for a kind of collective narcissism that assails us today. One could liken it to a brittle shell that surrounds the vibrant, beating heart of Islam, obstructing the true potency of the Muslim spirit. Because, despite the issues presented above, nowhere will you see more ingenuity, more passion, more imagination, more creativity, more wonder, more mystery, or more of the sheer inventiveness of the human being than in Muslim history—and even in the Muslim present. These things do still exist within us, but they can be blocked from view by the undetectable influences of the ego, rendering them invisible and powerless.

It is interesting to ascribe a personality disorder to a culture or a group of people, and this is exactly what Christopher Lasch does in his 1979 book The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations. A personality disorder is loosely defined as a pattern of abnormal behavior that the person does not change, even though it causes emotional problems and trouble with other people.¹ Narcissism, as defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, is a pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy.

Lasch’s book is specifically about what American culture had become in the 1960s. I believe, at this point, it applies to any cultures that globalization has touched, including Muslim ones. However much we love to regard ourselves as removed from the problems of ‘Western’ societies, we are so thoroughly entwined in the good and the bad fabric of these cultures that we would become unraveled were we to pick these threads apart. Muslims are integral to the Western landscape, and so these issues are fundamentally our own issues. In addition to sharing these problems, we have our own, very distinct ‘Muslim’ problems to deal with as well.

The Culture of Narcissism is a fiercely academic book, and difficult to fully explicate in the present undertaking. However, I would like to use some excerpts to illustrate the narcissistic personality type Lasch is trying to define:

“The new narcissist is haunted not by guilt but by anxiety…He extols cooperation and teamwork while harboring deeply antisocial impulses. He praises respect for the rules and regulations in the secret belief that they do not apply to himself…Plagued by anxiety, depression, vague discontents, a sense of inner emptiness, the ‘psychological man’ of the twentieth century seeks neither individual self-aggrandizement nor spiritual transcendence but peace of mind, under conditions that increasingly militate against it. Therapy has established itself as the successor to both rugged individualism and religion […] Therapy constitutes an anti-religion, not always to be sure because it adheres to rational explanation or scientific methods of healing, as its practitioners would have us believe, but because modern society ‘has no future’ and therefore gives no thought to anything beyond its immediate needs. Even when therapists speak of the need for ‘meaning’ and ‘love,’ they define love and meaning simply as the fulfillment of the patient’s emotional requirements. It hardly occurs to them – nor is there any reason why it should, given the nature of the therapeutic enterprise – to encourage the subject to subordinate his needs and interests to those of others, to someone or some cause or tradition outside himself. ‘Love’ as self-sacrifice or self-abasement, ‘meaning’ as submission to a higher loyalty – these sublimations strike the therapeutic sensibility as intolerably oppressive, offensive to common sense and injurious to personal health and well-being.”

While Lasch attributes much of this narcissistic state of mind to ‘therapy’ and ‘therapists’, one could argue that in the new millennium, and the years leading up to it, our entire world has been saturated with therapeutic mechanisms, designed to placate our anxieties, to soothe our vague discontents, to whisk away depression and the feelings of inadequacy. This therapeutic world exists via a never ending barrage of images: television, movies, advertising, magazines covers, the internet—even online networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace, which practically run on the fuel of asinine pictures and posing.

Lasch further writes in the chapter ‘The Narcissistic Personality of Our Time’:

“The narcissist, who sees the world as a mirror of himself and has no interest in external events except as they throw back a reflection of his own image […] We live in a swirl of images and echoes that arrest experience and play it back in slow motion. Cameras and recording machines not only transcribe experience but alter its quality, giving to much of modern life the character of an enormous echo chamber, a hall of mirrors…Modern life is so thoroughly mediated by electronic images that we cannot help responding to others as if their actions – and our own – were being recorded and simultaneously transmitted to an unseen audience or stored up for close scrutiny at some later time.”

I do not wish to dwell upon the way to quell these anxieties and the feelings of emptiness. As Muslims, we at least can nominally understand how Islam is supposed to help us with this. We have heard that all of the world’s beauty and wonder is meant to be a reflection of the qualities of God, not of ourselves, as a way to better understand Him. What I find most interesting is what could possibly lie between theoretical Islam and the failure of so many of our communities to practically apply it.

To reiterate—narcissism is a pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy. I use ‘narcissism’ adjunctively with ‘ego’, and sometimes interchangeably, because I think the nuances bog down the point. I am afraid that the phenomenon described above has somehow overtaken our community, existing in a kind of hollow shell that is surrounded by a plastic and superficial understanding of Islam. I fear that our Islam, a lot of the time, exists only to satisfy the perception of not only others, but also of our own egos. Far from destroying the ego and our latent narcissism, in many instances we are using Islam as a self-protective blanket to shield both from the urgent realities of our time.

By way of example:

Grandiosity*: Thinking we are better than non-Muslims, than our neighbors, than each other, than the opposite sex, than the lady at the mosque who tells us we aren’t covered enough, being the lady at the mosque who feels the need to tell everyone they aren’t covered enough, believing we are sole possessors of the truth and everyone else is just cattle. The idea that merely being a self-professed adherent of the world’s most theologically sound and perfect religion is enough to individually put us above professionalism, fairness, justice, equality, and ethics.

Need for admiration*: Desiring fame whether in pop music or in matters of religion, wanting to be recognized by other people as different, as special, as one of a kind, craving attention from boys, from girls, from eminent personalities, seeking to distinguish ourselves by any means necessary, chasing validation from mainstream media, from Obama, and occasionally, even FOX news. Latching on to a clique, to a tribe, to a crew, to a movement, to a particularly cool-looking group of people because such membership is an authentication that has become necessary to who we are.

Lack of empathy*: Failing to recognize the real hurt and disillusionment and sadness in so many of our own, and so many that are not of us, whatever that may mean. Depriving others of etiquette, manners, and a sense of ease which we ourselves demand. Elevating rules over the humans they were meant to benefit. Failing to realize that at even our most despairing, someone we know has felt worse.  Someone we have ill feelings for right now has probably felt worse. Being too cowardly to experience the depth and breadth of our own misery long enough (before we try to mask it with ego) to be able to feel it as somebody else’s.

*If you think about it, argumentation lies neatly under the umbrella of all three of these things.

Who are we? Are we narcissists?

Among our many problems is how heavily we have let the state of our many humiliations weigh upon us. That in itself is an indicator of the potency and vigor of our egos. Looking for a quick fix, we try in vain to get rid of this sensation without trying to understand why it has come upon us and why it isn’t going away. In this state of almost constant defensiveness, we have become obsessed with the image of principles and values, rather than with the principles and values themselves. We are allowing outsiders to define us, to dictate our actions so that they become reactions. We have become a people defined by our reactions, because we are a people primarily governed by our egos.

The reason I say this is because I believe that a curious phenomenon of knee-jerk ‘cornered-ness’ is at the root of a lot of Muslim dysfunction, whether within our own communities or in the world at large. We have become dependent on the self-protective ‘airbag’ effects of our egos to cushion us from harsh realities and sobering truths. We fail to understand the inner motives behind our reactions, and so we react, react, and react away, without being exactly sure about who or what is behind the controls. Is this a logical, rational response, or is this a knee-jerk reaction that was subconsciously, and sometimes consciously, guided by my ego? This subconscious reaction is so ingrained and habitual at times that we don’t even know how or why we have behaved or spoken in the way that we have. We may faintly recognize that some responses make us feel immediately better than others, and so we persist in those responses, dooming ourselves to forever pet and coddle the monster.

We must try to not react, but to act—to behave in a manner that is not dictated by a reflexive response meant to quickly suppress emotions and anxiety. We need to behave with rationalism and logic, an understanding that seeking the benefit of the whole group is more beneficial for our long-term interests, rather than merely seeking the benefit of the self. We are concerned with those things that ‘make Islam look bad’ and ‘the people that are making Islam look bad’ without really getting the point. Islam is not going to look good and the people are not going to stop making it look bad until the focus is on good for the sake of Allah subhanahu wa ta`ala (exalted is He), and for Him and Him alone. By first looking elsewhere and criticizing outwardly, we spectacularly fall into the trap of our egos. Thus, any progressive change first necessitates the destruction of the narcissistic self. This point is easier read than it is understood, and easier understood than it is implemented.

One of the most sublime ironies of the egotistical, narcissistic state of mind is how many people seem to share it. It is something of human nature to consider the vast morass of humanity as perhaps a bit ‘not as ____’ as we ourselves are. Not as smart, not as nice, not as well-intentioned, not as good-hearted, not as charitable, not as reasonable, not as wise, not as knowledgeable, not as right—in short, not as special as we are. Interestingly, however, this very idea is what chains us together in the invisible bond of ordinary peasantry. We’re all the same kind of un-special because we all think like this. We are all common in that we share the same delusions.  And because we cannot grasp this concept, we will continue to look at the weaknesses of other people and see them as somehow isolated and at odds with ourselves, not as the reflections they are meant to be.

As far as I can see, there is no permanent cure for ego. There is no way to annihilate it, to exterminate it, there is no prophylaxis or prevention or vaccine. But it can be reduced, it can be beaten to the periphery of our minds, it can be belittled, it can be harassed, it can be assaulted. We can divert our human lust for control and power onto this beast: battle it with no mercy. But first and foremost, we must admit its existence, we must recognize it; then, we must engage it ardently.

And, as always, our human inclination for goodwill will insert itself rather conveniently in this matter, as we find ourselves trying to first help others with the noble task of subduing the ego. I believe it is safe to say, however, that when it comes to this particular mission—let’s be selfish. We must put our own oxygen masks on before trying to assist those beside us.  Why is it that we are so nice to our egos and so mean to each other? Why does your ego stick out a million miles away, but I couldn’t see mine if it, well, lived within me? When it comes to other people, we must bite our tongues (or our typing fingers) and show others our good intentions through soft words, kind gestures, and trust that God will do the rest. In the case that that advice proves too vague, we must work on creating stronger imaginations: pretend someone else said or did that to you, would it feel good? This exercise is revelatory in an unexpected way: why do we rush to feel so very wronged and hurt in response to criticism, to rejection, even to racism, stereotyping, or prejudice? Ego manifests itself in everyone; in the self-righteousness of the critic and in the self-pity of the criticized, in the cruelty of the oppressor and in the self-victimizing helplessness of the oppressed.

Until we understand this process and correct ourselves, we will continue to be humiliated, set back, immobilized. We will continue to be feasted upon. As saddening a notion as this is, if we critically examine this phenomenon we will see yet a greater design.

It is a great honor to be routed so openly, so directly, so obviously as we are. We are not allowed to slide happily into the great cavern of iniquity, allowed to smoothly and totally self-destruct with nary an obstacle in our path. In fact, we are made to bow down again and again, until we get it right. Everybody in the world houses this beast, yet some are continually reminded of it and others not at all.  Perhaps best of all, we feel all of this so we can recognize this painful experience in others. This is the gift of empathy. This is what God is giving us, and in our blindness we have not recognized it at all—the ability to exercise everything human within us, to be the most elevated of creation in the most trying of times. And so while we might have a lot of problems, we also have direct access to meaningful, long-term solutions. We have within our reach a fundamental understanding of the base self, of wanton desires, and the destructive capability of the ego, which is worse than the parasite. The parasite takes but does not give, while the ego actively destroys that which houses and nourishes it.

Who are we? We are walking mud, we are breathing clay. We could not survive a few moments without the self-generated rhythm of our hearts. We could not live except for a short while without water, without bodily sustenance, without time and shade to rest. We can consume the sweetest of fruits, the most glorious of vegetable matter, and the most succulent of meats, and all we have to give back is filth and waste matter. Not one of us can escape the biological machinery that dictates the life inside us and around us. Not one of us can transcend it. Who are we?

The brother who died did not have a forceful personality, nor was he someone you would expect to attract lots of attention. As we all discovered later on, he was an activist who believed deeply in his cause.  He was never angry, abrasive, or loud, which is why the depth of his commitment and passion was surprising to learn about. My perception of him was that he was a polite, friendly brother, who was very involved in the Palestinian student group on campus. Two days before his death, he had approached a group of sisters to invite us to a movie the Palestinian student group would be showing.

The fact that this brother died during Ramadan on his way to drop his younger brother home after opening their fast and praying taraweeh (extra night prayers performed during Ramadan) is so beautiful that we were all left reeling in the face of such a strong example of the love and mercy shown by Allah towards those He loves. There were so many people that attended this brother’s janazah (funeral prayer); it was the largest Muslim funeral of any person in our city. They even had to call the police to assist with parking and traffic. Condolences for his family came from every corner of the city, from fellow brothers who were close to him, to Muslim and non-Muslim students alike who he had tutored in math. He was only 22 when he died, and his goal was to be a math teacher.

This brother died in a month where the gates of Hell are closed. He had, literally, thousands of people praying for him in a month where du`a’ become exponentially weightier. He died in the holiest of months, a month of peace and of reflection, of forgiveness and of mercy. This was a sign from God and a comfort to his family, his friends, and those who loved him.

It is a sign of Allah’s favour upon a person when he has the respect, love, and admiration of the people around him. After his death, only beautiful things were said about him, only lovely stories told. Every story that came out after his death made one love his character more, every story was one that illustrated his dedication to assist his community and all of humanity. Every person whom he could humanly help, he did. The president of the Israeli student group personally came to the MSA to tell them how much he had respected this brother and how sorry he was to learn of his passing. Subhan’Allah (exalted is He). It was only after his death that the community truly realized what kind of a person we had lost.

He wasn’t a “big shot” – he was only a 22-year-old student at our university whose janazah was the largest in our city’s history. During his life, he was so absorbed in helping the community that he didn’t have time or even see the need to let people around him know. Even in death, he was a gift to our city. His death brought our community together, inspired us to reflect on the kind of person he was to have been taken in Ramadan, and called us to do something about our own lives before it was too late.

I remember the khutba (sermon) given on the Friday after his death. The khateeb (person who gives the sermon) was a personal friend of this brother who had died. He first talked about death in the Islamic perspective, then about the washing of the brother’s body which he had participated in. He said that this brother’s face was so calm and so serene that it looked like he was smiling, and that Insha’Allah (God willing) he was in a place of tranquility and peace. He talked about the fact that modern people are so afraid of death because when they look upon the faces of their dead, they see terror, fear, and unrest—this is what is depicted in their understanding of death, in movies, in popular thought and culture. But often times when Muslims look upon the faces of our dead, we see peace.  We should not fear death but rather learn from the lives of people who are shrouded in tranquility in their deaths. May Allah give us such peace and tranquility in our death. Ameen.

A dinner was held in memory of this brother in which the Muslim community on campus invited his family. Masha’Allah (Allah has willed it), you could see where this brother had come by his faith and his humanity. His 13-year-old younger brother who had been with him and had witnessed the accident was, by the Grace of God, so at peace, so firm of faith, so unnerved by death that his very countenance reduced many of us to tears. He was telling funny stories about his brother and consoling people around him. Subhan’Allah, consoling others about the death of his own brother! This 13-year-old boy’s attitude towards death is one that many adults could learn from.

His mother sobbed quietly at times and talked with the sisters. This woman had lost a son who was approaching the prime of his life. She had lost him before she could have seen him marry, finish a degree that was one year away, settle down comfortably with a career and family. To look at a mother who had lost a son, especially in this way, makes you reflect on a lot of things and stays with you for a long time. What kind of a woman was she to have raised such a son? What kind of a woman was she to be tested in such a way? For God tests those He loves most.

This brother who died was a regular person like you or I. He didn’t have a fancy title or a reputation for being extraordinarily pious. He concerned himself with his own activities – which really explains the number of people who came forward after his death with stories of how he had helped them. We would see him all around campus carrying banners and signs, but for some reason, this was so unobtrusive and so typical of his calm demeanor that it didn’t jump out at you. He just wasn’t “known” for all of these things to the extent that he was involved in them.

It’s when he died that we all realized the truth of how only Allah (swt) knows the contents of a person’s heart. This brother was a regular person like you or I, but Allah (swt) hid his sins from the community and exposed his many good deeds. May Allah (swt) hide and forgive our sins too. Ameen.

His mother, after embracing each and every sister so that we felt her tears on our own cheeks, thanked us for the love and support our community had shown her son. On the contrary, we should have been the ones thanking her for being such a model of motherhood and love, of resolve and patience. It was we who should have been thanking her for giving our community the gift of her son for 22 years. She kept saying to us, “Please don’t forget my son, please don’t forget my son.” I sincerely believe that all those who met this brother, who were inspired by his simple yet dedicated life, and especially those in the community who had witnessed the events surrounding his death, never will. I pray to Allah (swt) that I never do.

The Western reaction to Slumdog, from what I have gathered, seems to be one of mixed shock and delight. Shock at the terrible poverty the ‘slumdogs’ have lived through, and delight at the lovely Warner Brothers way the story ended before the credits rolled. Many people were horrified at the conditions depicted in this movie, the terrible poverty and violence young children must face from the time they take their first steps. Some people in India were resentful that a Western movie brought all this to light, winning awards for exploiting the poverty of the Third World.

Apart form the razzle-dazzle buzz of movie stars and the many gatherings where they like to pat themselves on the back and broadcast it for the world to see, I believe that the idea of  poverty behind this movie is important for Muslims all over the world to consider. Not merely because the main character in the movie is a Muslim, but because there are millions and millions of Muslims living in different kinds of abject poverty around the world. Many of the Muslims who have migrated to Western nations can tell you a little something or two about it. Perhaps this is why many people in the Third World, and many of those people who have migrated to the First World, did not find themselves as moved by this movie as Western audiences were. They’ve seen it first hand, whether from simply walking on the street or from peering at it through tinted, air conditioned vehicles. Many people who have lived in Mumbai will tell you that the poverty they see in their daily lives is much worse than what was shown in Slumdog. Indeed, if one was to watch a movie about poverty in India, Mira Nair’s ‘Salaam Bombay!’ is a more accurate and sobering depiction of slum life and the desperation it entails.

However, with regards to the current fascination with Slumdog Millionaire, I believe this movie can prove to be more useful than just providing us with the spectacle of the rampant poverty of the Third World. It can also serve as a mirror. This mirror, if we choose to allow it, can reflect our own dismal state of poverty back to us.

Most of us, by the Grace of God, have never had to live in flimsy shacks that expose us to drenching monsoons or the sordid heat of the Eastern summer months. Most of us, by the Grace of God, never really have to worry about where our next meal is coming from or if we have enough clothes to wear. Most of us, by the Grace of God, have the gift of relatively free schooling that we can choose to extend based upon our own merit, septic tanks and water drainage facilities, hot showers or showers at all, transportation, and space, among the millions of other small things we couldn’t account for if we spent our entire lives trying. The general lack of these amenities is what is known as ‘extreme poverty’, a material poverty that is so intense, that the sheer numbers of people living in the middle of it is a disgraceful slap in the face to humanity on our planet today.

But poverty has existed since the beginning of man, since the dawn of his civilizations and his sense of economic distribution, since the start of his having and his not having. There have always been the rich and poor, and even the very, very rich, and the very, very poor. Most religions and societies have, for the most part, accommodated for this age old divide in the form of alms, taxes, and a basic social compulsion to look after the weakest of the flock. The essential point of religion, in my opinion, is to keep us from descending into a form of poverty that is much, much worse than the kind of poverty depicted in Slumdog Millionaire. This is spiritual poverty.

This is not to belittle the dreadful poverty of street children, or an attempt to diminish it in some abstract, metaphorical way. Nor is this trying to say that poverty exists only in the Third World. There are populations of homeless people living in all areas of the world, in various conditions of insufficient provision, but the fact remains that there are sheer millions, if not billions, of people who live in states of poverty that the average North American would never dream of seeing on his or her street corner.

There are many versions of poverty. The balance of the universe dictates that while little Ali the slum urchin can exist in the streets of Mumbai mired in squalor and material poverty, I too, can exist in middle class North American suburbia, in the midst of slumber and spiritual poverty. My transient needs in this transient world are, by the Grace of God, being fulfilled, but it is through my own laziness and forgetfulness that I remain spiritually destitute. Perhaps little Ali is richer than me; so thoroughly occupied in the savage business of survival he will not have acquired the massive debt of time I have – largely misspent, waiting to be accounted for. Perhaps because every day is such a feat of survival, he wakes up thanking God that he is alive to see another one.

There is intellectual poverty. Take, for example, the following passage from the New York Times bestseller and Pultizer Prize winning book ‘Guns, Germs, and Steel’, by Jared Diamond:

“Besides [the] genetic reason, there is also a second reason why New Guineans may have come to be smarter than Westerners. Modern Europeans and American children spend much of their time being passively entertained by television, radio, and movies. In the average American household, the TV set is on for seven hours per day. In contrast, traditional New Guinea children have virtually no such opportunities for passive entertainment and instead spend almost all their waking hours actively doing something, such as talking or playing with other children or adults. Almost all studies of child development emphasize the role of childhood stimulation and activity in promoting mental development, and stress the irreversible mental stunning associated with reduced childhood stimulation. This effect surely contributes a non-genetic component to the superior average mental function displayed by New Guineans. That is, in mental ability New Guineans are probably genetically superior to Westerners, and they are surely superior in escaping the devastating developmental disadvantages under which most children in industrialized societies now grow up.”

Given the daily battle most of the world must undertake to merely live another day, I can say with some confidence that we would have a tenuously difficult time trying to survive as they do, compared to the ease in which they could perform the everyday functions of our own lives. Consider the 2001 experiment in the slums of New Delhi undertaken by Sugata Mitra, involved in research and development at NIIT, a software and training company. He placed a computer on the wall of his office, opposite a slum, and took note of what happened: completely unsupervised and without assistance, children who had perhaps never seen a computer before in their lives learned how to surf the Internet in eight minutes. Browsing, cut, paste, copy, dragging and dropping, and creating folders were all learned in the space of a few days.

Technically, having been required by the government to attend school until high school, one could say that we are vastly more educated than the poor children in Third World countries who must forgo the luxury of an education, in order to provide for their families. Sitting in a classroom room from the age of five to the age of eighteen, however, doesn’t mean that we are more intelligent. In fact, I am inclined to believe the opposite.  Sure, we learn to read, perform arithmetic, are presented with history, and are given poems to read and think about. But what does all of this mean when people would rather watch television than read books, when mental math has become almost obsolete, and when people may have history book upon history book at their disposal, but not the mental capacity to integrate it with current affairs and politics? What’s the point of thirteen years of formal schooling when we get everything we need to live day to day from the unholy trinity of television broadcasting: ESPN, MTV, and CNN? There is no need to burn or ban books in such a culture, where the vast majority of young people would prefer not to read them anyway.  And even if we were to store the facts of several encyclopedias within ourselves, how would that make us any different from an inanimate object, a book, if we lack the intellectual spark and fire for real action?

Then there is the poverty of emotion. Capitalist societies are built on the essential premise of every individual for himself: in the individual’s triumph lies the benefit of society. However, most indigenous cultures throughout the world, putting emphasis on traditional Eastern cultures, believe in a way of life in which the general health of society reflects the health of the individual. Extended family structures, joint homes, a shared means of living, all of these contribute to a lifestyle which emphasizes cooperation, compromise, and putting the needs of others above the needs of one’s own self. In Slumdog Millionaire itself, the various throngs of street children learn to survive with the help of each other, living and carving out a means of existence collectively, all embroiled in a shared war against the barbarities of daily life in the Third World. These children may become hardened and tough, but they have very good reason to be.

There are so many toys with which to preoccupy and amuse ourselves in our privileged suburban islands and thriving metropolitan centers, we extend our childhoods well into our twenties and thirties, and sometimes, sadly, even into our forties. Primed with so much self-care and attention, and an attitude that places our personal welfare above all, it is only natural that birth rates amongst Europeans and Americans would fall. Who has time to take care of children when it’s so much more fun to take care of ourselves? In a culture where personal satisfaction is so pervasive, we become hardened and unresponsive to the needs and feelings of other people. Isn’t it a little weird how we can be like this, in spite of the fact that our own material needs are so robustly met? This is the poverty of emotion.

People are being brought to their knees by the plummeting  economy: itself a result of individual greed and overreach. Billionaires commit suicide over the stock exchange, but starving children scramble resolutely over garbage dumps with their scrawny legs, in their eyes is a steely determination to claw out an existence. They are alive, and perhaps it is a mercy upon them that they don’t have the time or the quiet to ask why. Even if they couldn’t point it out and tell you in academic language, they value the gift that is their lives. They know survival with the keenness of original instinct, untainted by manufactured wants and superficial desires. They have this feeling, this idea, that Whoever put them on this earth had a reason to, and they may not be able to tell you why they fight every day, but they do. The biology behind such an instinct is a miracle in and of itself. They are alive.

We can and should give our money, our time, and our resources to alleviate the poverty of our brothers and sisters, whoever they are and wherever they are. There is not a doubt that if all of us were to extend such an effort, we could reasonably eliminate it off the face of the earth. However, this will take time and mobilization, there is really no practical, immediate way to lift the eleven million street children of Mumbai out of the poverty they live in. The immediate action we can take, however, is with ourselves. We cannot take our material gifts for granted and succumb to a perfectly voluntary state of spiritual poverty.  We do not have the luxury of fighting for our everyday survival as an excuse for our spiritual lassitude. We have no excuse at all.

We must accept the charity our brothers and sisters living in poverty give to us, when they give us a mirror to look into ourselves. We are in no place to deny this priceless gift. Perhaps, if we can effectively use this mirror, we can raise ourselves out of our stupor and be able to return the favor in whatever puny ways we can.

There are many different kinds of poverty. The poverty of the intellect and emotion are just two examples, but two major ones that I see contributing to the worst poverty of all: spiritual poverty. And I know, as I am sure we all know, how acutely one can feel the poverty of spirituality. It is in the name of this poverty that pharmaceuticals make billions of dollars in anti-depressant sales, self help gurus rake in the big bucks, and empty New Age movements are all the rage. It is an attempt to alleviate this poverty, that people try to identify with this hip hop rapper, that punk rock band, this lifestyle guru, that brand of clothing and accessories. All of these things are more than just the luxuries of the First World, they are active indicators of an epic spiritual poverty.

There are people who live in the filthy mental slums of their own making, reveling in the squalor of stupidity and sloth. There are people who live in the putrid slums of their egos, encased in a world where their intellect has been amputated by the machinations of their own arrogance. There are people obsessed with perpetual fun and reverie, people who live entombed in slums dedicated to their desires.

The vast majority of these people do not live in the slums depicted in Slumdog Millionaire.

But one day, after class, I saw her alone in the hall
Her shoulders were slumped and she looked ready to bawl
I was going to leave and almost walked right past
But then I thought about it again, started to ask
“Hey, is everything all right, do you need to talk?
Come outside with me, and maybe go for a walk?”
She looked surprised for a minute, but then started to speak
And told me the story of a boy and how he left her that week
And although her friends tried to sympathize and care
It wasn’t enough to shake her misery and despair,

And from where this feeling came she couldn’t explain
But only knew it left her heart heavy and her soul in pain.
I looked at her face and worked up the courage to say
That maybe it was time to change and try a different way.

“Girl,” she said, her brow was furrowed and her lips pursed
“How can I do that, can’t you see hijab is the worst!
I could wear it and walk down these halls
Only to be ignored and blend into the walls
Or worse still, be the object of ridicule and laughter,
Mocked and rejected, and no longer sought after!
You should see their eyes, when they watch how I walk
I strut down the block, and they gather and flock
And they look at me with such admiration and desire
I swear to you, I feel like I couldn’t get any higher
If I’ve got it I should flaunt it, isn’t that what they say?
Why hide, it’s not like I’m fat or have bad hair, anyway.”
So said this girl, looking defiant and sure
Trying to conceal how shaky and insecure
She was behind that carefully constructed face,
And then I leaned forward and made my case:

“See those eyes, the ones that watch your showy display?
I’m sorry, but it’s not in the most complimentary of ways
They look at you like a hunter looks at his prey
To be caught and consumed for a personal buffet
And even the rabbit runs when it senses those eyes
It won’t turn around, and hasten towards its demise!
The thing about appetites is that they’re not about food
The meal itself that is so ravenously chewed
Appetites are about the wanting and the yearning
Of the person themselves who is hungry and burning
And when that eye strikes you, that hard glinting jewel
Do you want to see yourself reflected as merely the fuel?
As nothing but that which slakes and is fed to the fire
Only to become ash in the wake of waning desire?
They don’t see you as a person whom they ought to respect
Or anything other than a decorative consumer object
Those clothes you wear and those bags you buy
The only thing they have to see is that you actually try
And so by buying all that, now you’re branded for real
Like cattle, right before it is prepared for a meal.

Now girl, don’t think of me as being vile and crude
Comparing you and I to barbequed food
I’m not saying it’s right to be treated like meat
To be catcalled and abused when we walk down the street
We should be able to look our best and walk as we wish
And not have to fear being treated like some kind of dish
We should be able to carry diamonds in Gladware
And rubies and pearls in Ziploc, with nary a care
And not have to think about provoking envious stares
Or feel threatened by any possessive, thieving glares
But reality remains, and truthfully it’s silly to reveal
Your precious ornaments to those who will steal
Your worth and your honor with a wink and a leer
Those people who will watch, and debase and jeer
People who have become slaves of their covetous eyes
These people whom Satan lures and deceives with his lies
Who try to own you and I with a presumptuous gaze
Undermining our worth in the subtlest of ways.

No, we are Muslim women, we are free, honored and proud,
Not to be owned by even one wayward eye, let alone the crowd!
It’s VIP only, the privacy settings here are restricted
Move along, what you get is exactly how it’s depicted
We’re not interested in being used for a rebellious gaze
Nor do we need superficial compliments or empty praise
And we’re not going to throw away our dignity and disappoint
Our Loving Creator just to prove a senseless, lost point.

And trust me sister, when you leave that lifestyle behind
You will feel your burden eased and find peace of mind
It’s something I can’t describe or find words to explain
But the Mercy that comes is sweeter than rain,
And the hurdles you thought you just couldn’t bear
Suddenly evaporate and become lighter than air!
And I want you to remember, and from now on to know
That you always have your sisters to help soften the blow.”

She looked at me then, her eyes luminous and bright
And I could feel a warmness, a suffusion of light
And when we left arm in arm, that deserted hall
It was a cold night, but we didn’t feel it at all.

This brother who died wasn’t a ‘character’ or a forceful personality or someone you would expect to attract lots of attention. As we all discovered later on he was an activist who believed deeply in his cause, but he was never angry, abrasive, or loud, which is why the depth of his commitment and passion was surprising to learn about. My perception of him was of a polite, friendly brother, who was very involved in the Palestinian student group at the university. Two days before his death, he had approached a group of sisters I was with, to tell them about a movie the Palestinian student group would be showing and invited us to come.

The way he died, during Ramadan, on his way to drop his younger brother home after they had opened their fast and prayed taraweeh, is so beautiful, that we were all left reeling in the face of such a strong example of the love and mercy shown by Allah towards those He loves. There were so many people that attended this brother’s janazah prayer, the largest Muslim funeral of any person in our city, they had to call the police to assist with parking and traffic. Condolences for his family came from every corner of the city, from fellow brothers who were close to him, to students Muslim and non Muslim alike who he had tutored in math. He was only 22 when he died, and he had wanted to be math teacher.

This brother died in a month where the gates of Hell are closed. He had, literally, thousands of people praying for him in a month where dua’s become exponentially weightier. He died in the holiest of months, a month of peace and of reflection, of forgiveness and of mercy: a sign from God, and a comfort to his parents, his family, and those who loved him.

It is a sign of Allah’s favour up on a person when he has the respect, love, and admiration of the people around him. After his death, only beautiful things were said about him, only lovely stories told. Every story that came out after his death made one love his character more, every story was one that illustrated his dedication to assist his community, humanity – every person whom he could humanly help he did. The president of the Israeli’ student’s group personally came to the MSA to tell them how much he had respected this brother, and how sorry they were to learn of his passing. SubhanAllah. It was only after his death, I think, that the community truly realized what kind of a person we had lost.

He wasn’t a ‘big shot’, so to speak, he was only a 22 year old student at our university, but his janazah prayer was the largest in our city’s history. During his life, he was so totally involved in helping the community, he didn’t have time or see the need to let people around him know. Even in death, he was a gift to our city. His death brought our community together, it inspired us to reflect on the kind of person he was to have been taken in Ramadan, and it called us to do something about our own lives before it was too late.

I remember the khutba given on the Friday after his death: the khateeb was a personal friend of this brother who had died, and he talked first about death in the Muslim perspective, and then about the washing of the body, which he had participated in. He said that this brother, his face was so calm and so serene it looked like he was smiling, and that InshAllah, he was in a place of tranquility and peace. He said that modern people are so afraid of death because they look upon the faces of their dead and see terror, fear, and unrest- this is what is depicted in their understanding of death, in movies, in popular thought and culture. But Muslims, we look upon the faces of our dead, and we see peace – so we should not fear death, but rather learn from the lives of people who in death are shrouded in tranquility. May Allah give us such peace and tranquility in our deaths. Ameen.

There was a dinner held for this brother, where the Muslim students invited his family to come. Mashallah, you could see where this brother had come by his faith and his humanity. His 13 year old younger brother who had been with him and had witnessed the accident was, by the Grace of God, so at peace, so firm of faith, so unnerved by death, that his very countenance reduced many of us to tears. He was telling funny stories about his brother, and consoling people around him, SubhanAllah, consoling others about the death of his own brother! This 13 year old boy’s attitude towards death is one that many adults could learn from.

His mother sobbed quietly at times, and talked with the sisters. This woman had lost a son who was approaching the prime of his life – she had lost him before she could have seen him married, finish a degree that was one year away, seen him settle down comfortably with a career and family. To look at a mother who has lost a son, especially in this way – it makes you think about a lot of things, and it stays with you for a long time. What kind of a woman was she to have raised such a son? What kind of a woman was she to be tested in such a way? For God tests those He loves most.

This brother who died was a regular person like you or I. He didn’t have a fancy title, or a reputation for being extraordinarily pious, and he wasn‘t an ‘in-your-face‘ kind of person. He concerned himself with his own activities, and that really explains the number of people who came forward after his death with stories of how he had helped them. We would see him all around campus carrying banners and signs, but for some reason this was so unobtrusive and part of his calm demeanor, it didn‘t jump out at you. He just wasn’t ‘known’ for all of these things to the extent that he was involved in them.

It’s when he died that we all realized, you see, the truth of how only Allah (swt) knows the contents of a person’s heart. This brother was a regular person like you or I, but Allah (swt) hid his sins from the community and exposed his many good deeds. May Allah (swt) hide and forgive our sins. Ameen.

His mother, after embracing each and every sister so that we felt her tears on our own cheeks, thanked us for the love and support our community had shown her son. On the contrary, it was we who should have been thanking her for being such a model of motherhood and love, of resolve and patience. It was we who should have been thanking her for giving our community the gift of her son for 22 years. She kept saying to us, “Please don’t forget my son, please don’t forget my son.” I sincerely believe that all those who met this brother, who were inspired by his simple yet dedicated life, and especially those in the community who had witnessed the events surrounding his death, never will. I pray to Allah (swt), that I never do.

Alas, you cannot see an end to the sprawling ether,

Like you cannot see an end to the Lord’s mercy

Lo, His mercy is beyond human meter

And peer as you do closely at the sprawling galaxies manifest

How you overlook the evident – as these lines attest!

Immanent in the multitudes is He.

Marking the helices of my blood, in the waves that drum my ears-

Minutely pounding within so that the cochlear seashell hears!

As they wind their paths into my thought and memory chips

Coiled waves spiral into the whorls of my fingertips

Ultimate in the heard and unheard, in the seen and unseen

Lord of what is, what will be, and what once has been

All woven from a common concentricity:

The original singularity, a stringy density.

Evidence of the Creator of all things.

Blessed by the remembrance of You when I have

Lost and forgotten the memory of cooling refuge,

Undone in the blistering heat of my own just desert

Evaporated and thirsting for the tender deluge-

Parched and dry, how the Book brings me to taste the tranquility of weeping!

Resplendent stratosphere. atmosphere, the ionosphere of a single tear

Is layered and layered with the springs of prayers

Nourishing the desolate heart so that new life will appear

Truly, for I am ever in need of Your mercy.

In the weighty pregnant stillness is He, in the subtlest quickening

Magnified in the ripening, the budding, the rising, in the leavenings

Maneuvering mornings to become afternoons which mature into evenings

Adorning the moon in its waxing and its waning,

Conjuring the clouds to unleash the longed for raining

Unto the seed of being, in the nucleus of burgeoning awareness

Lying within leafy growths and barren desert bareness

All that is created and raised and given shade

Tempering all that will wither away and eventually degrade-

Evidence of the Creator in all things.

Dare I forget that I am to meet You?

Ever Present are You and ever Aware

Surely I am already standing before You

Inside that moment of Reckoning, where

Glorious God will I encounter, in an Hour sublime

Nudged apart we are, only by mere, created Time.

* Go back to the top and read the first letter of each line…

Let us sit down and believe for a while…

In the dappled sunlight of this June afternoon

Amongst the swaying leaves and the violet bloom

I promise not to ramble on about economic pacts

I will not bore you with depressing trade facts

And partake neither in vain babble nor pretension-

But instead marvel at the exquisite surface tension,

Of a single drop of tender dew

Serenely dripping into view.

.

Sunlight plays delicately on the Noor and grace

That illuminate your gentle face

Oh my friend, let us sit down and believe for a while

Lest we stray towards the less worthwhile

Pursuits and pleasures and lofty attitudes

And conceits and egos of great altitudes-

I would rather be inspired by this beleaguered ant,

Resolutely forging towards the garden plants!

(A noble ant, whether it can make it or it can’t).

.

My friend, let us sit down and believe for a while–

Let us pray Asr and then directly after

Deeply contemplate the nearing Hereafter

And pray and pray and sometimes ruminate

And ask for forgiveness in this humble state.

The trees will securely shade our prostrate forms

Swathed and billowing in cotton storms!

And I hope and hope, and I pray and pray

To be as securely shaded on Judgement Day.

.

My friend, let us sit down and believe for a while

Lest we get caught up in some erring lifestyle

And so do not reflect upon His creation or ponder

And idle away the afternoons in petty squander

No, let us sit down and believe for a while–

No matter what the task or worldly trial.

And may we never come to sorrow at this day’s end

That we spent in prayer with a believing friend-

For we sat down with a smile, we sat down and believed awhile.