AL-HUDA
Foundation, NJ U. S. A
the Message Continues ... 9/89
Newsletter for January 2009
Article 1 - Article 2 - Article 3 - Article 4 - Article 5 - Article 6 - Article 7 - Article 8 - Article 9 - Article 10 - Article 11 - Article 12
Mohamedarif Suleman (Dares Salaam, Tanzania)
It is often seen that the individuals with a rather high
potential value to a group or organization which they serve,
eventually fall out for one reason or another. It may be because
of enthusiasm or emotion. We have at different times observed
this, or may even have been victim ourselves, of high charged
battle that sees the flaunting of issues convert into a wit of
personalities, lobbying and other political gimmickry. Yet
the bitter truth of the matter is that public service -
defined here as community service, national service or even
international representation, is least tolerant to emotions that
drive individuals.
In contrast, if you look at the corporate world in your own
country, you seldom find people bashing one another at that
higher level of the hierarchy more or less on emotional issues,
becuase these individuals, through years of training and
experience, know how to play the survival game. And this
survival game is not about truths or feelings; it is more about
knowing your allies (those who share the same ideals as yours),
knowing when to hold back (in winning the confidence of those
with higher powers), and when to express your views or to
literally lobby for them. Many people with years of experience
will tell you that timing is of the essence in when one can rise
above the flock to assume incontestible leadership of a group of
like-minded individuals.
The original intention must have been to maintain sanity, they
say, for how would work get done if all were howling at the same
time, each driven by their justified spurt of emotional likings.
What it then turned out to be is a totally different scenario.
Indifference, irrational silence and a skin so thick that it is
impossible to penetrate even with the most logical of argument
as people gradually turned into self serving individuals. The
vocal artistry of how one should be clever enough to manipulate
a given situation to yield a predetermined result is yet another
hallmark of today's leadership in many walks of life.
But it is not all that bad. Henry Theodore Tuckerman in
his classic "A Defence of Enthusiasm" (1870) could not have
dressed the feeling of such a situation in a more admirable
way...
"Let
us recognize the beauty and power of true enthusiasm; and
whatever we may do to enlighten ourselves and others, guard
against checking or chilling a single earnest sentiment. For
what is the human mind, however enriched with acquisitions or
strengthened by exercise, unaccompanied by an ardent and
sensitive heart? Its light may illumine, but it cannot inspire.
It may shed a cold and moonlight radiance upon the path of life,
but it warms no flower into bloom; it sets free no icebound
fountains. Dr. Johnson used to say that an obstinate rationality
prevented him from being a papist. Does not the same cause
prevent many of us from unburdening our hearts and breathing our
devotions at the shrines of nature? There are influences which
environ humanity too subtle for the dissecting knife of reason.
In our better moments we are clearly conscious of their
presence, and if there is any barrier to their blessed agency,
it is a formalized intellect. Enthusiasm, too, is the very life
of gifted spirits. Ponder the lives of the glorious in art or
literature through all the ages. What are they but records of
toils and sacrifices supported by the earnest hearts of their
votaries?
There is an impending danger that people with emotional
"outbursts" are seen as "spoil sports" in a party of quiet and
silence, where procedure rules the roost - procedure designed to
muffle the pervading thought processes through the use of
systematic analysis and defence of why things are the way they
are. In community situations, for years we have hardly
valued intellect. Our emotional way of leading our
societies, undoubtedly led us to many pitfalls. Some
exceptions exist everywhere naturally, but in a wholesome case,
we lost more years than we gained. Does such a fact make
it then mandatory, nay, sensible to completely discard the heart
in favour of what we call the mind? The author has this to
say:
".... some of our most intelligent men speak of mastering a
subject, of comprehending a book, of settling a question, as if
these processes involved the whole idea of human cultivation.
The reverse of all this is chiefly desirable. It is when we are
overcome, and the pride of intellect vanished before the truth
of nature, when, instead of coming to a logical decision, we are
led to bow in profound reverence before the mysteries of life,
when we are led back to childhood, or up to God, by some
powerful revelation of the sage or minstrel, it is then our
natures grow. To this end is all art. Exquisite vocalism,
beautiful statuary and painting, and all true literature, have
not for their great object to employ the ingenuity of prying
critics, or furnish the world with a set of new ideas, but to
move the whole nature by the perfection and truthfulness of
their appeal. There is a certain atmosphere exhaled from the
inspired page of genius, which gives vitality to the sentiments,
and through these quickens the mental powers. And this is the
chief good of books. Were it otherwise, those of us who have bad
memories might despair of advancement."
Islam provides a balance of heart (emotion) and mind (aql) and
it would be a fallacy to divide the house into two opposing
views based on these complementing features of human creation.
As much as reason must always prevail, it is what comes out of
the heart that stays, and is more often genuine.
courtesy:communityonfriday.net
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