Monday, November 23, 2009

Fazlur Rahman "What then is then the real stratagem?"

What, then, is then the real stratagem? Not to let the power of discernment and correct judgment die; to keep the keenness of the sense of moral responsibility [taqwa] alive - this is the purpose of studying the fate of past nations:

How many a town have We destroyed because it did wrong [to itself]; it was laid waste with its roof crumbling down to its foundation, its defunct wells and its desolate castles hewn out of rocks and strengthened with lead. Have these people not traveled on the earth so that they might come to possess hearts [i.e. minds] wherewith they can understand or ears wherewith they can hear - for it is not [the physical] eyes that become blind but the heart that are set in breasts. (22:45-46)

Physical avenues of information may remain intact - in fact, may improve vastly - but "the heart," the instrument of perception and discernment, is dulled; the inputs and outputs of computers continue - indeed, become ever more efficient; only the capacity to ask the right questions, the humanly relevant questions, fails.

-pg. 57 of The Major Themes of the Qur'an by Fazlur Rahman

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