I
was thinking about Snow White in her constant sleep. When I was a
little girl, I wondered what she was dreaming about. As I got older,
I became fascinated with Shakespeare. My favorite tragedy was
Hamlet. The soliloquy lines “In that sleep of death, what dreams
may come?” presented the same question.
Despite
the worried look on my family's faces whenever they were presented
with my morbid fascinations, I began to realize how a certain set of
social norms directed us toward a life that felt more like death.
Isn't
it normal to make your objective and your focus your career, a
family, your physical appearance? Aren't these worthy goals? The
accumulation of things can make us happy, can't they? Don't you want
a bite of that shiny red apple?
Most
people will confirm that they do and should make one or more of these
things their priority. What happens if you make your career your main
objective, and you get laid off or fired?
Feelings
of anger, bitterness, emptiness and perhaps depression set in. You
might feel as if you have lost everything. This failure
in thinking is a symptom of the failure in the institution of
knowledge and faith. We feel like this when our iman is weak, when
we believe we possess what could be lost in a shipwreck.
A
social movement called “minimalism” asked the same question and
came up with a methodology for living that at least addresses these
questions and potentially leads us to a thought process that begins
to solve them.
Minimalist
living as a philosophy can be defined as “the intentional promotion
of the things we most value in order to live life on purpose.” The
practicalities of minimalist living can potentially follow the
sunnah teachings. Examples of minimalist living can be found in the
Tiny
House movement and Yurt
living, environmentalism, and volunteerism. Any action that minimizes
consumption and the pursuit of wealth and material goods for their
own sake is considered a minimalist action. Using wealth to give back
to society without recycling that same wealth back to yourself is a
minimalist action. Smiling and giving salaams are minimalist also. It doesn't cost you anything, but it affords the world so much.
The
idea is not that having material things is bad in and of itself, it's
the excessive meaning we assign to things
that is a destructive force in our lives. I think anyone would be hard pressed to find someone who
wasn't carrying some form of debt for example. Clearly there is a failure
in governance and economy linked with such a shift in social ideology.
What
if we had agency over our own options? Wouldn't that make us
“strange”? I mean what if we didn't want what most of society
wanted? What if, what mattered most to us was the nurturing of our
own and others' souls?
Abu
Huraira reported: The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon
him, said,“Islam
began as something strange and it will return to being strange, so
blessed are the strangers.”
Source:
Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim145
Historically,
the concepts embodied in Islam were foreign to the Arabs who based
their social ideology on tribalism. Eventually, monotheism and
adhering to universal moral teachings was no longer strange at all.
It is indicated that social norms will turn and these teachings will
be strange once again. There are major injustices going on in the
world today. The crisis of Syria being a constant reminder of what
happens when injustice is compounded with worse injustice.
What
difference would it make in your life if you deliberately made a
decision to actively pursue what was ethically most important to you?
To actually live your philosophy, your religion? To have the courage
to be kind?
How
would your life change if you became surrounded by people who want to
make a difference, who are inspired to create massive social change
and impact by peaceful means. To have relationships that are deep and profound. In fact
we have a responsibility to spread quais (good) to our family, community and
through our teachers. Our role inevitably will be that of ihsan (excellence) in
our social responsibility through our deeds and actions.
Just
as the Prince gives Snow White a kiss and wakes her up, Al-Ghazali
said:
Dear
friend,
Your heart is a polished mirror. You must wipe it clean of the veil of dust that has gathered upon it, because it is destined to reflect the light of divine secrets.
Your heart is a polished mirror. You must wipe it clean of the veil of dust that has gathered upon it, because it is destined to reflect the light of divine secrets.
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