A delayed post

This post was never published... until now:

I've just started researching for my dissertation which I'm planning to be a tribute to Islam's encouraging attitude when it comes to ones persuit of knowledge.

When I was little my dad used to say to me that he didn't care if I grew up and decided to become a janitor, all he wanted was for me to educate myself as much as possible. My knowledge would be my weapon of defence against the cruelties of the world.

By knowledge I don't mean the ability to re-iterate what I've read in a textbook, but rather to achieve that sense of true learning, of true satisfaction. Once upon a time I used to experience this in bucket fulls. Unfortunately now even at university level I'm not finding that same satisfaction that I used to. Every once in a while I need that little kick of motivation. When I was younger it was what my dad, mum and brother used to teach me. Today it's this:

"One hour of teaching is better than a night of praying"- Prophet Muhammad (SAW)

And for me to be able to teach, I must first learn.

Doubt

There are only so many times that you can bang your head against a wall until you start to bleed.

When making a big decision a lot of the time I have to experience that twinge at the back of my head that causes me to doubt myself. A lot of the people I care about have recently been experiencing this too, so this blog is for them.

Most of the time the only way in which I eliminate any sense of doubt is by reminding myself about accountability. Whether you believe in religion or not, that sense of accountability still follows you in some form, reminding us that whatever decisions we make we are accountable for, whether it's to another human being, or Allah. Therefore I am constantly questioning myself (and bear with me here,) if the decisions I am making can be justified when I am standing before my Creator. If that's too huge a concept, then I think whether I could justify it to His most beloved, Muhammad (SAW.) And if that's too huge a concept as well, I question whether I could justify it before those who raised me, especially my mum. If in doubt, I usually imagine that those who know me best, especially my Creator, to be judging me as I understand they would- in the whole "the truth hurts" kind of honesty.

But now we have to go back to the first sentence I started off with. Well right now I'm making decisions which feel like I'm banging my head against a brick wall, and to be very honest, it's starting to hurt. Nonetheless, behind that wall is a ray of hope, which seems to be fading away. So, I'm not sure if all the pain I'm going through is really worth it anymore and if I'm going to make it to that ray in time... Welcome to the ultimate doubt. Doubting whether my definition of right and wrong is really strong enough, or even worthy of my perseverance.

The biggest problem is if I live my life in doubt then I'll never get anything done. So I'm constantly having to refer back to the foundations which my parents and brother laid in me. That plus the occasional reference to my faith and revelation pretty much determines whether what I'm doing is really the right thing to do.

Regardless of all this, the fear of realising that what you're doing is wrong is forever lingering... so I figure, if all else fails, I'm only human, and I need to make mistakes that I can learn from. As Gandhi said:

"Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes."

And to balance that out:

"It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err."

Update

I'm going through a bit of a mental block when it comes to writing at the mo, so will try and get another blog up a.s.a.p... Talk about bad timing- I've just started up on the ISOC (Islamic Society) newsletter again :-s Any suggestions for articles etc. are MOST welcome!


As for now, life's pretty cool :-)