wastefulness

He asked me yesterday if ever read the Shahadatul Haq.

Truth be told, I don’t even remember the gist of the book, except that it expounds on the meaning of the Shahadah, and how it is required, how it is our duty to expound this meaning to others, to spread this Haq (truth), that is by pledging to it, we must exemplify it, act upon it, to see that Islam is before our eyes.  To re-enact, re-instate. To place it as the centre of our lives (and others). I remember A, and several others telling me how this ‘revelation’ and this sense of duty affect them so deeply. A asked if what I felt. What did I thought? Probably not the in the same degree as they did.

We talked about the country and how to mend society and its people, and the process of education. All too broadly applied a word. “It all sounds good in theory, but what about the practicality?”, he responds. Aaah, in the specifics he tries to draw me in. I said I do not know. You need people. In the end he comments on my ‘floating around doing nothing’ when I could’ve done more. Not playing the part, as it were. What was I waiting for?

Here I am, having just watched a six hour film about Freud the other day,  with Andre Gide’s The Immoralist book having just arrived for next semester’s subject,  Modernism,  having trite concerns about the indefinite future, pondering whether I should study the Enneagram theory or not after seeing the book this evening. I am wondering what to cook tomorrow.

Indeed I am hovering around aimlessly. I am without a cause.

So I told him that I am not ready.

Of course he and I share more similarities than we care to admit, except that we come from different schools of thought; where he would shudder at  the words ‘a more moderate Islam’.  After all, while he  was reading books from the likes of Hassan Al-Banna or the sirah and the tafsir,  I was dabbling with whatever seems to fancy me at the moment. It would take a lot of effort to be good, do good, but I shall, I shall, I shall. One has to first purify the heart after all, or at least have some initiative towards it, before one tries to do anything outside the scope the individual.

Otherwise one would be a hypocrite.