Khalid Mukhtar

Word, like wind, cuts through you / Withers all but true you

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About a year ago, Shaykh Amin had said, “You should think about it.”

He was referring to the word “more” from the Darul Qasim motto, “In the Quest for More Knowledge”.

So I did. And very quickly I plateaued with the usual platitudes: you are never done; you are just getting started; there is no finishing the quest for knowledge, and so on.

These were good, even beneficial. But they told me that if I wanted to do the Shaykh’s advice any justice, I would have to recurse into my thinking with the spirit of “more” and with faith in the idea that the deeper the quest, the more accessible creation becomes to the seeker.

With that in mind, my problem definition became: How should I think about it?

I tried to approach it homeopathically, examining the problem to see if it would offer up a solution from within itself. That opened a door. I realized that Shaykh Amin was trying to show us something. That in turn begged that I look at it. If you think about it, to think about something was really to look at it, albeit with the mind’s eye.

But I couldn’t just look at it in any way I wanted. No. I had to stand beside the man, at his vantage point, I had to look to where he pointed; I had to use the seeing aids he had employed and calibrated.

Said differently, I had to draw on Shaykh Amin’s own insights on the moreness of knowledge. And being an amateur I had to stay within my limited understanding of those insights. So I began. With the first man, Ādam ‘alayhisSalaam.

Ādam

He was taught the names of all things by Allah the Exalted. And his quest for knowledge began in the heavens. But what made his quest intense was that he and his spouse were the only ones from the human species who had to adjust to time and space as adults. The trauma of that change must have been telling. For Ādam and Hawwa ‘alayhimusSalaam, the primary reference for all things, behaviors, etiquette, everything, was heavenly. Their quest for more knowledge paved the way for humanity to live on this planet, to live out lives with slight semblances of their heavenly existence. Some of those lives would be destined for a full blown living experience in heaven. Others would have to make the most of this planet for just a taste of heaven, courtesy Ādam. ‘AlayhisSalaam.

Nūh

His life was over nine hundred years of a quest for more knowledge. A mountain of patience and perseverance, an architectural genius and a master of wood and nail, a botanical, zoological and ecological miracle of a man who understood coexistence like none other. And just as he reaches the peak of his knowledge acquisition, his Lord teaches him his greatest and most shattering life lesson: he sees his rebellious son washed away by a wave. ‘AlayhisSalaam.

Ibrahīm

This is the man who is known as the ummah of one, a nation all in himself. His quest for Divine unity brought him to supplicate Allah to show him how He created. He was instructed to capture a bird, chop it up, mix its remains into a mash, then divide it into four parts and distribute them far and wide across the mountain ranges in the cardinal directions and then finally, to call the bird to himself. I reckon that his journey in each direction must have been months long – these men had meaningful lives that bore fruit as they concurrently embarked upon their many quests. So who knows how many months or how many years later he returned to the very spot whence his supplication rang forth. And from there he looked in all directions and called out to the quadripartite avis. And it came to him. How it came together and how much of the coming-together he witnessed was his exclusive reward, as was the moments of ecstasy that he experienced as his mind and heart connected the inner meanings of what he had seen. And such were the quests of Ibrahīm. ‘AlayhisSalaam.

Mūsa

The oral tradition has it that when the staff of Mūsa was turned into a serpent, Mūsa’s flight was not out of fear but out of ‘adab for the might of Allah. So when Allah commanded him to pick up the serpent, it is reported that Mūsa thrust his hand into its jaws and it returned to him as his faithful staff. Such was the courage of Mūsa. So uncompromising his boldness and so feverish was his pursuit of knowledge that his time with Khidr was cut short by them. ‘AlayhisSalaam.

Isa

His quest for more burns yet and is destined to resume in this world when Allah deems it time for him to return. A sincere quest that will lead him, Isa ibn Maryam, to join the ummah of his brother Muhammad ibn Abdullah SallAllahu ‘alayhi wa Sallam. ‘AlayhimusSalaam.

Muhammad

Did not all prophetic intellect and curiosity culminate in the person of our Habīb Muhammad SallAllahu ‘alayhi wa sallam? So complete and never-ending is his quest that during the mi’rāj, his angel companion stopped at the farthest bounds of space marked by the Lote. How Jibrīl ‘alayhisSalaam must have said, “I cannot go any further.” How then the prophet in all his humility must have stopped his advance. How Jibrīl must then have said, “…but YOU can.” And how the beloved must have been whelmed with rahmah as he stepped forward to come closer to his Beloved. No other from the human species or any other species in all of creation has passed that bounding tree. And how, in that timeless and spaceless moment, everything changed in time and space, including the essence of change itself. All this so that Muhammad, the seal of the prophets, could progress in his quest for more knowledge. SallAllahu ‘alayhi wa sallam.

I suppose what I am trying to say is: when the Shaykh asks you to think about it, you had better think about it.

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