My Testimony

We all aspire to personal growth. And maybe we all aspire to rise in esteem. In the nineteenth century, for example, people moved away from horse-drawn carriages to trains, etc. To grind their wheat, some people moved away from windmills to steam mills. And who among us wants to miss the train of progress?

In those times one would boast that he invented a steam mill, one that he installed steam mills, one that he ground his wheat and barley at steam mills. One would boast that he invented the train, one that he drove a train, one that he travelled by train. One that he invented (produced) something, one that he used (consumed) something.

You can hardly hope to talk without succumbing to the temptation of boasting to somebody or other about something or other. Every one of us needs to feel that he/she is important, that he/she is not less worthy than others. It’s a basic need for recognition.

You go in a crowded street, enter a hotel lobby, sit at a café, and all eyes are on you. All eyes will follow you as a snake would follow a snake-charmer’s pipe. You were born with a beautiful face and your beauty has stayed with you, dazzling people wherever you go. Or maybe you went to market and spent hours picking and choosing until you found a dream of a dress or suit. And you feel great when people look at you.

The more beautiful you are, the more stunning your dress is, the more people will look at you. You are aware of that, and so you seldom -if ever- go out before looking at yourself in the mirror.

But whatever you do, you can’t always be eye-catching. You may get completely eclipsed by the Rich and the Famous. Even beautiful people prick up their ears on hearing the jingle of coins or, where these are no longer used, when talking about money. No wonder if a beautiful girl preferred a rich, old man to a handsome youth with little or no income.

The problem is when we don’t have things to boast about while others around us don’t stop boasting. Unfortunately, we are exposed to boasting every day. Even when you shun people and stay at (your secluded) home, your television or Smartphone will bring you all the boasting of the world. Boasting in adverts, boasting in soap opera, boasting in music, plus undeclared boasting of all sorts.

Sometimes everybody - including governments and corporations - go from bragging to begging. Once the crisis is over, everyone starts bragging again. The suffering quickly falls into oblivion. I am no exception.

If all men had small dreams, would there have been such men as Alexander the Great or such civilizations as the Roman Empire or such beautiful monuments as Taj Mahal in India and Alhambra in Spain? Would it be possible to have breakfast in Paris, lunch in New York and dinner in the skies on the way back to Paris? Would there have been such cities as New York or Tokyo or Dubai? Would there have been any star wars, space conquests, discoveries, science, literature, any development at all?

We’re all tempted by the big-strong-and-fast kind of life. The funny thing is, whatever we do, however genius we are, there’s always somebody one step ahead of us, with something a little bigger, stronger or faster than we have. It’s a Tom-and-Jerry game!

I go to the outskirts of the city to change air and meditate a little. I go a little further and find not only large fields belonging to rich persons, but also dazzlingly beautiful homes. Each time I sigh (and say) “I wish I had such a beautiful dwelling!” I see another one, more beautiful, then another one, much, much more beautiful. It’s like a man obsessed with beauty looking for a beautiful woman in a big city, each one makes you forget all about the others. Then I go a little further and find an asphalt road. I stop for just a few moments and I see not one, but many cars I’d desire to have for myself. That asphalt road leads me, past large farm houses, to a poultry factory. Will I be jealous of the owner of this factory too? How many people work in this factory? How many families do they support? How many people, jobless people, would be happy to find work, even seasonal work, in this factory? How many chickens and eggs does this factory produce every day? How many people will buy, transport, etc, these chickens and eggs before they land on my dinner table? How many other people will eat that factory’s chickens and eggs? That “poor” farmer and the “poor” owner of that poultry factory and the people working for them… are all servants of ME! They serve Me. I can’t count the people who are serving me every day! The clothes I am wearing, who made them for me? I did not sew them up myself. The watch I’m wearing, my mobile, etc, etc, etc. Am I not a king? Who told me, for example, that the farmer is happy? Not every smiling person is happy. Even a happy-go-lucky comedian who makes millions of people “happy” with his gags may end up taking his own life, to everybody’s surprise.

I look at these poor women and children sitting on the ground, waiting for the potato harvest to be finished. To while away the time, some of the women chat and joke with one another. Others keep quiet, looking on as some seasonal workers, men and women, poor like themselves or even poorer, dig up the potatoes while others put them in wooden or plastic boxes. Other workers, men and women, carry the boxes on their shoulders to the trucks outside the field. Near the trucks are a few cars and a few men. One car and one man stand out. Anyone can tell who the eye-catching man is. He is evidently the farmer. The eye-catching car is his.

This man is the Star of the Day. I can well imagine that the men would wish to be like him, having what he has. The women would not easily refuse to marry him or accept him as an in-law. He has such a vast field worth a lot of money and such a splendid car and he wears such smart clothes and glasses and everybody is speaking to him politely and addressing him as Haaj ! Maybe he has got other things elsewhere. His wife might be shopping, at this time, at some mall or other, or maybe playing golf or perhaps having a sauna at a 5-star hotel. His children, if he has any, must be at expensive schools… How lucky he and his family are!

Yet, I stop to think. Starting with the land, it needs workers to prepare it; maybe others, men and women, to do the sowing, etc. The farmer may also need an engineer or specialized technicians. He certainly needs people to transport something or other, etc, etc. On the harvest day, there’s more work for more people. When the harvest is finished, those poor women and children sitting by and waiting patiently will be allowed into the field to glean the leftover potatoes … The “good” potatoes will be transported and delivered to markets, supermarkets and small shops. Some will be exported or processed, etc, etc. I say to myself: See? The farmer won’t eat all his potatoes! It’s people like me who’ll eat the potatoes. The children (and husbands) of those poor women will be happy to eat those “bad” potatoes. And who knows? Some of these poor women’s children may become, one day, maybe less rich, but much better, in one way or another, than the children of the Star of the Day. Then, part of the money that this one man will earn from the potatoes will go into other people’s pockets: hotels, restaurants, schools, hospitals, etc. I just can’t count how many people will benefit in one way or another from this farmer’s potatoes. I can’t count, for example, how many kids will be happy to eat the chips made of those potatoes. Not to mention the other “lucky person”, the owner of the potato chips factory and his employees…

I stand between two vast potato fields in order to meditate on all this. I think about the seasonal workers who were happy to find work in these fields. These workers, who have families of their own, were paid -whatever the pay.

This little casual meditation leads me to ask myself questions: do I want to succeed at all costs or to be happy? It's not the same thing, I suppose. I know that many people who have been successful are anything but happy, and many people who are happy have not been so successful. So what do I want? Be both happy and successful? Okay, but what should come first: success or happiness?

There's a limit to what people can stand, whatever the (high) level of their faith and (exceptional) degree of their sincerity. Even prophets experienced moments of weakness vis-à-vis society, because every man likes to be liked in society. No man would like others to speak ill of him, me first.

But it’s hard, it’s very hard to stand shoulder to shoulder with other men when I can't even find words to explain my situation without lying to them? How can I persevere? How can I be an ambitious man when I see that people with less qualifications than I are by far better off? What's left for me to dream of at this age?

Now imagine I got a good job after a long period of unemployment. Probably the first thing I’d think of is to show that off. I would love other people to know what I’m worth. And when things go badly, what do I do? I might try to hide from people. But how long will I hide from people? People will end up knowing that I am jobless, that I am suffering. People will end up showing me their true faces. They will show me what I am worth in their eyes. I would feel small, unworthy. I would realize that I am worth what I have, what I possess. I would see how the people I thought good friends would react to my misery. I would see how members of my beloved family would react to my unending unemployment. I would see how people would let me down when I need them most. But how would I feel when I have the money again to buy what I couldn’t buy a year ago, or to go to places I couldn’t show up my face six months ago? That's the shepherd's answer to the shepherdess, isn't it?

When I go out on the street with a clean jacket and clean trousers, who will know that there’s no money in my pockets? Because I don’t beg, people will think I am self-sufficient. So nobody will come forward to help me even if I am over-laden with debts and probably cannot even afford my day’s food. I go on the street like a normal person -as if I were rich. Maybe I’m rich in my heart. That is to say, I am not impressed by what other people got. I don’t care who has what. I am not amazed at other people’s achievements. I respect everybody. I wish good to everybody. But -after all- I too wish to be a normal person just “like everybody else”! If other people are in a hurry to get everything in this world; if they want to get something at age 20, another thing at age 30, another thing at age 40, another thing at age 50… I just hope to get something before I die! And I’d do everything I possibly can to achieve that, as though I’m going to live forever.

Now, if I had the means, would I give a thought to those people who would say the same thing, who would have the same emotions, who may be in the same situation and I probably do not know about them because they look alright when they go out on the street? Maybe many of these people found themselves in need of basic things. Maybe they tried everything they possibly could to get those basic things -all to no avail. And maybe they were finally convinced that there was nothing the matter with their personalities, or intelligence, or talent or physical ability to get work, for example, and therefore be able to acquire what they needed. Maybe they blame Fate. I don’t know.

It’s up to me to see the beauty in humans, in birds, in streams, in animals, in the starry sky, in the sea, in poetry, in music, in arts, in people’s clothes, in their differences: physical, cultural, civilizational and other. It’s up to me to appreciate this chance I’ve been given to feel and sense the beauty of this world in all its forms.

No matter how difficult and short, life is much more beautiful than it may look sometimes. If it is short and difficult it is certainly for a reason.

When we are young, we often think of the good life. But even when you get it, life is not just the salary and the company car. We could end up facing a tasteless, utterly monotonous, meaningless life. We could find ourselves in a very nice situation, but in a city full of pollution, waste, crime, etc. So would we say that life is not beautiful? Life is felt, it is not lived. Whether you eat fish or meat, potatoes or caviar, it comes down to the same thing. You are no longer hungry. Whether you feel happy about it or not, that's the question!

Now, if I want to question myself in relation to existential realities rather than just my daily worries, should I be content to only be inspired by birds and not see the beautiful plumage of these birds or their incredible migration? Should I be content to distinguish colours and shapes and know their names and not think about where all these colours and shapes came from? Who created them? And why?

I’ve grown to believe that we're all human. But it is more than just a belief. It's a reality. We're all fragile. We have the same fears, the same aspirations. All eat vegetables and fruit, bread and cheese -if they can afford that. All want to grow up, work, get married. All will have -more or less- the same problems and the same pleasures. We all need water and oxygen. The same water from the Seine (River), or the Nile, is drunk by plants, animals, whites, blacks, Christians, Jews, Muslims, atheists... Provided there is water for all! Sometimes there is none, or not enough. People die from hunger or thirst. Others migrate to flee famine. Who would talk about beauty to these people? But what do we do when we have the rain, when we have the breeze and the poppies, when we have the butter and the honey? What do we do when life is smooth and easy? Well, we don't care about fate!

I see that our eyes do not always have the same colour. Even eyes with the same colour are not identical. Everyone is a separate being, regardless of his beliefs. Everyone has his/her own fingerprint and his/her own eye print, and that's not because he/she is Christian, Muslim or Buddhist. Everyone has his/her own voice, own heart, own brain, own life. Who designed all this?

We could all say that the world would have been a better place with neither poor nor beggar, no widow nor orphan, no war nor famine. But, I wonder, what would be our merit, we humans, if we did not show our humanity in the moment of earthquakes, droughts, floods, volcanic eruptions, economic crises, etc.?

And that is the case, fortunately. In the worst adversity, I see incredible mutual aid, solidarity, compassion… Yes, I also see thieves and looters. In times of war, I see those who slaughter the innocent, who destroy everything in their path, and, at the same time, I see people who take incredible risks to save lives. Why should I not therefore see in these events and in my own personal problems kind of alert, a reminder that I have perhaps forgotten too much that I’m just passing through here on earth and that it is high time that I prepared for some eternal life after death?

It is man who dared to kill humans. A man killed his brother for a matter of jealousy. That same jealousy is still making war and putting on the road millions of refugees. It is not any deity who burns down hundreds of tons of wheat or throw them into the sea in order to raise prices. It is not any deity who imposed to anyone opting for the nuclear or allowed anyone to exploit people. The air is free for everyone. The sun is free for everyone. Life is free for everyone. Nonetheless, I always have to leave a place for the unexpected; I should always expect a climate-related disaster or a serious economic or social crisis. Pessimism or realism, it doesn't change anything. A good goalkeeper, you know, if we talk about football, must always be on alert even against the smallest team in the world!

Like anybody else I see the glamour of some people; I see how “lucky” people live; I see the growing gap between the poor and the rich... I say to myself : there were before us, in ancient times, as well as in more recent times, people who enjoyed some glamour, too; there were handsome men and beautiful women who loved each other, who had children, who lived in beautiful mansions, who worked (for some), who listened to music, who walked in beautiful gardens, who said sweet things to each other, who made love, who dreamed of better days, who fell ill, who divorced, who waged war, who killed each other, who got injured, and who died. People just like us. Is it therefore simply a perpetuation of the human species? Where are we heading? Will we, humans, always have the same pleasures, the same frustrations? Why are we here on this earth? Will there not be a day when misfortune disappears forever? What’s life worth if one does not live it fully, in joy and quietude? What's the point of wasting time rehashing questions? What’s the use of History, what’s the use of philosophy, what’s the use of literature... if historians themselves, if philosophers, if male and female writers take their own lives sometimes to escape their terrible realities? I do not have answers to that. However, I just notice that there are many people who do not commit suicide. They confront life with the few means they have. That means that, at least for these people, life is worth living. Now, is life really worth living -whatever our sorrows?

When I read History books or ancient tales or poems I can easily notice that people have always been more important than their dwellings, mounts, money or anything else they might possess. Man has always been afraid of sickness, death, poverty, among other things. Man has always needed to feel reassured, protected, safe. Man has always made peace after the war ; he has always created courts to do justice; he has always built schools to educate future generations; he has always built cities and villages to enable men to feel close to each other, to create all kinds of healthy relationships, to join hands, to exchange services, even when personal relations or between immediate neighbours or clans are not perfect. At times man may suffer from the cold, heat, hunger, thirst, fatigue, fear, loss of loved ones... But then he would enjoy the pleasure of eating after hunger, the pleasure of drinking after thirst, the pleasure of rest after getting tired, the pleasure of love, etc.

In the past people brought knowledge -in their heads- from their old people, and then passed it on to the next generations. Each time new palaces, schools, roads, gardens, factories, etc, were built. Man’s knowledge of the world expanded. And each time there was a new kingdom, good or bad. The question is, why didn’t those "good" kingdoms last forever? Why were there "bad" kingdoms as well? That’s a hard one to answer.

Many of the things we use today were invented by different peoples in different places at different times. Bronze, for example, was invented by the Chinese, glass by people in Mesopotamia, paper by the Egyptians, alphabet by Phoenicians, and so on. Each people learned from the other peoples and made their own inventions, thus expanding man’s knowledge of the world. This knowledge spread through trade and conquest. The conquerors inherited the knowledge of the vanquished people and took it home or spread it to other places. At the same time, the conquerors brought in their own way of life, their thoughts, their arts and their religion.

The interaction between so many powers, so many civilizations and so many ways of life made it necessary for each people to defend their own existence. Each people had to defend everything that was at stake for them. That included their culture. So those who happened to believe in a deity, any deity, had to defend their own faith by using all the tools available, including those that had been invented or developed by nations who did not necessarily share their faith. Such tools may have included Phoenicians’ alphabet and Greek logic. Thus all nations (I mean good or bad) were anything but "redundant". They were just as useful to one another.

The Arabs borrowed old, dormant knowledge from the Greeks, the Persians and other nations, and updated and enriched it, and then spread it in every direction. Baghdad emerged as the world capital of science. And in the West there was Cordoba, in Spain, where Arab science was passed on to Europe through translation. Averroes spoke to Muslims and non-Muslim Europeans of God using Aristotle’s logic.

Baghdad was destroyed, but Islamic knowledge survived. It survived because it was not only in the books that the Mongols threw into the Tigris River, but also in people’s hearts and minds. Like the destruction of the Alexandria Library in antiquity, the loss of Baghdad libraries could have been a much more awful tragedy had there not been what I called interactions. Marrakesh, which was built and made their capital by Morocco’s Almoravid dynasty, was deliberately and completely destroyed by their Almohad successors. These rebuilt the whole city in the most beautiful way possible, because they had already "received" the necessary knowledge from their predecessors.

In my Baccalaureate year, I was assigned to give a lecture in Arabic on Mahmoud Sami Al-Baroudi, a prominent Egyptian poet of Turkish origin. Some classmates were avid readers and they read almost everything, especially philosophy and literature. I knew I would have hard time once they began asking me questions, no matter what my lecture might be like. Their questions were very hard indeed and I was embarrassed, but I had a trick up my sleeve. When I felt defeated, I offered to read excerpts of Al-Baroudi's poetry. I read out one of his love poems and there was loud applause in the classroom! Even those hard-talkers, who had never been convinced by anybody's answers, were bewitched by the beauty of Al-Baroudi's poem. Al-Baroudi was a soldier who loved the Arabic language. He gave it his heart and it gave him fame and glory. (He later became Prime Minister of Egypt.) His time marked the beginning of the Arab Renaissance. This Arab renaissance began with Arabic poetry. Ahmad Shawqi, who was nicknamed "Prince of Poets", was Egyptian of Turkish origin, too. His poems sung by Umm Kulthum 'united' the souls of so many Arabs and Muslims around the world. Those "new Arabs" realized how much important Classical Arabic was even in their time. Cairo, Beirut and Baghdad revived that beautiful Arabic language. As a student, I used to hear the saying: "Cairo writes, Beirut prints and Baghdad reads"! There were Arabic readers, writers and newspapers even in the Americas! Christian Arab writers, such as Jubran Khalil Jubran, Elia Abu Madi and Mikha'il Na'ima, who lived in the U.S.A., further enriched the Arabic literature with their poetry and prose in Arabic. So many old Arab and Islamic books were snatched from oblivion (by Arabs and Orientalists) and broke into print, for the first time. Cairo became the Makkah of Arabic-language writers and translators.

The blame game is part of human nature. We all blame others for our misfortunes. When there’s nobody specific to blame, we blame bad luck. But let’s be objective for a moment! The best intentioned, most competent government can’t guarantee jobs for all. The most compassionate, most patriotic business establishment in the world can’t guarantee lasting economic growth. There will always be a minority of “unlucky” people. Even highly educated people (doctors, engineers, top executives…) in many countries around the world may be surprised not to find suitable jobs.

As we all know, some employees do negotiate their pay with their employers. Highly skilled people with prestigious university degrees usually get the best salaries. Some job hop for better pay or more comfortable working conditions. Less qualified workers may join unions to ask for pay rise or other rights. But, still, is that all?

Interestingly, some people downshift for the sake of peace. They give up positions where they were rightly paid and take jobs meant for people with less qualifications. The reason, they say, is stress. They were willing to sacrifice some of their original income so as to save their nerves.

There is yet another category of workers. These are people who do not “work” and yet get their pay each month. They just go to their place of work, report for work and sit idly in chairs while others work long hours so as to get the same salary at the end of the month. Curiously, those who “work” are much happier than those who “do not work”. The last-mentioned are not happy at all because their working colleagues tease them always, saying something like, “You useless people, we work to feed you. You steal our money…”

Many of those who do work before getting paid are not happy, either. The reason(s) could be stress, harassment, bullying or any form of injustice. The employer could be just and fair, but not thoughtful enough. He may not care if you have personal or family problems. Your problems are your own problem; they must not affect your work.

Other workers just take it easy and seldom, if ever, protest. Some almost never take a vacation. Some work in dangerous mines or in steel industry, where fire is a daily sight. Others work in the fields in the blazing sun. Others work far away from home, leaving spouse, children and relatives behind. Some are migrants, others are in the army or sailors on the high seas. They do all that as uncomplainingly as possible because they cannot be paid if they don’t.

Hard work is much better than unemployment. A worker can pay for things a jobless person cannot. It makes a big difference when you cannot borrow money to meet an urgent need because you cannot guarantee paying the money back, while a worker with a steady income can. Worse, it is absolutely painful when you see yourself unemployed at the age of forty or older, while younger friends and relatives are already well-off.

But once you get a job you become like other workers. You too start suffering from new/old problems. You start thinking of holidays, among other things.

Holidays are the opportunity for many to rest and have fun. As soon as some people come back from the annual holiday, they start preparing for the next, which obviously won’t come before eleven long months. One reason might be they like boasting about their holidays. Another reason might be they simply get fed up with work between four walls.

What has stricken me all the time as strange is that most of those who fill sightseeing buses in my country are old folks. Far be it from me to suggest that senior people should stay at home and help their grandchildren with their homework. But this, however, sets me wondering whether a large number of people do not really look forward to old age and retirement. Couldn’t this be, for them, the time to make up for the “lost time” spent “between four walls”?

Now, why should one wait so long? After all, work is not a curse. Indeed, work is often something wonderful. Yet the pay that an employer gives to an employee is but a nominal - say, moral - compensation for the effort made at work. This pay just cannot compensate for all the effort that a worker invests in his work. Every physical, mental or psychological effort you make to fulfill whatever task your employer expects of you will certainly have some (negative) bearing on your body or on your psyche at some point in later life. Whatever money or privileges you may get in exchange for your work will not replace any part of your body once damaged. Money cannot replace a lost nerve or a damaged lung.

Smoking, obesity and high blood pressure are some work-related problems. If you add to this harassment or bullying, for example, what would your life be like? How would you behave towards your family? Would it be alright for you to shout at your loving spouse at home and smile at your bullying boss at work? How would you bear the stress of formality and etiquette if your child is suffering in hospital?

Things get worse when yours is not a steady job. As long as your work is precarious, anxiety will hardly let go of you. If you cannot provide for your pension in later life, what do you do?

Your children too will suffer if you lose your job. They will shun their close pals because they just cannot pay for the same little things, a sweet plus. What do you do then? Will you wait until the next elections to vote for the party promising more jobs?

Even if you do get a job after years of waiting, that will not “shake off” the effects of your unemployment. The fear of losing your job will stay with you. That fear will affect your health at some point in later life.

Almost all workers lose something as they do their work. The peasant working in the fields in the blazing sun will have to deal with his aching head one day. The constant fear of a bad crop year will add to his problems. Idem for so many other workers.

So, if that is what work is like, how could it be “something wonderful”, one would say?

One might imagine that some “workers” do not have anything to worry about. One would imagine that, say, an artist, for example, is someone who is free, who can work at his leisure and have a successful, enjoyable work-life. But artists too do suffer. An artist may have to weep days and nights, maybe years, before making you smile for a few seconds. An artist too does experience such things as stress and anxiety. An artist too needs money and stability. He too has his own social relationships. He too fears poverty, if he is not poor already. (This is nothing new.) However, many artists consider themselves happy and fulfilled.

Even those stars out there have their own “work problems”. It is not easy to become a star. The glamour of fame and opulence may not last a lifetime. And, for artists, this is painful. As soon as a star becomes a has-been, his problems start piling up. But that's what happens to all of us somehow. As soon as we reach a certain age, we begin to have health concerns, among other things.

It’s not unusual to see a writer with a happy smile on his face after finishing a long novel. It’s not unusual to see a woman smile blissfully after delivering a baby. It’s not unusual to see a student on top of the world after obtaining a degree. But that novel has yet to be sold, and that baby has to be brought up, and that degree has to be accepted by an employer. Such is life. That's the charm of life.

This is why it is beneficial to take the time for introspection, to reflect in order to try to understand life and the world around us.

No political or economic system has ever been able to eradicate poverty forever. Historians relate that in the times of Caliph Umar Ibn Abdul’aziz (682-720) there were absolutely no poor at all. All men were married with their own money or with state money. The state funds were such that the Caliph said to his vizier: “If there are no poor, if all men are married, and there’s so much money left in our coffers, then purchase huge quantities of grain and feed all the birds in the country!” And yet only a few Umayyad caliphs succeeded Umar Ibn Abdul’aziz. His caliphate did not last long after him. The question is, why weren’t all rulers as good as Umar ibn Abdul’aziz? Why weren’t all rulers as just as Umar Ibn Al-Khattab (584-644)? Why weren’t all rulers as science-loving as Abbassid Caliph Al-Ma’mun (786-833)? Are the reasons for all that intrinsic or extrinsic? Did those good rulers do what they did just to stay in power or because each of them was what he was by nature?

A century ago kids would look at their parents and listen as they spoke. A few decades ago everybody looked at the television screen and all silenced one another if a handsome actor was speaking or a ravishing songstress was singing. Until then the Quran was television. The Bible was television. The Truth was television. Happiness was television. And if you didn't look like the people you liked on television, then you didn't belong to the world of today.

Even now, when the Smartphone and the iPad have become so essential and so overwhelming, while social media have made addicts of all ages and everywhere, television is still queen in many homes around the world. What do we see on television? Well, I have seen, among other things, TV shows where a girl could win in just half an hour by naming the maximum of songs and singers more than a distinguished engineer could earn in sixty days or more. I have seen stuff that gives the impression that it would be much better for a schoolboy to be a long-distance runner or a tennis player than a doctor in his own private hospital in the country's biggest city. I have seen illiterate female cooks and amateur teen singers become TV stars while the country's finest minds are "remembered" only when their death is announced to the press.

By watching television everyday one might get the feeling that “successful” people are already there -filling the TV screen with their glamour and beatific smiles, and there’s just nothing left for a poor televiewer to dream of. This happened even before the era of influencers.

Is it television’s fault, though? Is television the only culprit? To speak just for myself, I have learned a lot from television just as I learned a lot from the Internet. So is it a problem of television or a problem of televiewers? In other words, should I, as a televiewer, have some kind of immunity when watching TV? How can I have this kind of immunity?

In old times, there was no television. But there were schools. People went to school to learn, but also to dream. When you are alone reading a book of history or a book of poetry or a novel, or any kind of book, you find yourself thinking of something as you read. But that can be true for many televiewers too ! Many people became movie stars or famous players or even distinguished scientists and authors because they saw things on TV. Even at school not just anybody can hope to find the opportunity to dream at leisure.

Yes, at school a student could learn much about the World, about life, about problems and about ways of solving one’s problems. But not everyone can do that. Life can be at times, and will increasingly be, complex and complicated even for people who, as kids, studied 40 hours of Maths per week or learnt computer programming at age 6. You can’t solve all your problems by making genius calculations. So knowing the world is a good thing, especially in our times when individuals take precedence over the group.

Now what if you went to school and got a degree and then a good job and saw a lot of TV, would you be happy? That’s not the impression I get when I listen to the radio, for example, or see things on the Web. In my country, at least, I hear a lot of people complain about society, neighbours, relatives and so on. Easy examples: many married people just don’t know how to solve their problems with their partners or with their children or with their colleagues at work or employers. Many people just can’t bear their health problems. Many people have psychological problems that they can’t deal with. Believe it or not, I heard a frequent guest at a respectable radio debate show say that he knew a number of psychiatrists and psychologists who themselves consult psychologists! Also many rich countries whose citizens are usually thought to be happy have loads of problems too, not the least of which is obesity. We’re all in the same boat!

What could (or should) be learned from such calamities in which thousands of people lose their lives and thousands more are left maimed, orphaned, widowed or homeless; where whole towns and villages are flattened; where paradisiacal landscapes are turned into desolate places? Well, that has always been horrible. People who are safe and sound, ensconced in their warm armchairs, could moralize as much and long as they wished - but would they say the same thing (in the same words, in the same tones, with the same strength of conviction) if they were in the midst of the disaster?

I remember seeing a programme featuring Australia’s tropical forests. The TV cameras moved gracefully among breathtaking trees, beautiful native flowers, exotic birds and animals. I thought there couldn’t be a more tempting place for a holiday. But then suddenly a hellish fire broke out and destroyed all the trees, the flowers, the birds and the animals. I sighed as the voice commenting the scene explained that such fires were sort of commonplace in these forests, and that it was a very natural phenomenon. It was good of the programme to give that warning to nature-loving tourists and that lesson to those who easily succumb to beauty. Unfortunately, natural phenomena cannot all be predicted. So many tourists (from all over the world) died in Tsunami in December 2004. No one -least of all the local people- could have predicted such a catastrophe. People -then and as always- asked a lot of (existential) questions. Some made some kind of change, others continued to live their lives as if nothing had happened. Personally, I do ask questions too. I read on the Web a question I had asked myself even before the Internet entered our country. Were WWI and WWII divine punishment? That was the question. I wondered why such a thing happened to people who were behind all the incredible technological development whose fruits we enjoy in our everyday life. Those people made great inventions, worked in coal mines, struggled for human rights, etc, etc. So why were they rewarded with two bloody wars? The curious thing is that during these two wars (and the subsequent Cold War) a phenomenal technological development took place -as if our (civilian) planes today couldn’t have been able to fly as far and fast as they do today, as if our mobile phones, Internet connections, televisions, etc, could have remained topics of science-fiction books, hadn’t there been two devastating (world) wars. The United Nations was born only after those wars. Democracy became widespread only after those wars, which claimed the lives of the children and grand-children of great inventors, engineers, teachers and patient workers who endured life in coal mines. Would it be superstitious to link that to the so-called separation of religion and state (as was the case in France in 1905)? Or would that be explained by people’s “increasing immorality”? (Some would argue, though, that “real immorality” became even worse in 1968, more than two decades after the War!) Others would argue that the War(s) had rather come as a result of then big powers’ struggle for supremacy and their rivalry over overseas territories. Whatever the reasons of this or that calamity, it’s never bad to ask questions about it.

Very often -but not always- it’s people who came within an inch of death in such disasters who DON’T ask the hardest questions, such as, “Why should there be such a thing in the first place?” I was moved by the story of a German young woman and her mother who happened to be in Sri Lanka during Tsunami. In a TV programme, the young woman explained how a Sri Lankan young man had saved her, risking his own life. The young man himself spoke while the two women -who had come back to Sri Lanka to meet him and remember the incident- listened, their heads bowed in thought. This unexpected friendship is an instance of the paradoxically wonderful things that do happen during and in the aftermath of disasters. But the question remains, though: why should there be such a thing in the first place?

In other words, could there be a good side to disaster? Are earthquakes, hurricanes, cyclones, volcanoes, forest fires, floods, etc., just natural accidents that happen at random and spoil people’s lives? Even if scientists, who started developing serious theories about this only in the 1960s, proved through empirical evidence that the above-mentioned are essential to the overall equilibrium of the planet Earth, still some would ask, “Why should the Earth need such disasters just to ensure its equilibrium?" Those who would like “to settle a score” with God would ask, “If God is perfect, then why did He create such an imperfect earth? Why should a population in one part of the globe be callously sacrificed in order to save populations elsewhere?"

I don’t pretend to have answers to these questions. But let’s see things as they are.

The earth may not be perfect, but what would one say of those tourists who wait a whole year and spend a lot of money to get to a place? Why do they choose to go to a particular place rather than another? Do tourists go to heavenly places or to hellish corners of the globe?

Besides, scientists say, for example, that “most earthquakes cause little or no damage”. They also say that “most volcanic activity is submarine, forming new seafloors” -far away from our cities and villages.

So the “imperfection”, if any, was rather man-made. Scientists say “man-made pollution is largely to blame for global warming”, which, in turn, is responsible for natural. Hence the importance of The Paris Agreement and all conventions on climate.

The poor are now begging the rich to stop polluting the earth (thereby causing drought, floods, cyclones and other disasters), whereas the rich are begging the poor to accept money in exchange for The Right to Pollute in their own countries.

So whether the earth is not perfect or whether it’s man who made it so imperfect, it’s never too late for man to try and make it perfect - or as perfect as possible.

In normal times, one would find heavenly places all over the world. Otherwise, why should there be tourists? If many foreign tourists happened to be in South-East Asia during Tsunami (2004) it’s because they had been attracted to the beauty of that region.

Even after a place is totally destroyed in a disaster, man is always there to do something about it. This leads to talk about solidarity.

When we speak of solidarity we also mean charity, compassion, altruism, volunteering to help for love, not money. When you see people from all walks of life rushing to help each other ; when you see thousands of students donating blood and running to the most affected areas to save lives, that is solidarity.

Of course, all men are not alike. While world war-mongers are swearing at and fighting one another, the Red Cross and the Red Crescent join forces to save people of different faiths and origins. What matters is to put out the fire, no matter who started it.

When you learn that 200 rescue workers lost their lives as they were trying to help their fellow citizens in China (in May 2008), and many teachers died in the disaster after having saved their students, then you can only feel proud of being a human being. We humans are capable of making the world a better place -by serving one another.

Compare that solidarity shown by people from within and without the places affected by disasters to the looting that sometimes takes place in disaster-hit areas. Compare that solidarity to the rivalries that led to WWI and WWII. Compare the bloodshed of those wars to the spirit that led to the European Union. Definitely, man is capable of the best and the worst.

And what is more beautiful man can do than rebuilding shattered lives? Destruction is no doubt horrific. The repercussions may last for years and cost gold and life. But that’s part of life. What we tend to forget is that most destruction is man-made. Natural disasters had no hand in the unbelievable destruction that occurred in the heart of Europe in the first half of the twentieth century.

Practical-minded people get down to work at once to repair the destruction, leaving to God what is God’s and to Caesar what is Caesar’s. Sometimes the destructors themselves rush to reconstruction. The U.S., who helped bring down Hitler’s Reich and Japan’s empire, put in place the Marshall Plan to rebuild postwar Europe and Japan. A thriving Baby boomer generation enjoyed the fruits of that reconstruction, thus turning the page on the horrors of the War their fathers had witnessed. "The misfortune of some makes the happiness of others,” as the French proverb goes.

After every disaster, many people get a lot of work, a steady income for years. A lot of companies thrive during this period and a lot of trade takes place. Not only those demolished schools, but the whole (old) infrastructure becomes much better than before the earthquake. This gives the opportunity to newly graduated engineers and technicians to prove their worth and build their lives and to SMEs and VSEs to grow.

Now, what about divine punishment? Well, divine punishment means different things to different believers. Jews, Christians and Muslims, for example, know the story of Noah, according to which the world then was destroyed by the Flood. But then life went on with just a small number of people and a limited number of species. The God who made life possible after the Flood is naturally capable of saving the planet earth from the worst consequences of climate change, if he wills. Whether He wills it or not probably depends on how humanity behaves. Hence the fear of divine punishment for some. The Quran, for example, is full of warnings in this sense.

Divine punishment or not, a growing number of young people are suffering from various forms and degrees of Climate Anxiety. They are deeply concerned not only about the future of the planet Earth, but more particularly about their immediate environment. Some simply believe that our planet is doomed, "on the brink". The fact is that extreme weather conditions are undeniable. We have all heard or read alarming reports from experts predicting the worst for certain parts of the globe.

But tell that to those adventurous people who go to seek their fortune where the environment is most hostile, where illegal wildlife trade thrives, illegal logging, illegal mining, illegal fishing… where there are no schools, no hospitals, or even paved roads… where smiling means nothing.

Details abound. Who is not aware of the submerged coasts with all the consequences that this implies, of the rising waters that are threatening the lives and livelihoods of millions of people, of the scary wild dumps in many cities around the world? Of course there is cause for alarm. And you have people suffocating in the heat wave in the middle of spring, people who see their animals die of thirst before their eyes, goats which eat their excrement, camels which eat other camels, seasides which disappear under water each day a little more, non-renewable groundwater, dry or almost dry wells…? It is not easy to be mentally strong in the face of such misfortunes. But sometimes all it takes is rain, good weather, a good harvest... to lift your spirits and feel good.

We are not in Heaven. A disaster remains a painful experience - whether it is natural or not, whether it is divine punishment or not. The right question to ask is: What if I was among the victims?

Journalism students learn that "when a dog bites a man, that is not news"; “Man bites dog" is news. A woman called a doctor live on a radio programme to ask why her three-year-old daughter still sucked at her baby bottle (even if it were empty!). THAT IS NOT NEWS, one would say. And that's true. Another listener later called to advise that woman to put something bitter in the feeding bottle or on its teat to make it disgusting to the child. He said that he had tried that out on his own daughter when she was three and it worked. THAT IS NOT NEWS, either. But then the man conceded that there arose a much bigger problem. "Now my daughter is 27 years old," he explained. "She is a University professor in a foreign country and yet she still sucks her thumb!" THAT IS NEWS, isn't it? But is it odd enough to provoke wonder in everyone?

In The Unique Necklace, Ibn Abd Rabbih (860-940) relates the story of a tabi'i (follower of the Prophet Muhammad's Companions) who was travelling with some of his students when they came across a drunken man singing a beautiful couplet in Arabic:

Love has humbled me, and I am the humbled one;

And to the one I love, there is no path (no way to reach).

(With rhyme, it sounds much prettier than that in Arabic.)

أَذَلَّنِي الْهَوَى فَأَنَا الذَّلِيلُ ... وَلَيْسَ إِلَى الَّذِي أَهْوَى سَبِيلُ

The tabi'i then alighted from his horse and hastened to write down those lines. Amazed, his students asked, "You write down words said by a drunken man?" The tabi'i replied: "Don't you know the proverb that goes 'A pearl could very well be found in the garbage.'? Well, this is a pearl in a garbage!"

Somebody was introduced to the Abbassid caliph Harun al-Rasheed as a man of genius who could make a hundred needles get into the eyes of each other in such a way that not a single needle would fall down. The caliph asked the man to show him how he could do that, and when the latter had done that in the most brilliant manner, the caliph turned to his men, and said: "Give this man one hundred dinars and one hundred lashes." Stupefied, the genius man asked: "Majesty, I can understand why you give me one hundred dinars, but not why you give me one hundred lashes!" The caliph replied: "I give you a hundred dinars for your genius, and a hundred lashes because you wasted your genius on trivialities."

We are all intelligent, aren't we, but do we always put our intelligence to good use?

As a twenty-year-old student, I was once standing alone, facing our classroom, when a classmate came towards me and said, shaking with laughter: "On my way to Faculty, a group of little children stopped me and said, 'Tell us, if you know: does a hen urinate?’' You know what, I had never thought about that before!

We tend to take so many things for granted - small things, I mean. How many times have you stopped to think about the tick-tock of your watch, about that tiny insect that you sometimes find scurrying across the page when you are reading a book, about the fallen leaves in your garden or in the woods, about the human mind that made all the inventions you're using every day? Like people in antiquity, who wondered at the Seven Wonders and forgot about the million small wonders around them, we still marvel at such big things as the Pyramids and forget to give a thought to small things in ourselves and in our environment.

People marveled at the Montgolfier Balloon, at the first solo nonstop transatlantic Flight in history, at the Airbus A380. They still marvel at the Great Wall of China, at the Guizeh Pyramids, at the Eiffel Tower and Lady Liberty. We still marvel at the breathtaking performances of circus animals and clowns, at the robots which might some day have feelings, at the stunning achievements of record-breaking athletes, at the extraordinary talents of our artists (that are sometimes taken for gods!). Almost every week, there's a new entry into the famous Guinness World Records.

When people think of something, they often forget something else -something more important. When we look at ourselves in the mirror, do we think of the mirror itself? When we use our computer, do we think of the mind which invented it in the first place? When we wonder at our (human) power of imagination, do we think of where the human mind came from in the first place? How many of us wonder at the fact that although we have the same father and the same mother, still, we are not identical. Even so-called "identical twins" are distinguished by their fingerprints and irises.

Sometimes you suddenly find yourself in a situation where you feel like a fool, when the most obvious things become hard to understand, when your life suddenly becomes a burden, void of any meaning. Should we wait until then to start meditating?

If exercise rids our body of its "poisons", isn't it the same for meditation? Could it not rid us of the "poisons" of our souls? Couldn't meditation on little things - those things that most people don't even think about - give us a light that most people don't have?

An American man went missing in Australia. After three months or so, he emerged from the other end of the Australian desert, wearing an ordinary shirt and a pair of trousers, with leather sandals on, and a water bottle in his hand. Asked why he had braved such a frightening desert alone and with so little equipment, the man said: "I just wanted to discover God." Personally, I couldn't believe my eyes and ears as I saw those TV pictures, having read about the times when Afghan cameleers took European settlers through the uncharted deserts of the Australian continent.

Now, do I need to go as far as the Australian desert just to mediatate? I can look up at the sun from where I am: isn't it the same sun everyone sees everywhere? Isn’t it the same moon all people all around the world know? Isn’t it the same sky, the same stars, the same earth, the same water, the same air, the same human body, the same human soul? So couldn't it be the same Creator, whoever it might be, who made all these things for us all? Shouldn't we be astonished at the fact that people share the same things and yet worship different gods?

Is it easy to think, by the way? How could one "think" with so many images falling like an avalanche over one's mind from TV, the Web…? How many people could go to the woods (with no cam, no Smartphone, no cigarettes), with just a mind and a heart, and two feet willing to go from place to place, and eyes willing to look at beautiful flowers - small flowers - hiding behind small rocks that few people care to glance at? Who these days would go into the woods and look at the fallen leaves, and touch them, scrutinize them; at the insects, at the migrant birds, and think about his whole life?

Maybe those people who lived before us did not have calculating machines, sophisticated computers and genius software, but they too were smart somehow. Maybe we, too, need to be doubly smart, by thinking about the big things and by meditating about the small things as well.

Take this example. We Muslims around the world have just celebrated Eed al-Adha (the Feast of Sacrifice). Does everybody enjoy eed in the same way? Well, many people sacrifice a sheep but can’t eat of its meat simply because they are ill. Other people, with healthy stomachs and bodies, can’t afford a sheep for eed. Too expensive for them. Who should envy the other: the one who can’t eat of his sheep or the one who can’t buy a sheep in the first place?

The problem is, feelings and emotions are sometimes stronger than knowledge and convictions. It’s not easy for anybody to deal with the feeling that his boss or superior is less qualified than him. It’s not easy for a handsome man to understand why his beautiful beloved should marry an “ugly” man. It’s not easy for a woman of colour to understand why she should be so, if that is a problem for her, or for a successful engineer to understand why his only son should be handicapped. Scientists can’t explain, for example, why a married couple should fail to have a child, despite all imaginable and unimaginable efforts. But they can evidently explain the physiological/pathological thing that prevented the couple from begetting a child. Scientists don’t have problems with the physical world. That’s why they have been so kind as to make our physical world so easy : they developed for us wonderful transportation means, fairy-tale telecommunication means, unhoped-for medical services. Our kitchens, our living-rooms, our offices, our bags are full of technology gadgets that we owe to our venerable scientists. But scientists are like us, like you and me. They too have feelings and emotions. A scientist may remain disgusted all his life if one of his scientific discoveries or contributions is attributed to someone else.

Scientists can easily come up with revolutionary techniques, treat human bodies and improve agriculture, etc, but could not prevent drought or floods. Scientists can send humans onto Mars but cannot ward off earthquakes or hurricanes, which do cause more destruction in a few hours than science can build in years and years. It’s again a problem of emotions. You can’t explain anything to a widow sitting in front of her home destroyed by flooding or to parents who have just lost their only son.

What about Faith? Some people believe in it. They cling to it in normal times and in times of crisis. They find therein explanations that can help them overcome a loss, a breakup, a weakness or a personal drama. This explanation is not fortuitous or trivial. It implies a commitment. If we ask a god for help, we should reasonably expect to have to give thanks in some way. This is the demarcation line between faith and unbelief. Some people can in no way accept the idea of being dependent on anybody or obedient to anybody. They see themselves as entirely self-made, self-dependent, self-sufficing, and that they don’t owe anything to anybody, to any deity. They have nothing to thank God for: because if they accept the idea of being much obliged to a deity, they fear they might be asked to behave according to that deity’s wishes, not as they see fit.

In reality, even the Quran, for example, does not say that if you do not believe in God and the Hereafter you will fail in this world. Worldly success is open to all. The problem is, when you fail, for any objective reasons, you may find it hard to explain your failure objectively to yourself. Because it’s human nature that man tends to blame others for his failures and to be arrogant in times of success.

Now, where does our arrogance come from? It comes from our desire to show off. We want to show people around us that we are self-dependent, we are the best. We want the world to know that we got our job because, as they say, "one Scotsman's worth 3 Englishmen". The same goes for one's spouse, one's children, one's fortune. It's all the fruit of our ambition. It's all a matter of merit.

This is also due to the fact that, most of the time, we think about one moment in our life. Or do we always take all our life into account? Do we think of the time when we grow old, when we can’t sing and dance, when we can’t play golf or tennis, when we can’t swim or even walk, when we can’t eat with a knife and fork, when we are put away in a nursing home, abandoned by both our children and the staff of our nursing home?

Many people divorce after retirement. This moment that they were looking forward to in order to rest and enjoy life suddenly becomes hell because of the spouse, the children or whatever. If we are not prepared for this, what’s the use of our brain?

Yes, I imagine a bit of History, a bit of philosophy, a bit of spirituality, a bit of "free" tourism (just a short trip on foot or by bike around our place of living), a bit of meditation - all that may be just priceless. We all know that many people have good insurance and yet are unhappy. Many people with the best retirement pensions are unhappy too. There are definitely other things in life that are just as important.

What makes me write in English and French and what makes some English and French people learn Arabic? Why shouldn’t I write in Arabic? If I write in a foreign language would I necessarily be influenced by the culture of the language I am writing in?

Is culture important to me as a person? Well, I need my way of thinking when I have a problem. I need the feeling of belonging somewhere, to something, even when I don’t have a problem. If I don’t feel that I belong where I am, that’s a big problem. That’s when I will need my way of thinking to help me overcome this problem. In other words, my identity is more of a psychological than social necessity. These identity aspects are all parts of my culture, or rather my collective culture that I share with millions of people in my country. But there’s a more specific part of my culture (my individual culture) which I share with far less people in my country and with far more elsewhere.

Personally, I eat with my hands and would never be comfortable with a knife and fork. If I want to be modern (although I don't know what that means actually), should I necessarily eat in a certain way or dress up according to fashion or speak this way or that ? Well, I believe, for my part, that even if I consider my way to be the best, others are free to have their own way within a general legal framework accepted by all for the sake of a peaceful society. I should therefore be able to eat what I want like I want when I am alone or with people like myself. I wear what I want like I want without provoking or hurting anybody. I speak as best I can without aping anybody or pretending what I am not. This is my culture. My way of life is a "conspicuous" representation of my culture. If I liked a piece of American music, that would be part of my culture. If I liked a French radio station or magazine, that would be part of my culture. I am a Moroccan and I like a lot of Moroccan things. But I also like a lot of things that are not Moroccan. I like Americans’ sense of duty. I like Germans’ love for reading. I like nineteenth-century French literature, etc. And I am absolutely comfortable with what I like.

If I can afford what I like, that’s great. If not, no problem. I don’t need to have a car or even a laptop to be a modern person. I can very well work in internet cafes and travel by taxi or take a bus. No problem. If other people think I’m not a modern person, whatever that means, or that I’ve failed socially or professionally, that’s not a massive problem for me. What's important for me is that I work hard in order to achieve what I want. What's important to me is that I be a man of today. I need to know and understand what’s going on in the world. I need to understand History to see what was possible in past times that is no longer today and what can yet change in the future for better or for worse. I need to understand other people’s ways of thinking. I need to learn about other peoples’ traditions and ways of life. If I know how other people think and behave I will improve my own way of thinking.

Now, should I go to a specific foreign country only to see what its people are like? Why not? Yet, I can do it without leaving my home city. What’s more important to me is to know how that people became what they are, how they think, how they solve their problems, what their dreams and aspirations are... I can know that at school, by reading, through the media. When I know much about that, I push the boundaries of my culture a little bit further. French authors become my authors, my teachers, and so do American authors, Egyptian journalists, Arab poets… My culture would thus become as large as my knowledge. This is what I meant by “specific culture” or “individual culture”. I would not then make a difference between culture and civilization. But still I will make a difference between my culture as an Arab-Berber culture and Western culture, for example. They are not the same. And that’s very normal. I won't start comparing which is best. My culture is good as long as it suits me well, as long as I feel comfortable with it. I would not expect anybody to dress the way I do, or to eat the way I do (even if he were a Muslim like me)… I would only expect him to understand me -not even to accept me as I am. We are all human beings: we have more or less the same problems and different ways of dealing with those problems. When I write I am exposing my way of thinking, my way of solving my problems - based on my own (individual) culture, which is neither worse nor better than anybody's culture.

What would happen if I was invited to a special dinner where I had to respect a certain etiquette? Frankly, I would be very embarrassed and perhaps ridiculed. But once out, I would forget all about it and be myself again. Besides, I have already experienced that and I would not hesitate to do it again.

In some places people don't feel safe because they fear floods. In other places people don't feel safe because they fear drought. Yet, is safety always physical? There are married people who don't feel safe about their marriage, employed people who don't feel safe about their jobs, healthy people who don't feel safe without proper health insurance, people who don't feel safe because of their colour, “race” or religion; people who don't feel safe because they are constantly being stereotyped, because other people are always judging them by their look, by their cast, by their holidays...

You may probably have seen TV pictures of people traveling on jam-packed trains on the eve of major holidays. People who left their villages and hamlets to work in far-away towns and cities are pining for their families, to whom they are bringing money and gifts. Who needs the other? The migrant worker or his family back in the village? Who is in need of safety? Isn't loneliness a form of lack of safety? Isn't feeling of safety worth money and gifts?

My younger brother invited me one day many years ago to share Eed Al Adha (The Feast of Sacrifice) with him in the Southern town of Essaouira. I went the day before eed. I arrived at the Casablanca motor coach station late in the afternoon. But I had to wait several hours for the Essaouira coach to leave the station. And I didn't get bored with waiting. I was delighted to see how people struggled to book their trips to nearly all places across the country. I saw several people carry sheep on their shoulders, others hoist up the sheep onto the coach roofs... And when our coach left Casablanca City, in the evening, a group of passengers burst out singing, some in Arabic, others in Berber... They sang and clapped their hands happily. They would have even danced had there been enough space. The coach was running on four (rubber) wheels, at night, but everybody felt so safe that many succumbed to sleep. Everybody put his trust in the coach driver. In a way, we are all that little child that runs into his mother's arms to feel safe.

For some people it's a quest for safety, for others a quest for happiness. Why did the Romans come to my country, Morocco, North Africa? At that time there were no Arabs, no Islam, in this country. But it was not a no man's land. Volubilis, for example, the most famous Roman city in Morocco, was founded in the third century BC. It was then the capital of Mauretania, an Amazigh (Berber) territory. Also the Phoenicians had established their settlements on our coasts around the 12th century BC. The Portuguese built their first colony on our Atlantic coast in the early 16th. Then the Spanish and the French shared our country between them in the early 20th century, but many other European nations too wanted that privilege for themselves. Why? Well, they all saw opportunities in this land; they all saw the means of attaining some kind of happiness and prosperity for part of their respective populations. We all go where we see the possibility of happiness.

Some people are concerned about another kind of safety and happiness. I have listened to a few non-Muslim radio programmes in English. One frequently asked question was: "If I do this or that, will I be saved?" Do all people ask such questions?

I was once leaving a school where I gave evening classes when a 17-year-old female student of mine waved to me and said in a voice filled with awe: "Teacher, look over there!" She pointed with an almost trembling hand at a car that was parked across the street from the school. I saw the car: it was just marvelous. So I understood why the girl was looking at it in such reverence.

The image is so powerful. Philosophy is weak in front of the image. When we go to market to buy fruits and vegetables we think about prices, not about who created those fruits and vegetables. We look inside our fridge with our stomach, not with our hearts and souls. When we open our wardrobe we don't think about who created the wool, the cotton, the silk, etc. We don't think about our vision and hearing until our eyes and ears ache. We don't think about our heart until we are sick. We don't think about death until we are very close to it. And we all fear death. Yet, there's life after death. The Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) said: "Everything of the human body will perish except the last coccyx bone (end part of the spinal cord), and from that bone Allah will reconstruct the whole body. Then Allah will send down water from the sky and people will grow like green vegetables'."

What do we think we know about Allah? Not as much as He knows about us, anyway. The least we can say is that Allah is beyond compare. He does not change: the same power as ever, the same infinite knowledge, the same vigilance, the same readiness, the same Godness. Allah is God. Man is man. Allah is One. Man is too many. Man can’t even be master of the planet earth. And when he forgets this fact, and behaves as if he were God, Allah wouldn’t hesitate to remind him through all kinds of misfortune and suffering. And yet Allah remains "Merciful, Loving." (11.90) "Is not He (best) Who answereth the wronged one when he crieth unto Him and removeth the evil?" (27.62) "If Allah took mankind to task by that which they deserve, He would not leave a living creature on the surface of the earth; but He reprieveth them unto an appointed term, and when their term cometh -then verily (they will know that) Allah is ever Seer of His slaves." (35.45) "Allah is Full of Pity, Merciful toward mankind." (2.143) That's the rule. Allah even cares about our feelings, irrespective of our faith. In the Quran we read: "O ye who believe! Let not a folk deride a folk who may be better than they (are), not let women (deride) women who may be better than they are; neither defame one another, nor insult one another by nicknames. Bad is the name of lewdness after faith. And whoso turneth not in repentance, such are evil-doers." (49.11)

So it’s normal if Allah does not like us to be indifferent to Him. No matter what we do, our belief in Allah will remain limited, and so will our gratitude towards Him. We can never pay our parents back for their favours, what about Allah? But if we don’t try our best to be thankful to Allah, who should we thank?

Allah is great and wants man to be great too: by having more virtues than vices, by having great values, by living up to one’s values, by purifying oneself. Allah said to the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh): "And lo! thou art of a tremendous nature." (68.4) Gratitude is one great value. Prostration to Allah, for example, is an honour for man, not a belittling or a humiliation. Prostration is glorification of Allah and sublimeness of the faithful’s conduct and soul.

When I believe in Allah I only bear witness to an independently existing fact. I only acknowledge a fact -whether I exist or not, whether I believe or not. Before Galileo (1564-1642) most people believed the earth was flat. Before Hubble (1889-1953) most scientists believed there was one galaxy in the world. What should be amazing to us is that this small brain which Allah created in our (small) heads has already known so much about the world. That which we can’t know we have to believe. We should admit that "of knowledge ye have been vouchsafed but little." (17.85) And yet Allah does not want us to blindly believe in Him.

Even if we are lazy, or don’t have the time or the means, we don’t necessarily need to travel to faraway places in order to meditate. Just in the nearest market, we find innumerable varieties of homegrown and imported fruits of all colours, shapes and tastes. But we often take that for granted. A good believer of our times may not be able to dive into the sea and see for himself the incredible life of fish and sea plants. He may not be able to explore the Amazon forest and other jungles or walk and hike in the high mountains or the glaciers and see how people, animals and plants live out there. He may not be a neurologist or a cardiologist or a botanist, but when he is in front of his TV screen and the like and watches documentary films or reads books, he just can’t help chanting subhanallah (All praise be to Allah) with his heart and tongue. From his safe place at home he can meditate about the vast space above and about those weak creatures living in the wilderness among wild predators and those isolated people living in extreme weather conditions in an uncharted country, or about the cells in his own body… Lessons learned from these meditations can only boost the morale of "him who hath a heart, or giveth ear with full intelligence." (50.37) A believer who thus meditates on Allah’s infinite power and knowledge can only become stronger and stronger. And when the circumstances are stronger than him (personal drama, war, acute unemployment, illness, sudden inflation...) and the devil and the demons surround him on all sides, well, this precious knowledge of Allah saves him, if only to overcome a crisis the time it takes to recover his mental strength. And that’s what’s meant by "a healing and a mercy". Allah says: "And We reveal of the Qur'an that which is a healing and a mercy for believers." (17.82) Allah "guideth unto Himself all who turn (unto Him), Who have believed and whose hearts have rest in the remembrance of Allah. Verily in the remembrance of Allah do hearts find rest!" (13.27-28)

Think this through. How many times did you ever get tired, sick, demoralized or depressed? Maybe few or several times. But how many times did you ever succeed in stopping your days and nights from being eaten away like an unemployed person’s savings? Never. We are weak. We are mortal. Allah is God. Allah is not like us. That sounds obvious, to a believer at least, but we often tend to forget it when we are well off.

Suppose I got up in the middle of the night and thought about the whole picture, not only my daily worries and routine, what would I feel? Well, first thing, even if I worship Allah in the watches of the night, He is still occupied with the rest of the world - all the time. "Neither slumber nor sleep overtaketh Him." (2.255) For Allah it’s all DAY. Even if I make this kind of effort that many others wouldn’t care to make, what would that add to Allah? It’s all symbolic, and Allah likes that. "He is Forgiving, Responsive." (35.30) It’s a sign of love. "He is the Forgiving, the Loving." (85.14) Even the best expression of gratitude can’t pay Allah back for the slightest of His favours. I owe everything to Allah, my life plus. If I am beautiful, it’s Allah who gave me my beauty. If I am strong, it’s Him who gave me my strength. If I am smart, it’s Him who gave me my wits. If I am rich, it’s Him who provided me. If I become famous, it’s Allah who makes me so. If I belong to a rich, democratic and powerful state, that’s a favour from Allah too. Whatever I am, whatever state I am in, it’s by the grace of Allah. Whatever good I do, it’s thanks to Him, that's by Allah's leave. In the Quran we read: "And whatever of comfort ye enjoy, it is from Allah." (16.53) And that includes worshipping Allah! "...and of them are some who outstrip (others) through good deeds, by Allah's leave. That is the great favour !" (35.32)

To Allah I owe my life, so His Hymn I praise, and unto Him I prostrate. To Him and of Him I say: Glory is to Allah. Praise is to Allah. There is none worthy of worship but Allah. Allah is the Most Great. There is no might and no power except by Allah's leave, the Exalted, the Mighty.

QUESTION: if everything about me belongs to Allah, what is left to me to pride on? What am I doing in this world? What am I worth as a being on this earth? Well, I am a teacher. I don't own the school where I work. But I can do my job right; I can enjoy my life as a teacher; I get my pay and buy the things I need. And I can be happy with that. Many people don't own their homes and don't have a problem with that. See my point?

Do I "own" my vision and hearing, for example? Allah says: "Who owneth hearing and sight; and Who bringeth forth the living from the dead and bringeth forth the dead from the living?" (10.31) "Say: Have ye imagined, if Allah should take away your hearing and your sight and seal your hearts, Who is the God Who could restore it to you save Allah?" (6.46)

Do I own my body? Allah says: "He whom we bring unto old age, We reverse him in creation (making him go back to weakness after strength). Have ye then no sense?" (36.68) "Allah is He Who shaped you out of weakness, then appointed after weakness strength, then, after strength, appointed weakness and grey hair. He createth what He will. He is the Knower, the Mighty." (30.54) "And Allah createth you, then causeth you to die, and among you is he who is brought back to the most abject stage of life, so that he knoweth nothing after (having had) knowledge. Lo! Allah is Knower, Powerful." (16.70) "Allah receiveth (men's) souls at the time of their death, and that (soul) which dieth not (yet) in its sleep. He keepeth that (soul) for which He hath ordained death and dismisseth the rest till an appointed term. Lo! herein verily are portents for people who take thought." (39.42)

Do we "own" "our" water? "Have ye thought: If (all) your water were to disappear into the earth, who then could bring you gushing water?" (67.30)

Do we "own" our crops? What if Allah sent against them the flood and the locusts and the vermin or just a few months' drought? Read, if you like: "So We sent against them the flood and the locusts and the vermin and the frogs and the blood -a succession of clear signs. But they were arrogant and became a guilty folk." (7.133)

"Say: Have ye thought, if Allah made night everlasting for you till the Day of Resurrection, who is a god beside Allah who could bring you light? Will ye not then hear? Say: Have ye thought, if Allah made day everlasting for you till the Day of Resurrection, who is a god beside Allah who could bring you night wherein ye rest? Will ye not then see?" (28.71-72) "Say: Who can avail you aught against Allah, if He intend you hurt or intend you profit? Nay, but Allah is ever Aware of what ye do." (48.11) "Or who is he that will be an army unto you to help you instead of the Beneficent ? The disbelievers are in naught but illusion." (67.20)

"And remember Allah's favour unto you." (3.103) "Remember (all) the bounties of your Lord, that haply ye may be successful." (7.69)

Yes, to many people Allah has nothing to do with our life or our success. But those who believe in Allah and the Hereafter want to know how they can best express their gratitude towards Him.

Well, if I cannot pay Allah back for His innumerable favours, I could still do my best. The Quran is full of examples of what I could do for worship. At the same time, I could pay it forward - to humankind - by serving people. Allah takes the alms, not for Himself, but for His bondmen - believers and non-believers alike. "Allah is Full of Pity, Merciful toward mankind." (2.143) "Allah giveth blessings without stint to whom He will" (24.38), that is to believers and non-believers alike. "Each do We supply, both these and those, from the bounty of thy Lord. And the bounty of thy Lord can never be walled up." (17.20) And yet Allah gives me, as a believer, the chance (and the honour) to do good, to give charity, if I can, to His bondmen, out of love for Him, as a sign of gratitude to Him, and I don’t say, like non-believers, who, "when it is said unto them: Spend of that wherewith Allah hath provided you", they "say unto those who believe: Shall we feed those whom Allah, if He willed, would feed? Ye are in naught else than error manifest." (36.47)

Also, I may do challenging high studies and accumulate interesting experience and then get a well-paid job and be proud about it. If I lose that job amid an economic downturn, what do I do? I may have a serious social or health problem that prevents me from finishing my education and getting my dream job : what do I do, then? Of course, faith will not bring me a concrete solution to a concrete problem, at least not right away, except in the case of the "wronged one" when he "crieth unto" the Lord (verse (27.62)). Just because I'm "a saint" doesn't mean I'm going to walk on water or go through a mousehole. But the fact that I believe that my livelihood (rizq) and age ('umr) and everything about me are in the hands of Allah, of God, the Lord of the Worlds, gives me some serenity, a feeling of safety. When somebody refuses to hire me or lays me off, I know that's only a trial for me, and that that person or that business cannot prevent me from getting what I want elsewhere, Allah willing. We all need some kind of protection. The work unions were created for that purpose. Health care and all kinds of social assistance were designed to this end. Besides, the most generous relief plan, the kindest state help, is limited in time. But when we are hard-pressed with rents to pay, with food to buy to one's kids..., it's normal, it's human, to seek help from humans. We all need protection. But what's the problem if Allah is my, our, Protector? On the contrary, it's our best insurance! Allah says in the Quran: "Lo! those whom ye serve instead of Allah own no provision for you. So seek your provision from Allah, and serve Him, and give thanks unto Him, (for) unto Him ye will be brought back." (29.17) "Say (unto them): If ye possessed the treasures of the mercy of my Lord, ye would surely hold them back for fear of spending, for man was ever grudging." (17.100) "Or have they even a share in the Sovereignty? Then in that case, they would not give mankind even the speck on a date-stone." (4.53) So everything that happens to me, good or bad, is supposed to be some kind of education, a kind and thoughtful reminder for me. I should therefore think of others as much as I think of myself. If I manage to curb my greed and selfishness, that's good for me. Allah says: "And whoso is saved from his own avarice - such are they who are successful." (59.9)

Have you ever seen a nest? Have you thought about it? If a man and a woman take care of their offspring, they may hope to benefit from them in their old age. But when a couple of swallows takes great pains to make a nest, and then takes pains to feed and protect their chiks, these will grow up and become fully fledged and fly away. Who will then pay back the parents for their kindness ? This is but a mercy from Allah. In the Hadith we read: "Allah divided Mercy into one hundred parts. He kept ninety nine parts with Him and sent down one part to the earth, and because of that, its one single part, His Creations are merciful to each other, so that even the mare lifts up its hoofs away from its baby animal, lest it should trample on it."

That's when I can give; what about when I am in need of help? Well, when you see a flock of swallows can you differenciate between them, can you tell who from who? Allah says: "There is not an animal in the earth, nor a flying creature flying on two wings, but they are peoples like unto you. We have neglected nothing in the Book (of Our decrees). Then unto their Lord they will be gathered." (6.38) Unless we use special cameras, we can't differenciate between them, but those swallows know one another, one way or another, and each knows its God. "Hast thou not seen that Allah, He it is Whom all who are in the heavens and the earth praise, and the birds in their flight? Of each He knoweth verily the worship and the praise; and Allah is Aware of what they do." (24.41) Likewise, when I get up in the middle of the night and go into the kitchen to get a glass of water, who is aware of that? If I pray to Allah in the middle of the night, who is aware of that? None but Allah, Who says: "Your Lord is Best Aware of what is in your minds. If ye are righteous, then lo! He was ever Forgiving unto those who turn (unto Him)." (17.25) "Those who avoid enormities of sin and abominations, save the unwilled offences - (for them) lo ! thy Lord is of vast mercy. He is Best Aware of you (from the time) when He created you from the earth, and when ye were hidden in the bellies of your mothers. Therefor ascribe not purity unto yourselves. He is Best Aware of him who wardeth off (evil)." (53.32) "And thou (Muhammad) art not occupied with any business and thou recitest not a Lecture from this (Scripture), and ye (mankind) perform no act, but We are Witness of you when ye are engaged therein. And not an atom's weight in the earth or in the sky escapeth your Lord, nor what is less than that or greater than that, but it is (written) in a clear Book." (10.61) "Ask pardon of your Lord and turn to Him repentant. He will cause you to enjoy a fair estate until a time appointed. He giveth His bounty unto every bountiful one." (11.3) Yes, one would say, but, still, that doesn’t answer the question! What about when I am in need of help?

Well, when I do something good I am establishing a direct connection with my Lord, with Allah Almighty. I show my care for Allah and He cares for me - even when, because of my seemingly unending woes, I get the feeling that Allah has forgotten all about me. The truth is nobody knows when salvation comes or what it will be like. Even prophets can't know. Allah says: "Till, when the messengers despaired and thought that they were denied, then came unto them Our help, and whom We would was saved." (12.110) Allah said that to His last Prophet! What about us, who are quick to fall into despair?

Trial is not easy. It's not easy to see people look down on you because you're jobless or single or sick or whatever. It's not easy to see people let you down in you hour of need. It's not easy to see all doors shut in your face. It's painful to see yourself like a wingless, tailless bird. It's not easy to feel lonely. But trial is not the same for all. As in the Hadith, a man said: "O Messenger of Allah! Which of the people is tried most severely?" He said: "The Prophets, then those nearest to them, then those nearest to them. A man is tried according to his religion; if he is firm in his religion, then his trials are more severe, and if he is frail in his religion, then he is tried according to the strength of his religion. The servant shall continue to be tried until he is left walking upon the earth without any sins." Also in the Hadith: "A believer does not receive (the trouble) of running a thorn or more than that but Allah elevates him in rank or effaces his sins because of that." Ibn Mas'ud, a companion of the Prophet (pbuh), reported: "I visited the Prophet (pbuh) when he was suffering fever. I said, ‘You seem to be suffering greatly, O Messenger of Allah.’ The Prophet (pbuh) replied, ‘Yes, I suffer as much as two persons.’ I said, ‘Is that because you have a double reward?’ He replied that that was so and then said, ‘No Muslim is afflicted by a harm, be it the pricking of a thorn or something more (painful than that), but Allah thereby causes his sins to fall away just as a tree sheds its leaves’"

Allah does not try anybody except for a purpose that He alone knows. Trial (by ordeal) means loss and suffering. But does misfortune only happen to strong believers? What about ordinary people, believers or non-believers, who are struck by flooding, drought, fires, war, epidemic, unemployment, inflation...?

In the Quran we read: "If ye are suffering, lo! they suffer even as ye suffer and ye hope from Allah that for which they cannot hope. Allah is ever Knower, Wise." (4.104) "Do men imagine that they will be left (at ease) because they say, We believe, and will not be tested with affliction? Lo! We tested those who were before you. Thus Allah knoweth those who are sincere, and knoweth those who feign." (29.2-3) "If ye have received a blow, the (disbelieving) people have received a blow the like thereof. These are (only) the vicissitudes which We cause to follow one another for mankind, to the end that Allah may know those who believe and may choose witnesses from among you; and Allah loveth not wrong-doers." (3.140) "What concern hath Allah for your punishment if ye are thankful (for His mercies) and believe (in Him)? Allah was ever Responsive, Aware." (4.147)

It is this hope (of obtaining Allah's love and pleasure) that one should treasure. Allah reminds the faithful that "…the mercy of thy Lord is better than (the wealth) that they amass." (43.32) "This life of the world is but a pastime and a game. Lo! the home of the Hereafter - that is Life, if they but knew." (29.64) That's for believers only. Even if I had everything I wanted my happiness wouldn't or shouldn't be total in a world where I am not alone, where there are millions of homeless people, of orphans, of single mothers without income...

Besides, trial has a prize. When you pass a test, you win - eventually - both the life of the world and that of the Hereafter. If I don't care about the Hereafter, if I only want social success and happiness and joy and eternal fun here and now, why should Allah care about me?

Allah says: "Say: Who hath forbidden the adornment of Allah which He hath brought forth for His bondmen, and the good things of His providing? Say: Such, on the Day of Resurrection, will be only for those who believed during the life of the world. Thus do we detail Our revelations for people who have knowledge." (7.32) "So Allah gave them the reward of the world and the good reward of the Hereafter. Allah loveth those whose deeds are good." (3.148)

This is preaching, yes. But the fact is that even those who don't believe in the Hereafter are not really so sure what may become of them after death.

Even if the ice-cream seller does not see you, you can't just take the ice-cream and go away. He gives you what you want, you give him his due. Even if Allah did not ask of us anything at all, we should still be grateful to Him for all He gives us. "See ye not how Allah hath made serviceable unto you whatsoever is in the skies and whatsoever is in the earth and hath loaded you with His favours both without and within?" (31.20)

How many people know of the Mississipi river? How many people know the tributaries that feed into the Mississipi, the Amazon or the Nile rivers? Most people either don't know or don't care. But Allah does know and does care. "Not a leaf falleth but He knoweth it, not a grain amid the darkness of the earth, naught of wet or dry but (it is noted) in a clear record." (6.59) Well, tell that to the experts who say they are worried that Data storage is becoming increasingly challenging due to Internet expansion.

Many may imagine the past and the future, but imagination is not equal to the truth. Allah says, for example: "Assuredly conjecture can by no means take the place of truth." (10.36) Allah not only "imagines", He knows. While writing a novel, for example, a novelist may forget a detail. He may forget that a character had a horse, a hat or a phone call. But Allah does not forget anything. "...and thy Lord was never forgetful." (19.64) "My Lord neither erreth nor forgetteth." (20.52) "And not an atom's weight in the earth or in the sky escapeth your Lord, nor what is less than that or greater than that, but it is (written) in a clear Book." (10.61)

Humans may never know the guy who started that devastating forest fire or the greedy guys who contributed to drought in one place because of savage deforestation and illegal logging. Allah knows them all. "Deem not that Allah is unaware of what the wicked do. He but giveth them a respite till a day when eyes will stare (in terror)." (14.42) The state may not know all the citizens who are in need of urgent assistance. Allah knows them all. He says: " (Alms are) for the poor who are straitened for the cause of Allah, who cannot travel in the land (for trade). The unthinking man accounteth them wealthy because of their restraint. Thou shalt know them by their mark: They do not beg of men with importunity. And whatsoever good thing ye spend, lo! Allah knoweth it." (2.273) "And let not thy hand be chained to thy neck nor open it with a complete opening, lest thou sit down rebuked, denuded. Lo! thy Lord enlargeth the provision for whom He will, and straiteneth (it for whom He will). Lo, He was ever Knower, Seer of His slaves." (17. 29-30)

Before asking why Allah does not come to the rescue of those in urgent need, one should ask: why does Allah bother to reckon every leaf that falls, every grain amid the darkness of the earth, every wet or dry in a place where nobody goes, where life is impossible? We may comprehend why Allah reckons our slightest thoughts and deeds. He says: "… each soul requited that which it hath earned; no wrong (is done) this day. Lo ! Allah is swift at reckoning." (40.17) "And He forgiveth much." (42.30) But which book can hold all this unimaginable amount of information about people, animals, plants, rivers, mountains, deserts, glaciers, clouds, crops, livelihoods -to speak only of our planet earth....? Which intelligence can process all this data? "Lo! Allah is swift at reckoning." (14.51) "Hast thou not known that Allah knoweth all that is in the heaven and the earth? Lo ! it is in a record. Lo! that is easy for Allah." (22.70)

And why all that? One probable reason is that this data is part of Allah's bounty, Allah "Who created the heavens and the earth, and causeth water to descend from the sky, thereby producing fruits as food for you, and maketh the ships to be of service unto you, that they may run upon the sea at His command, and hath made of service unto you the rivers; And maketh the sun and the moon, constant in their courses, to be of service unto you, and hath made of service unto you the night and the day. And He giveth you of all ye ask of Him, and if ye would count the bounty of Allah ye cannot reckon it. Lo! man is verily a wrong-doer, an ingrate." (14.32-34)

When I think about this I ask myself: hey, if Allah cares so much about so much, about so many, my humble person included, how can't I care about Him? With what face shall I return to Allah if He is not pleased with me? Will He be glad I returned to Him? Will He be happy to see me again? In the Quran I read: "Those are they who disbelieve in the revelations of their Lord and in the meeting with Him. Therefor their works are vain, and on the Day of Resurrection We assign no weight to them." (18.105) "Allah will neither speak to them nor look upon them on the Day of Resurrection, nor will He make them grow..." (3.77) Shouldn't I care for Allah NOW so that He'll care for me THEN? Allah says: "They forget Allah, so He hath forgotten them." (9.67) "He will say: So (it must be). Our revelations came unto thee but thou didst forget them. In like manner thou art forgotten this Day." (20.126) If I like a song, for example, I may be tempted to repeat it all day long, but what about Allah, who says: "Therefore remember Me, I will remember you. Give thanks to Me, and reject not Me." (2.152) "And be not ye as those who forgot Allah, therefor He caused them to forget their souls." (59.19) "And when ye have completed your devotions, then remember Allah as ye remember your fathers or with a more lively remembrance." (2.200) "Such as remember Allah, standing, sitting, and reclining, and consider the creation of the heavens and the earth, (and say) : Our Lord! Thou createdst not this in vain. Glory be to Thee!" (3.191)

When we are being tried with ordeal we think right away of the way out. But trial is, paradoxically, in man's best interest. It's meant to open our eyes to the Truth of our existence in this world. That's why Allah says: "And if Allah were to enlarge the provision for His slaves they would surely rebel in the earth, but He sendeth down by measure as He willeth. Lo! He is Informed, a Seer of His bondmen." (42.27) In other words, Allah wants to save us from our lusts and illusions. He says: "Is he who relieth on a clear proof from his Lord like those for whom the evil that they do is beautified while they follow their own lusts?" (47.14)

One may ask: if Allah is so "adamant" about justice and fairness, why does He make people so different from each other in terms of colour, physical health and shape, material living conditions, etc., etc.? Yes, it's Allah Who is behind these differences. He says: "See how We prefer one of them above another, and verily the Hereafter will be greater in degrees and greater in preferment." (17.21) The differences are there, if not in the life of the world, then it'll be there in the Hereafer. So would you tolerate these differences in this world (which are only temporary) or those in the Hereafter (which are everlasting)? If you think about it a little more objectively, you will wonder whether these worldly differences are not really the best proof, the clearest evidence, that there is actually a life after death and that all our differences here are only a trial for each and every one of us.

Allah did not make me poor or weak to make others revel in my misery, but for you, when Allah gives you the means, to help me in a dignified way as a fellow human being with a human soul like you. By doing so you are expressing gratitude towards Allah and solidarity towards humankind. Of course, Allah could help me directly, He could have put you in my place, but what makes you a human if you don't help me? What makes me a human if I don't help you were you in my place? Would I say: "Shall we feed those whom Allah, if He willed, would feed?" (36.47)

Yet, one is not supposed to be “angelic”. An individual has his part of the job, the state/community has its own. Even if you have the means to help everybody around you, you are not supposed to give away all your money to people, that's not your job and your money is not entirely yours. You just do what you can, you just show your humanity. Allah says: "And let not thy hand be chained to thy neck nor open it with a complete opening, lest thou sit down rebuked, denuded. Lo! thy Lord enlargeth the provision for whom He will, and straiteneth (it for whom He will). Lo, He was ever Knower, Seer of His slaves." (17.29-30) "And those who, when they spend, are neither prodigal nor grudging; and there is ever a firm station between the two." (25.67) Just be a human, treating the needy humanely. That’s all the point.

The Covid pandemic showed how many rich states have asked for some kind of help, and nobody, me first, sees any kind of disgrace in that. "O mankind! Ye are the poor in your relation to Allah. And Allah! He is the Absolute, the Owner of Praise." (35.15)

Human solidarity, both on the individual and collective levels, makes humans beautiful; it spreads love amongst honest mankind. In Argentina, for example, many people swapped goods or services during the economic crisis. This is fabulous. The crisis may go, but good memories abide, stay with one for life. In Gruissan, a French fishing village, the fishermen established kind of a court to share the fishing zones in a fair way and they record everything concerning their fishing activities in special records, some several centuries old. This is amazing, and it's all human. In Morocco, too, we had a somewhat similar system for sharing water in the old medinas. Some kind people collect the unused food from restaurants and hotels, instead of letting it be thrown away, and use it to feed people in need. Others make great efforts to reduce plastic and other ocean and river pollution... In short, I can't enumerate all good work done by so many people around the world. All this is human and all this is wonderful! Even during wartime you have health personnel who risk their lives in order to save people from danger. You also have many people who donate money or whatever to care for animals. As I said, Allah is great and wants man to be great too. Throughout Islamic history, many Muslims understood this perfectly well. There has always been the Waqf institution, which collects donations from voluntary donors and spends it, according to each donor's wishes, on schooling, bridge/road/water well projects, etc. The State itself is a form of solidarity in the sense that it collects taxes and so on and spends them as necessary. When a town is leveled by an earthquake or a tornado both poor and rich are affected. Not all rich people have private jets. Many need roads and bridges and schools for their children, and the state is there for help. But the state can't do everything. Calamities may be a (hard) way to remind man of this fact.

Thankfully, my state can give me Food Stamps, unemployment benefits or any kind of assistance as a compensation for job loss, etc. What if I lost my life to something like a hurricane or flash floods, etc. ? Allan can give me another life after death. No state can do that. Many people are grateful just because they survived a disaster. In the Quran we read: "Bethink thee of him who had an argument with Abraham about his Lord, because Allah had given him the kingdom; how, when Abraham said: My Lord is He Who giveth life and causeth death, he answered: I give life and cause death. Abraham said: Lo! Allah causeth the sun to rise in the East, so do thou cause it to come up from the West. Thus was the disbeliever abashed. And Allah guideth not wrongdoing folk." (2.258) We also read this: "Is it they who apportion thy Lord's mercy? We have apportioned among them their livelihood in the life of the world, and raised some of them above others in rank that some of them may take labour from others; and the mercy of thy Lord is better than (the wealth) that they amass." (43.32) "This life of the world is but a pastime and a game. Lo! the home of the Hereafter - that is Life, if they but knew." (29.64) "That which ye have wasteth away, and that which Allah hath remaineth. And verily We shall pay those who are steadfast a recompense in proportion to the best of what they used to do." (16.96) "Knowest thou not that it is Allah unto Whom belongeth the Sovereignty of the heavens and the earth; and ye have not, beside Allah, any guardian or helper?" (2.107) "Allah is able to do all things." (18.45)"...and He maketh none to share in His government." (18.26) "As for these similitudes, We coin them for mankind, but none will grasp their meaning save the wise." (29.43)

Why does one read stuff like this? The best explanation can't convince everybody. The mind may be strong, the heart may be strong, but the psyche loses its strength, abruptly or gradually, in the absence of material or moral support; so the nafs ammara revolts against the nafs lawama, and it may take some time before the soul is soothed. Sometimes it takes very little for the soul to be calmed down if the mind is already prepared. Hence the importance of Quran reading. Sooner or later the Quran, if read correctly, does help to allay one's fears of unemployment, illness, loss... In the Quran we read: "...and will give them in exchange safety after their fear." (24.55)

So who should I lean on? By the way, during the reign of Caliph Umar (584-644) and some other Muslim leaders, Muslims and non-Muslims alike were entitled to state assistance. This was based on genuine Islamic principles, and did not depend on the goodwill of the leaders. It's only a question of state funds availability. It's public money. It is the duty of the State, when it can afford it, to help the needy, not a favour from the top leader. Very few leaders would give out of their own pockets. It may be an unfair move towards future generations if my state borrows excessively in order to help me without making sure it can repay it in the foreseeable future. Recent statistics show that public debt levels have never been so high since WWII. In many states around the world many people can't even get their monthly salaries or retirement pensions on time and many businesses go bankrupt because they are overwhelmed by state payment delays. Similarly, if Allah exhorts the faithful to help each other in a dignified way through zakat and alms, even in normal times and when the state's coffers are full, it's because, philosophically speaking, the only difference between the haves and the have-nots is that Allah gives the haves directly and the have-nots indirectly, through the haves. Allah gives me my salary through my boss. So, for this matter, I give thanks to Allah, not to my boss or whatever. I thank humans when they do good to me for the good they do to me “by Allah’s leave”, but I believe that it’s all from Allah. I vote for the person who did good to my community, because it is only natural to like and encourage people who do good. The problem is, when each and every time I have a problem I turn to the government/state for help. I could get the help I want, but the risk is that my Iman (faith) could weaken over time due to this dependence on the state. And then, every state has anything but unlimited means. If each government that comes starts spending with all its might, to ensure social peace or for any other reason, this could lead to socio-economic and even political disasters. Hyperinflation, default… all this comes from that. And then I may need Allah’s help, with illness, a loss, etc. After all, life is a feeling, it’s not all about money. "Lo! Allah! He it is that giveth livelihood, the Lord of unbreakable might." (51.58) "Whoso desireth the reward of the world, (let him know that) with Allah is the reward of the world and the Hereafter. Allah is ever Hearer, Seer." (4.134) "No soul can ever die except by Allah's leave and at a term appointed. Whoso desireth the reward of the world, We bestow on him thereof; and whoso desireth the reward of the Hereafter, We bestow on him thereof. We shall reward the thankful." (3.145)

My Testimony

samedi 29 mars 2025

My Testimony II

My Testimony I

LAGOUADER'S SPACE

jeudi 7 mars 2024

My Testimony I