Incoherence In Thoughts

The incoherence (disorganization) of thoughts I come across on a daily basis. Happened to be in a gathering of the graduates of one of the prominent madrasaahs in India recently. There was a guest from among the alumni of the same Institution. He addressed the graduates (‘Ulama) present on the occasion. I noticed a few things during the discussions and wondered a lot. It was delighting to know that the guest speaker talked about the ecological condition of the world and the issues like global warming. Based on some newspaper reports he concluded that there isn’t much time left.

The conclusion surprised me. The speaker gave an impression that now nothing can be done about it and we should get ready to depart. This is fine, too. We should always be ready for that. What surprised me even more was the ‘mood of resignation’. This is one of those examples which provoke me to think that we learn wrong lessons from right stories.

Another thing that the speaker stressed upon was the working hours which the graduates of the specific institution were devoting to earn their living. He gave an impression as if living in a foreign land wasn’t an ideal situation and one might regret later for not doing the ‘right thing’. He also reminded them that one day they will have to leave the country (as if in India they will live forever). Later, I asked if these residents of the UAE could practise Islam during the work hours, too, or not he agreed that yes they could.

I see the same incoherence on our Internet Forums. Sometimes, I see the posts by the same persons contradicting their own messages earlier. While writing one message we forget about what we wrote previously. Hence, we end up opposing and supporting the same thing. What is the problem in this? It amounts to wasting our energies and time. It is undoing of ourselves. It is a serious ailment that we are living with.

I have noticed that the traditionally and modern educated both have incoherence in their thoughts. They both haven’t stacked their ideas in shelves in an organized manner. Hence, both of them say self-contradictory things. And we remain in our journey where we have been.

What can help us in this situation? We need to take the Book as the Criterion (al-Furqaan). At the moment it is the last reference. We don’t give much thought to our own treatment of this Book. Despite our repeated recitations and memorization ‘The Messenger will say, “O my Lord, my people did indeed discard Qur’an (or took it for just foolish nonsense).” (al-Furqaan, 25: 30)

Again we could learn a wrong lesson from this verse. We could ‘resign’ here taking the fatalistic understanding of this verse. Alternatively, we should look at the fact that we do seek medical advice and treatment despite the fact that “Every soul shall have a taste of death: in the end to Us shall you be brought back”. (al-‘ankaboot, 29: 57) Let us not forget that we don’t have the freedom to run away from our freedom.

In conclusion, we have to identify the gaps in our thinking and aim at “developing a coherent body of ideas” as one of the supreme objectives of education besides “creatively reaching out to the unknown”. Let us address this problem and we have moved one step ahead in our long and arduous (but extremely desired) journey. There is no short-cut.
Dr.Wasim