Violation of Reason

Nature’s reservoir of water has a certain salt content. But nature separates the water content from the salt content and thus makes the water useful for man and agriculture. This is true of all other things. Everything around us, big or small, has material content as well as spiritual content. We have to dematerialize these things in order to extract the spiritual content. And then we take the spiritual content as our food for tazkiya.

Everyone should learn the art of dematerialization; everyone must learn the art of extracting the spiritual content from the material content. Only through this process can we develop our faith.

Water is our physical food, but physical food is not enough. At the same time we need spiritual food. And the way to have that spiritual food is to separate it from the dross of material things, just as salt is separated from sea water to give us fresh water.

We receive water by a natural process, but spiritual food can only be obtained through an intellectual process. Without this process, we will certainly face spiritual starvation and finally spiritual death.

For example, everyone can speak. Yet the verbal exchange of dialogue is a rare phenomenon peculiar to human beings: no other creature of this world shares this capacity with us. Speech apparently is a physical phenomenon, but it also has spiritual content, in that it reminds us of the special blessing we have been endowed with by God.

And this discovery enables us to acknowledge God in elevated language—something that cannot be done by any other creature in the physical world.

This Quranic verse refers to a situation when, in a society, some of its members are involved in corruption, while others remain silent and become indifferent. If this situation persists for long, the law of nature inflicts punishment upon that society. But this punishment is not only confined to those who are directly involved in corruption, but covers the whole of society because, if some members have been directly involved in the corruption, others, on account of their silence, have been indirectly involved.

In social matters, justice and human rights are not the criteria: in such matters practical wisdom has to be taken into consideration. Often pragmatism has to be the deciding factor.

This law also covers those situations in which some are engaged in violence against others, while the rest of society’s members have chosen to remain detached. But when reaction comes from the afflicted party, it affects the whole of society and not just those who were directly engaged in violence. So, in every situation, people must look to the result of their actions. Citing atrocities by the other party does not justify retaliatory action against ‘enemies’. It is certain that the other party will react after your action, so you have to keep your patience, instead of initiating such action, which, rather than solve any problems, will only create more.

This precedent narrated by the Quran gives us a very important principle. Sometimes you have to adjust to the situation, even if it seems that it is in violation of human rights.

In social matters, justice and human rights are not the criteria: in such matters practical wisdom has to be taken into consideration. Often pragmatism has to be the deciding factor.

If you organize a group protest in the streets and some member of your group throw stones at the police, it is but natural that if the police are armed, they will open fire in retaliation. In such a situation it is not possible for the bullets to hit only those who had thrown stones, leaving the others unscathed. They will hit all of your group members, even if they were silent protesters.

In such a situation, it is futile to say that this was a violation of human rights. It was, in fact, a violation of reason rather than human rights. You are paying the price of your own unwise policy. So, blame yourself and not others.