Signs of the Times

On a cosmic scale there is the ongoing new creation in every moment of time. We as human beings imagine continuity - almost stabilty in creation, but in reality every moment in time all of creation is newly created, by the grace of Allah, the sole Creator of everything.

What we are seeing today are great changes and upheavels on a global scale. This is because all countries, cultures and people are more interconnected than ever, so any changes or imbalances will reflect on the rest in due time.

Regarding the rise and fall of countries, even of whole civilizations, there has to be one coming up, another going down. Important is how this ’coming up’ or rising of a civilization, or of a single powerful country is managed (f ex colonialism), and how the stepping down is mitigated and handled.

Governments have to act with justice and truth, otherwise everyone will be losing out in the world of tribulations (al-fitan).

Islam does not blame the rich for being rich, nor does it encourage the poor or downtrodden to take what is not theirs, but each has to take responsibility for what he has been given, little or more. The rich and better-off are encouraged and even commanded to give from what in reality belongs to Allah (may His Majesty be exalted!)

In the grand scheme of universal laws there is the law of equity and justice (`adl), and if justice is not served, for example because of the greediness of the rich or their lust for power, then those countries will not prosper.

The prophets of Allah (God) - upon them be peace - were sent with the message of truth, justice, mercy and love and it is our task to revive these essential aspects for a the felicity of man and woman and for a flourishing society at large.

Crisis was not always linked with conquest and falling blades. Its arrival was sometimes more subtle and insidious like the Black Death of the 14th century. The historian Ibn Khaldun (d.808/1406), living in the aftermath of this devastating plague, reports the deleterious effects that it had upon those who suffered through it:

”In the middle of the eighth century AH (14th AD), civilization both in the East and the West was visited by a destructive plague which devastated nations and caused populations to vanish. It swallowed up many of the good things of civilization and wiped them out. …
Civilization decreased with the decrease of mankind. Cities and buildings were laid waste, roads and way signs were obliterated, settlements and mansions became empty, dynasties and tribes grew weak. The entire inhabited world changed.… It was as if the voice of existence in the world had called out for oblivion and restriction, and the word had responded to its call. God inherits the earth and all who dwell upon it.”

In every generation and in every age, the present moment has seemed imperiled and unprecedented. Many who have come before us have trembled with anxiety and concerns similar to our own. Wherever we are and whenever we are, that terrible sense of crisis persists.

The crisis that we face now, then, is merely an iteration of history. As the preceding testimonies bring to light, terribleness has visited humankind in generations past. It visits with great regularity and ease. It is as if we have never been without it. Did the tribulations of the prophets, the civil strife that wrecked the early Muslim community, the martyrdom of Imam Husayn, the foreboding feeling of religious decline, the periodic tide of violence, death, and disease feel any less imposing, devastating, or irreparable than the perils of the modern word do for us now? Those who face crisis in the past felt just as viscerally as we do in the present…