Embracing the universal concept of humanity as advocated by the Holy Qur'an is the panacea for all the ills of the contemporary society, according to a well-known Indian Muslim poet and academic. Speaking to Saudi Gazette, K.T. Sooppy, who was here to perform Umrah recently, said that the Qur'an presents a concrete vision while addressing the human mind through imageries of universal signs. This kind of consciousness is the need of the hour to counter the growing extremist and sectarian tendencies. “Due to sectarian considerations, frame of this universal message has become rigid, and unfortunately a vast majority of the mankind has been deprived of the broad outlook presented by Qur'an,” he said.
A believer who understands the essence of the universal message of the Qur'an in the proper way cannot be narrow-minded and sectarian. On the other hand, he would have much broader and universal outlook and mindset that enables him to accommodate all others having peaceful coexistence in a pluralist society like that of India where 1.25 billion people belonging to various faiths live together,” Sooppy said.
Inspired by the universal message advocated by the Qur'an, Sooppy, who hails from the southern Indian state of Kerala, has written several poems. He is widely known as the one who introduced Islamic mysticism in Malayalam poetry. He has made serious attempts to portray Islam's broad canvas in poetry. His realization is that there is not any ideology as revolutionary as Islam in the world. He made elaborate and deep studies in Islamic mysticism and used it diligently in poetry. Sooppy studied Arabic and has read Arabic and Persian poetry widely for this purpose.
He has to his credit four anthologies of poems. They are Ninakku (For you), Vachanam (The word), Veezhunna Orilayil (On a falling leaf), and Oru Poovu (A flower). Sooppy also translated Martin Lings' bestseller biography on the Prophet (peace be upon him). “Muhammad: His life based on the earliest sources.” He also translated an anthology called ‘Arab Andalusian Poems' that contains the works of 36 renowned Andalusian Muslim poets of 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries, and a study of Jalaluddin Rumi called ‘The Sky of Rumi'. Sooppy has read Qur'an extensively, especially its imageries and was highly fascinated by its amazing poetic beauty. His endeavor toward comparative study of literatures led him to be enthralled by the beauty of the Qur'an. “If we analyze the Qur'an closely, we can see that it explains four types of people based on the levels of human mind –unbeliever (kafir), polytheist (mushrik), hypocrite (munafiq) and believer (mu'min). These represent different mentalities in the human nature. One who is with a dominant kufr mentality is a kafir,” he said.
“The Qur'an enables transformation from nifaq (hypocrisy) or kufr (unbelief) or shirk (polytheism) to iman (belief). When the Poet of the East Allama Iqbal was asked about the main mission of the Qur'an, in his famous book ‘Reconstruction of religious thoughts in Islam,' he said that it was to create a universal consciousness, or, in another sense, communicating a concrete vision to the human mind through presenting universal signs (that ultimately lead to oneness of God). This kind of consciousness is imperative for the mankind at present.”
If we read the Qur'an in this perspective, we will get an entirely different vision, says Sooppy. The Qur'an presents sublime values underlying in virtues. In the absence of embracing such values, even our virtues lose their true spirit and essence. Nowadays, good things are being done for wrong reasons. Charity work is an example. Some people engage in charity work or donate valuables for publicity or getting popularity in society or for having any other material gains. But if they embrace the true spirit, it will connect them with God because the essence of charity emanates from the passionate love of God. Those who have such a spirit will spend their wealth with a firm belief of seeking Almighty Allah's pleasure and reward, and not motivated by any selfish or vested interests. The poet underscored the need for recapturing the huge canvas of charity and love of fellow beings as unveiled by the Qur'an.
Martin Lings in his book portrayed several such imageries from the Qur'an as well as from the life of the Prophet (PBUH). During the Conquest of Makkah, while marching to the holy city, the Prophet (PBUH) and his companions saw a female dog nursing her puppies. While seeing this, the Prophet (PBUH) instructed one of his close companions to give protection to them until all his companions pass through them.
It is the need of the hour to restore such a wide meaning of Islam's charity and mercy. “We have to present strongly the concepts of ihsan (doing beautiful things), jalalat (divine grandeur and majesty), and jamaliyat (beauty) presented by the Qur'an in the contemporary world, Sooppy emphasized. “What prompted me to write poems after taking inspiration from the Qur'an were these basic concepts. In Islam, ihsan constitutes the highest form of worship and it is excellence in work and in social interactions. Ihsan is a matter of taking one's inner faith (iman) and showing it in both word and deed, a sense of social responsibility borne out of religious convictions. It is the responsibility to obtain perfection or excellence in worship, such that believers try to worship God as if they see Him, and although they cannot see Him they undoubtedly believe that He is constantly watching over them. It is also some sort of divine awareness. We can recreate lofty values like justice, love, compassion and empathy from the stream of jalalat and reset goodness and truth from jamaliyat. Ihsan is the flower from the plants of jalalat and jamaliat. Its fragrance is lofty values.
According to Sooppy, there is a super blending of these three concepts through symbolic imageries narrated in the 35th verse of Surah Al-Nur in the Holy Qur'an, which says: “Allah is the Light of the heavens and the earth. The example of His light is like a niche within which is a lamp, the lamp is within glass, the glass as if it were a pearly (white) star lit from (the oil of) a blessed olive tree, neither of the east nor of the west, whose oil would almost glow even if untouched by fire. Light upon light. Allah guides to His light whom He wills. And Allah presents examples for the people, and Allah is Knowing of all things.”
The academic also emphasized that the awareness created out of this blending should be the basic philosophy of our education and self-development literature. We have to develop a format of Qur'anic studies while inculcating values as part of educational frame. This can be made possible through story-telling, poetry, music, and various other forms of arts.
World renowned Muslim historian Ibn Khaldun framed his philosophy in the shade of jalalat and jamaliyat. Even Western philosophers and proponents of self-development literature took this Islamic concept and framed it in the Western milieu. They deliberately reject jalalat because of its divine element as they were not ready to acknowledge the oneness of God. Ibn Khaldun said there are several phenomena in life that are beyond our wisdom or intellect. He cited a beautiful example. Wisdom is like a balance that we use to weigh gold but if we try to weigh a mountain with it, then it will collapse. Like this, divinity, prophethood etc. cannot be weighed with the balance of wisdom.
These basic concepts fascinated several great Muslim mystic poets and towering intellectuals mainly in the Arab and Persian languages like Rabiatul Adawiyah, Jalaluddin Rumi, Tariq Ramadan, Abdolkarim Soroush and Abu ?amid bin Abu Bakr Ibrahim, better known by pseudonym A??ar. The essence of their works was ihsan, jalalat and jamaliyat. Rumi's Masnavi, and Diwan-e-Shams-e Tabrizi are its best examples. The best illustration of Allah's attribute of ‘Rahman' is possible only within the frame of jalalat and jamaliyat. This was done marvelously by Abu Hamid Mu?ammad ibn Mu?ammad al-Ghazali, known as Imam Al-Ghazali, as well as Rumi, and Adawiyah.
Surah Fajr is another example of the super blending of Allah's jalalat and jamaliyat. There are three marvelous phases for this chapter – a wonderful beginning, a torrential and stormy middle, and a super flow in the last part. Sooppy said his latest anthology, titled Veezhunna Orilayil, had its inspiration from the verse in Surah Al-An'am which reads as “And not falls any leaf but He knows it.”
There are 99 beautiful names of Allah and they are known as Al-Asmaul Husna. These divine attributes shall be a hub for religious studies. Their frame of reference shall be basis for education. The Qur'an shall be read, keeping in mind of this perspective. The revelation of the Qur'an started with Iqra or read (in the name of God). Here God's name implies Al-Asmaul Husna. The depth of the Qur'an cannot be fathomed and communicated until reading it through this pattern. During the periods of Imam Al-Gazali, Ibn Khaldun and Hassan Al-Basari, there had been an educational pattern of reading the Qur'an through the concept of Al-Asmaul Husna. We have missed it sometime back in history, Sooppy said.
Great scholars like Ibn Hazm had carried comparative religious studies and cultural studies under this basic frame during their period. Ibn Khaldun's Ilm Al-Umran (urban science) was developed in this frame. So we have to regain our great tradition through a rescheduling in the Qur'an reading in this perspective. The trend of ‘Back to nature' is popular at present. This educational frame, coined by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, is basically the Qur'anic frame. We have to connect this to the frame of Al-Asmaul Husna, then the frame of education shall have massive ramifications and global canvas. Community and academic leaders shall be given proper orientation in this regard, he said while blaming some Muslim sects for narrowing Islam's broad concepts into their own rigid frames.
In Surah Rum, there is a repetition of words Wamin Ayathihi (which means of His signs that) several times. These words were repeated in verses starting with: “And of His signs is that He created you from dust; then, suddenly you were human beings dispersing (throughout the earth). And of His signs is that He created for you from yourselves mates that you may find tranquility in them; and He placed between you affection and mercy. Indeed in that are signs for a people who give thought. And of His signs is the creation of the heavens and the earth and the diversity of your languages and your colors. Indeed in that are signs for those of knowledge.” All aspects of biological and sociological evolutions are there in this frame. We can chalk out syllabi of even higher education with this vast canvas of jalalat and jamaliyat.
In the above verses, the Qur'an speaks of social life and social evolution. It deals with family life, basic values of affection and mercy, then about thinking capacity, which is the great outcome of education, then about creation of earth and heaven where comes physics, cosmology, astronomy and other sciences, then about languages... Going through this evolution, one who acquires universal awareness and develops a conscience is the real scholar, Sooppy said.
Hailing from Cherumoth in Nadapuram of Kozhikode district, Sooppy is holder of Master's degree in history. A secondary school teacher by profession, he is now doing his post-graduation research studies at University of Calicut and the title of research is “Paradigms of society, culture and knowledge: an inquiry into the epistemology of Ibn Khaldun. Apart from reciting poems and delivering lectures at numerous events, Sooppy also presented a research paper on the poetic elements in the Qur'an at an international seminar.
