The Duality of Identity

Embrace. Embrace.

Allow yourself to transcend out of the world of luxury and grandeur.

Exit this dimension and infiltrate the dimension of the frail and incapacitated. This is the true realm you have failed to transcend.

Do not hear their troubles, listen.

Do not simply observe their troubles, do.

Do not simply sympathize with their troubles, empathize.

“What do I see before me now?”, you claim. You have been ignorant.

This realm was never nonexistent, your capacity to discover it was.

Why do you surround yourself with such delicacies and wealthy, passionate desires? “I… have never known otherwise”. This observation of the meek, and frail has been transformed from simply a vision, to a responsibility.

“I am too deeply fond by material pleasures and desires. I cannot transcend that. It is as if a hook has reeled me, and I have lost the ability to break away.” Break away! Break away!

Why do you moan on about the acquisition of material gratification? When you are deceased what will you take with you? Your material gratifications, and pleasures, or the satisfaction of leaving behind a legacy of providing the notion of happiness to one other individual? We are all bounded to this material world by chains of superficial wealth dressed in the garments of happiness. When will you learn the deceit wealth has given you?

When will you learn to strip away the artificial satisfaction from the mouth of this ill-minded animal? When will you learn to break away? “Perhaps tomorrow… yes, tomorrow, I will undertake this deed; this task you have granted me”. Tomorrow, you say? What a poisonous word! Tomorrow gives the impression of a future, but as it arrives the next day that “tomorrow” becomes your “today”.

Then what task will you accomplish? The more you row towards the end of the river, the further away it becomes. No matter how much Gatsby wanted to reunite with the green light at his dock, his reach never yielded far enough. What if tomorrow never arrives? What if today is the single, last day you have to make a change?

Perhaps your alarm failed to ring, and God decided to not shake you awake, and rather let you rest. One life, my friend, one life has been allotted to each of us. Make use of it.

Tomorrow never arrives, my dear friend. Change must be in the present moment. “But…how? How much can one individual’s hands actually do? Nothing more than to materialize physical objects? How do you suppose that will make a difference? Perhaps the difference is beyond the capacity of simply an object.

Perhaps…the presence of love.

“Love, you say? You fool! Now I understand that you are actually in the dimension of those whose “heart” guides their pens as they write, guides their mouths as the speak, guides their hands as they touch.

You, my dear, are ignorant to the realities of life. What will love do for the suffering, absolutely nothing measurable, my dear. Nothing can come from the false connotation of love.” Ah, my dear friend, you misunderstand.

You claim love be only that which you fail to understand.

You fail to understand the power of that poet’s pen when love is the ink.

You fail to understand the power of one when love becomes the breath with which they breathe.

You fail to understand the gracefulness of the touch, when love is within the hands’ very pulse. It manifest into nothing, you claim? Reassess. Love may not create direct physical change for the meek, but it creates a stimulus.

A stimulus which can not be intervened. That stimulus is hope.

Hope, my friend, hope. With your fortunate status, you have been bestowed the responsibility of rekindling the power of hope to those whose fingers are too weak to do so.

Whose eyes are too weak to see the brightness of the light.

Whose feet tremble every time they try to stand. You have been given the gift of assistance towards others. Why do you search for its receipt? Rekindle the fire, my companion.

Hope, that is the one force to amount of wealth can ever transcend.

Explanation: Being a Muslim is not an easy identifier to carry with me. In fact, due to recent political debates, as well as terrorist attacks, my Muslim identity often begins to hide in the shadows.A recent speech by His Highness Prince Karim Aga Khan directly mentioned this threat of identity by claiming that “ commitments to “identity” can turn poisonous when they are dominated by bad memories, steeped in grievance and resentment. The marginalization of peoples can then become a malignant process, as people define themselves by what they are against. The question of “who am I?” is quickly transformed into “who is my enemy?” Therefore, I believe in order to alter the viewpoint of society, it is the combined effort of all the members of society to come together and create a more pluralistic society that embodies a cosmopolitan principle. I believe that in order to create a more pluralistic society, the notion of acceptance of diversity must be present. However, many people display abhorrence towards Islam and I think it is simply because they are not knowledgeable enough to form their own conceptions. While making judgements, people often show their ignorance by formulating uniformed assumptions. The Quran states, “We are all born from the same soul”. In essence, we are all from the same source, but it is a beautiful idea that we are all so diverse, yet internally the same. However, it is also the attitude with which individuals may approach this that also plays a key role. Rather than looking upon the differences between two people with a sense of incompatibility, these very differences are the ones that must be celebrated. The poem above depicts an individual who is blinded by material happiness, and the great gratification it gives him. However, he meets another individual who tells him to step out into reality, and stop being ignorant of the reality he has failed to acknowledge. This allows him to be more cognizant of the plight of the poor. Nonetheless, his approach to assist the meek and frail is with the intention of giving material objects. He then realizes that spreading his affection and tenderness towards those who are less fortunate would accomplish much more than simply providing blind happiness. Prophet Muhammad once said: “Be kind, for whenever kindness becomes part of something, it beautifies it. Whenever it is taken from something, it leaves it tarnished.” What does this verse emphasize? It shows that kindness is the underlying infrastructure for Islam, and it should be a constant element of every individual’s life. This poem demonstrates the ideology of ignorance versus the acquisition of knowledge. While some individuals in society choose to live lives of ignorance and base their knowledge of Islam on the influence of media, and television, others will try to step outside of the boundaries of false pretenses, and make an attempt to learn about the true peace Islam promotes. With this attempt to become more aware of the tranquility and essence of Islam, many will begin to spark the fire of ignorance with knowledge. As humans, we often try to imbibe certain objects with symbols, or attempt to define meaning to what we may not understand. But I believe that those who may misunderstand the essence of Islam must try to understand that the reality of Islam is within those individuals who allow tranquility and calmness to permeate their environment. As long as one individual believes in the true respect, and reverence that Islam promotes, that one individual acts as a beacon of hope. That hope then allows itself to manifest into a reality. Nonetheless, certain terror has been spread around the world with the name of Islam as justification. However, I believe that no matter how much backlash was shown after the Paris attacks, or Belgium attacks, or even 9/11, terrorist groups, such as ISIS, do not understand the true essence of Islam. Although the name of Islam now has a negative connotation around it for some members of society, terrorists groups do not define Islam because they take texts from the Quran into wrong contexts to back up their unjustifiable actions. Terror, rage, hatred, murder, abomination, abhorrence, these qualities do not define Islam, but rather they define the profound mistreatment of terrorist groups towards a religion of absolute beauty, divinity, and unrelenting peace. Question for thought: (Interestingly, this poem caused me to wonder whether an individual would prefer to live with blind happiness and ignorance towards the world, or live with the potential burden of the truth, but be knowledgeable about the world around them.)