I asked one of my children recently what did he think about the health of our planet, our home that belongs to all of humanity, that appears suspended in the heavens (skies) without any visible supports. I asked this child, born from myself and his mother as Allah Has made us to love and care for our offspring from our own bodies, what did he think was the health of our Earth, good or not good. He said “not good Daddy.”
This son of mine is honest and thoughtful, innocent and pure in his thoughts and intentions. He is impacted by the world in its present picture and condition, and though he does not yet have the full vocabulary to describe his alarmed sense for himself and his family, he knows by nature that the current affairs as they sit in the world are not what G’d approves. And he naturally associates that with the state of the earth itself. His natural expression in an innocent language says that the Earth’s condition is also Man’s condition. His nature tells him that the earth and man are symbols one to other. They are inextricably associated. The earth is the environment for man’s work, successes and failures.
Allah says in His Book (the Book revealed to a man of great personal and public dignity -Muhammed, the prayers and peace be on the finest human life and example of the universal excellence reachable by any and all humans if they want it) that a time will come that the earth itself will behave strangely. And human beings will be deeply troubled by it. He says: “وَقَالَ الْإِنْسَانُ مَا لَهَا“ (And mankind will say ‘What is her condition?’). In other words, “What is wrong with the earth?”
I will say too that mankind asks this question because of the way the human condition and human lives are directly affected. If what the earth displays didn’t have any bearing on the human mind and soul then no member in the human family would be sensitized to ask such a question. The question is asked because man’s soul (man’s true self) is created with a sensitivity for its environment and when his or that environmental condition is off its intended mark, perhaps untenable, then it registers in the psyche. I say yes, it is untenable. And the present, new reality is proactively replacing the old. It is an ancient understanding that the Earth is Man and man is the earth.
Natural awareness and sentiments are telling us, even demanding of us to acknowledge, that man’s condition is off the natural mark. Man’s leadership, in every nation, is off the natural mark. What mark? The mark of thoughtful remembrance of Lord-Creator Authority, and pride in natural human excellence -the purity of innocence and innocent intent and objectives, that our Lord-Creator Authorized for us. The dignity of man that is found in decency, that is, to want for the self what is in the best self and common interest, is not present as a driver for world leadership in this moment.
This is the present global condition of man and it is clear for any to see who can see with the eyes of the soul. Nations small and weak, and nations big and powerful, are in a deeply troubled state. The United States of America, arguably the most powerful nation in the history of mankind, has a leadership crisis of proportions not fathomed by its social scientists, except those of them keenly honest and sensitive to history and Divine Revelation. Man turns from his natural excellence and disasters lurk, both by his own hands and also by upheavals in the earth’s physical constitution. The earth is Man.
The small nation of Lebanon, the word itself coming from the Qur’an-Arabic term meaning ‘milk’, is one example of the troubling global condition of man’s leadership. Allah says:
وَأَنْهَارٌ مِنْ لَبَنٍ لَمْ يَتَغَيَّرْ طَعْمُهُ (And the rivers of milk, its taste unchanging…)
Milk, in its natural purity, is the purity of natural building agents aiming for the development of sensitivities to govern society properly. So it is for America and the sons of Muslim-American fathers - American and Muslim-American origins and structure. We are experiencing a corruption of that river. A period of the disastrous failure of responsibility to protect our populations due to excessive pride, ignorance, selfishness, and criminal neglect to plan and prepare spoils the purity of the structures.
The structures become empty, uninhabited and unfit to be habited. The pure milk has soured. Our Prophet, the prayers and the peace be on him associated milk with bones in a dream. Essential structures (the bones of human society) are weakened for lack of the building agent. What is more essential than brain and heart power, that make for the processes of intelligent sensitivities? And Allah says again in His Book:
قُلْ هُوَ الَّذِي أَنْشَأَكُمْ وَجَعَلَ لَكُمُ السَّمْعَ وَالْأَبْصَارَ
وَالْأَفْئِدَةَ ۖ قَلِيلًا مَا تَشْكُرُونَ
قُلْ هُوَ الَّذِي ذَرَأَكُمْ فِي الْأَرْضِ وَإِلَيْهِ تُحْشَرُونَ
“Say: He it is Who Originated you, and Gave you hearing and sight and sensitivities. Little are you thankful. Say: He it is Who multiplied you in the earth and to Him you will be gathered.”
The criminal neglect in Lebanon does not shame the just struggle of the innocent there. The innocent urge in babies to feed on the healthy river of milk is a Sign that there are also repairing agents in its constitution. The Palestinian Determination is not shamed while governments in Israel and The Emirates broker sophisticated deals. I will not speak with any more detail than this except to say that innocence is the requirement for the just peace. Abraham’s interest, the peace be on him, was the dignity of man under the One G’d’s Authority and what He Authorized as human dignity.
We Muslim-Americans are not from the tradition of political language chicanery. We are from the tradition of straight language and the removal of burdens in symbolic language. Your deal would not be recognized by Abraham the Prophet of G’d. Natural human rights include the dignity of home and Homelands. Homelands promise access to the river of milk, and all of the sacred Rivers and their essential properties.
We do not and will not think of ourselves as babies. We have teeth, and not milk teeth. However, we do want innocence and purity that qualify us for use of the building agents. We slaughter meekness in order to feed the needy. We are no lambs for the powerful or selfish to slaughter us. We will not be slaughtered by those who offer us a babies’ diet of soured milk. Our Lord-Creator Authorizes us to stand upon the pure-taste, milk-fed, strong bones of structure. We will stand upon that innocence. We will defeat the corrupters in America who want to change the taste of the milk. We know the difference between the pure and the sour. Our Lord-Creator Gave us the ability to discern it.