Friday Post 13

By Shofi Ahmed

Many of us could be in the same camp that believe that a sheikh like in our story would be heard to find in our time. There are many reasons. We can look into some of these. To start with we see the challenger took the sheikh’s word without a shadow of doubt. The sheikh didn’t need to enter into the fire with the Qur’an. The European chap that threw the challenge believed the sheikh without thinking twice. Obviously, he had good reasons for that. Question can be will they do that now or would prefer to see the action rather than just taking the word? Probably they would go for the later one nowadays.

Things have changed and changed very rapidly. Nonetheless, the fact is fact that never changes. Proof is in the pudding as the saying goes here in the west, for Islam the proof can still be found in the pudding. What people have enquired before could be different then now while the basic queries like why I can’t see paradise doesn’t. Likewise methods for findings could be different too.

Answers to new quests are there in the pudding. For that we need to find our way to the know how desk. Like in a big store, for instance Currys Superstore. Amidst the forests of technical devices scattered everywhere one could easily get lost for information. But reaching out to the one little information desk then everything can make sense easily.

What’s remarkable is since the days of our sheikh in the story the west has gained significant material scientific knowledge. We have not been as fast as our predecessors who gave the world both poetry and science. Giants like poet Rumi and scientist Al-Khwarizm, the founder of algorithm.

So unfortunately, unlike before, many of our sheikhs may not have the answer that modern science continues to rise. But the answer is there is in the pudding. Let’s see some examples next as we continue exploring our story In Shaa Allah. For example, the modern invention of Bitcoin. Its protocol is a technical utopia. It cannot be copied, not even by any meticulous technical brilliance. Still its mechanism is not as scientific as the Qur’an.