THE ART OF CLEAR THINKING THE ART OF CLEAR THINKING

THE ART OF CLEAR THINKING T hinking, one could say, is man’s greatest action. Right thinking is actually a form of worship. After his death, someone asked the wife of Abu Darda, a Companion of the Prophet, what his greatest deed had been. She replied, “Thinking and drawing lessons.” (Kitab al-Zuhd wa alRaqa’iq by Ibn al-Mubarak, Hadith No. 286) Likewise, after the death of another Companion of the Prophet, Abu Dharr, someone asked his widow what his special worship had been, and she replied, “The whole day, he would keep thinking.” (Hilyat al-Awliya, Vol. 1, p. 164) The action of thinking happens at the level of the mind. And it is the mind that is the biggest part of human existence. Thinking is the means for one’s intellectual development. It is through thinking that all great discoveries have been made. Thinking lifts a person from the animalistic level to the higher stage of humanity. It is through thinking that one understands the difference between one thing and another; one discovers solutions to difficulties; one discerns hidden realities. Through thinking, one learns how to convert