LACK OF PERSONALITIES OR LACK OF AWARENESS?

LACK OF PERSONALITIES OR LACK OF AWARENESS? Understand The Times I T is common for communities to consider some of their key figures from the past to have been larger than life. They project an exaggerated image and at times go to the extent of according them a legendary status. This is something that present-day Muslims also do—and on a massive scale. Muslims today project some of their past figures in a grossly exaggerated manner. This has caused them two major deficiencies—overestimating their past, and underestimating their present. Muslim writers and preachers often highlight figures from the past and insist that the only one way for Muslims to change their fortunes is for such figures to be born again. By presenting a larger than life image of these personalities, Muslims think that if only such people were present today, their conditions would be drastically different. This is nothing but wishful thinking. Arab historian Khairuddin al-Zirikli (d. 1976) prepared a multi-volume compendium of famous Muslim personalities of the past, titled al-A’lām. He imagined that Muslims could experience a new revival if such figures could again be born. In a couplet, he expresses this sentiment: Bring Salahuddin Ayyubi back in our midst! Let there be a revival of the Battle of Hattin or battles of similar vigour! This couplet only shows the poet’s complete lack of awareness of the times. Today’s age and conditions are drastically different. To do anything, the first condition is to have a deep understanding of the times, and surely not to have Salahuddin Ayyubi (Saladin) being born again. The fact is that in today’s age, people like Salahuddin Ayyubi Muslims today project some of their past figures in a grossly exaggerated manner. This has caused them two major deficiencies, over estimating their past, and underestimating their present.