When Fools Define Sane and Intellectual People

By Sumit Paul, New Age Islam

8 October 2022

He Who Knows Not His Own Soul, How Shall He Know The Soul Of Another?

Hakim Sanai'

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I'm really amused by one brain-dead reader's comment on Mr Ghulam Mohiyuddin, the most balanced man on the forum, endorsing Ogden Nash's humorous four-liner which yours truly quoted. When this person infers and defines Mr Ghulam's persona, I'm reminded of Hakim Sanai's famous line: He who knows not his own soul, how shall he know the soul of another?

Endorsing Ogden Nash doesn't mean Mr Mohiyuddin follows him letter and spirit and every word of Nash is an oracular truth to him. ‘You can appreciate something or someone without being a part of it.' This is called Ebreca Enuit in classical Greek Logic. Hugh Hefner, the founder of Playboy, once said, “Men across the world look at the nude playmates in Playboy and drool over them. Some crazy ones even visit the Playboy Mansion, looking forward to meeting (even mating with) those lovely naked lasses. Such crazy simpletons aren't many and they hardly pose a serious threat, because most of the men just look at the celestial nudes in the magazine and forget them 'ere long."

I dabble in religious studies and analyse various religions. Many a time, I appreciate good aspects of every religion because nothing can be wholly good or bad. I appreciate mystic Islam, but that doesn't make me a Muslim or a Sufi. I eulogise Pluralism or Anekaantvaad of Jainism but I'm not a Jain. At times, I'm in awe of the loftiness of Upanishads. But I'm not a Hindu. I feel good while reading a few Psalms in the Bible but reject Christianity as a faith. The point is: Appreciation or approval doesn't mean acceptance. You can appreciate something without accepting it.

In a pluralistic society, we appreciate a number of things but accept only those that appeal to us in a sustained manner over a pretty long span of time. We must also stop defining people and being judgmental. A human is deeper than the Mariana Trench in the South Pacific Ocean. To know a person, one has to swallow the whole world. My own Urdu couplet summarises this, ' Pahuncha Na Mere Raaz Ko Ab Tak Koi ' Nashtar '/ Simta Toh Hoon Ek Boond, Main Phaila Toh Samandar ' (None has ever been able to explore my persona/ When shrunk, I'm a mere drop of water, but I'm also the sea when expanded). So, just on the basis of someone's approval, branding him/her as a Muslim or non-Muslim is absolute idiocy.

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A regular columnist for New Age Islam, Sumit Paul is a researcher in comparative religions, with special reference to Islam. He has contributed articles to world's premier publications in several languages including Persian.

URL:   https://newageislam.com/spiritual-meditations/fools-sane-intellectual/d/128133

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