Literally meaning to separate, abstract, peel away, or to isolate oneself from every occupation and engagement, tajrid (isolation) denotes the state where one isolates oneself from worldly things and abandons all carnal or bodily desires. It also denotes turning away from all else save God and being freed from any attachment to wealth, status or position or any worldly expectations, and setting one’s heart totally on Him without expecting anything in return.

The scholars relate isolation to the Qur’anic statement, Take off your shoes (20:12), and interpret this as the purifying of the heart, which they call the home of God, of all worldly and otherworldly considerations, and preparing it for the visit of the All-Holy Sovereign. Some go a step further and regard this as turning to the Light of Lights with all one’s heart and setting one’s heart totally on Him without leaving any room for anything else in one’s feelings, according to one’s capacity. From another perspective, isolation has been approached as resistance against all carnal or bodily appetites and impulses and against the attractions of the world with whatever is in it. Initiates who have not been able to isolate themselves from carnal appetites, the attractions of the world, the attachment of the heart to anything else save Him, or from any worldly or otherworldly consideration, cannot attain His private company and the spiritual pleasure inherent in this.

Concerning this significant point, the author of al-Minhaj

says:

So long as you do not isolate yourself
from considerations about everything save Him,
You will not be able to reach privacy
with the Beloved in His private room.

Ibrahim Haqqi expresses the same point, as follows:

The heart is the home of God;
purify it of whatever is there other than Him,
So that the All-Merciful may descend into His palace at nights.

Isolation, which, in the words of Sayyid Sharif [1], is cleaning the heart and other innermost faculties from the dirt and dust of attachment to anything save Him, requires that the people favored with a vision of Him should isolate themselves from whatever they see or hear, and that they live immersed in the lights of the Existence of the Eternal Witness. Every initiate feels this and is favored with its gifts according to the individual’s capacity.

When those who are in the initial stages of the spiritual journey find themselves growing in the knowledge of God that is developing in the heart, the information acquired concerning Him gradually fades, and they begin to receive glimpses from beyond things. Then all of their material or bodily necessities, and even the entire world with whatever is in it, gradually lose their importance and value for them and they become polished mirrors to the truth, or function as some misty medium to reflect Him. One who feels this favor sometimes says, like Fuduli,

The way of isolation is a home
requiring full renunciation and sacrifice to settle in,
so abandon whatever worldly things you have,
and do not have a house.

or sometimes cries, like Yunus Emre:

I have found the unique, matchless honey;
Let everybody come and plunder my existence.

One who has reached the final point of the spiritual journey is freed from all considerations concerning other existent beings save God, and is left with no trace that belongs to anything else except Him. If those favored with this degree of isolation do not follow the principles of the Prophetic way or the rules of Shari‘a in their considerations, they may lapse into negating the “reality of things”— the established originals or essences of things in God’s Knowledge. This is a rank where many initiates live in a daze. Whereas, those who strictly follow the signposts and lights of the Prophetic way during their entire journey, though admitting the reality of things, see in everything only He Who is the One, only know the One, only mention the One, only call the One, and only turn to the One in thousands of signs of “dawn,” turning their eyes from all others.

Ahmedi [2] describes this rank according to his feeling as follows:

I have submitted all my being to that Friend, having no home any longer;
And purified my hands of any worldly things I had, being left without both of the two worlds.
For God’s love has come and drawn me to itself: opening the eyes of my heart, awakening me from an intoxicated sleep.
His Unity has become manifest to me, so that I have seen Him with all certainty.
I have driven away polytheism, having no doubt any longer.

As for the state of those who have completed their journey toward God, it is such a deep, indescribable state of pleasure, where efforts toward isolation have ended in perfect isolation and they have all but lost their own being, that those who do not experience it cannot know or describe it. Anybody who attempts to describe it cannot be saved from confusion. Such a relation between the Almighty, Ultimate Truth and an initiate whom He has favored with such a degree of spiritual attainment must be a mysterious gift of secrecy of His to His distinguished servants. What we should do is to feel respect for this gift of secrecy.

O God! Show us the truth as being true and enable us to follow it, and show us falsehood as being false and enable us to refrain from it. And bestow blessings and peace on our master Muhammad, the guide to the truth, and on his Family and Companions, godly, noble and honorable.

Notes

1. Sayyid Sharif al-Jurjani (1339–1413), was one of the leading theologians of 15^th century. He lived in Iran and taught in Shiraz. He visited Istanbul in 1374. Sharhu’l-Mawaqif is his most famous work.
2. Emir Muhammed ibn Emir Ahmedi lived in the same age as Jalalu’d-Din Rumi. He lived in Bayburt, in the Eastern Turkey. He was also the leader of the Ahis (The Brotherhood of Craftsmen and Tradesmen) in the region. (Tr.)

In his The Death of Criticism, Terry Eagleton spoke of the rude shock a clerk in his office might experience if she stumbled upon the thought that her boss is actually paid, and paid very well for that matter, for just reading poetry and prose. If she realises this, and perhaps begins to make noise about it, the authorities might again realise that, indeed, they might be wasting money on a venture that has no purpose. If they were to realise this, it would mean the death of criticism.

Terry Eagleton chose this anecdote to show how people might view literary education as an exercise in futility because, as Edward Said demonstrated in his Orientalism, literature or the cultural realm, and its expertise, seem institutionally divorced from their real connection with power (see Said, 2003: 2-3). In fact, what Said wanted to say was that literary education should be taken very seriously, because it contained things needed to build a man or woman for social change. In other words, as earlier mentioned in the abstract, texts contain macro and micro types of information; if these are properly harnessed and transformed, they have the capacity to change our world.

We derive an extraordinary amount of information from texts – information about politics and history, sociology and psychology. A great deal of information is available in texts, but it also demands transformation into knowledge. It is at this stage that information transformed to knowledge becomes power. This power that the individual – that is, the scholar of literature – possesses is actually a cognitive state he has attained that makes it possible for him or her to become a better person or a bad person. This state must, however, be made concrete and practical through the application of the knowledge gained, which has actually made him or her powerful.

Thesis

The ability of the scholar or critic of literature to become a mediator in Conflict Resolution is only one aspect of his or her method of making his knowledge practical. He or she may decide to apply his or her knowledge, for it has become a source of power for him or her in fighting against oppression and injustice. He or she may decide to go into party politics and seek elected office as a way to improve the lives of others. Or, he or she may even begin to apply words to paper – that is, to become a writer. The fact of a writer being a person who is making his or her knowledge practical or functional lies in the fact that, first of all, he or she has a reason for wanting to write –what the Marxist critics would call authorial intention in writing: if the writer is not trying to reform a morbid psyche, he or she might intend to teach or raise issues about a condition that he or she thinks needs to change. They could even inspire a revolution. They might decide to report events as well as ensure that people become informed, because it is in being informed about something that makes change become inevitable.

Today, Nigerians are faced with the challenges of insecurity occasioned by religious extremism that borders on terrorism. This extremism is based on the misappropriation of scriptural injunctions. They are used – through a medley of religious, political, and ethnic reasons – to justify the actions of extremists.

The chaotic state of Nigeria’s present could be compared to the situation of Victorian England, where the progress made in science and technology brought man to the brink of apostasy. The fact that science could not verify the existence of God led many to trust solely in the proven capacity of the human mind. The German philologist and philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche boldly declared, in his fictional work Thus Spoke Zoroaster or Also Sprach Zarathustra, that “God was dead … that He died in his pity with humanity” (see Nietzsche as translated by Hollingdale,1975: 114). The Godlessness of the age, as well as the doubt cast upon the divine authority of the Church, led Mathew Arnold to propose in his Literature and Dogma (2002) the need for Literature to take the place of religion (see Arnold). This he thought was possible because in his Culture and Anarchy (2004), his social criticism and his own way of defining Humanism, literature is the carrier of culture. His humanism consists of getting rid of ignorance, narrow-mindedness, and prejudice; it is defined by a continuous quest for the ideal. Therefore, in his Literature and Dogma (2002), he argues that sacred texts should be read as literature because values and morals are derived from them, and as such, they contained things to make us better people. In other words, people should read sacred texts whether or not the existence of God is verifiable or not, because reading them will eventually make them men of culture, or people who have overcome their ignorance, prejudice, narrow-mindedness and continually pursue the ideal of perfection.

By implication, therefore, literature must rescue religious bigots. As George Gordon, the early Professor of English Literature said, “England is sick and … English Literature must save it. The Churches (as I understand) having failed, and social remedies being slow, English literature now has a triple function: still, I suppose to delight and instruct us, but also, and above all, to save our souls and heal the state.” Rephrased one may say: Nigeria is sick and literature must save it. Our religions have faltered, and social remedies have been slow; thus literature must now not only delight us, but also instruct us, heal the state, and save our souls.

Recently, the Federal Government of Nigeria had shown interest in getting to the root causes of religious extremism among Muslims in Nigeria. The Almajiri factor has been identified as one of the causes of religious extremism in Nigeria. Somehow, they have decided that the high rate of poverty and ignorance among some individuals or Almajiris in the North, whose condition was precipitated by certain perceptions and beliefs, caused the frustration that led to this cataclysmic turn of events in Nigeria. The federal government is thinking of rehabilitating these individuals through education. Now the question is: what type of education do these people need? What type of culture will the education teach them? Education liberates the mind – especially good education in the humanities. Vocational education will no doubt teach them practical skills, which could help them in creating employment for themselves; however, for their ignorance to be conquered, for their minds to be liberated, for them to become truly free and genuine human beings, who will harness the potentialities of their mental faculties, and who will make their knowledge functional and applicable, they need the type of education that will make them become men and women of culture. They should be exposed to the transformational effect of knowledge. Their education should be such that occurred in the Renaissance and Reformation in Europe (see Johnson, 2001:44), where literary humanism and a method of careful approach to textual issues evolved. Like a humanist, they should be encouraged to look at things objectively, to value the power of reason without necessarily rejecting the Godhead, to question the origins, authenticity, and credentials of texts – even sacred texts – to practice rational Islamism and see whether it is possible to evolve Islamic humanism, which has taken root in countries like Turkey, where the great Islamic scholar, Fethullah Gϋlen has emerged as a force for love and peace(see Gϋlen, 2010:31). They should be bombarded with literary texts of various shades, simplified if need be, so as to promote sympathy and camaraderie among them; literature should be made to train them in the habits of pluralistic thought and feeling, persuading them to acknowledge that more than their viewpoint exists…(see Eagleton, 2008:22).

Ile, Onyebuchi James is the Head of the Department of English Language and Literature, Nigerian Turkish Nile University.

References

• Arnold, Matthew. 2004. Culture and Anarchy. London: Neeland Media.
• ——. 2002. Literature and Dogma. London: Fredonia Books.
• Eagleton, Terry. 2008. Literary Theory: An Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
• Gϋlen, M. Fethullah. 2010. Speech and Power of Expression: On Language, Esthetics, and Belief. (translated by Korkut Altay) New Jersey: Tughra Books.
• Johnson, Paul. 2001. The Renaissance. London: Phoenix Press.
• Nietzsche, Friedrich. 1975. Thus Spoke Zarathustra (translated by Hollingdale, R.J.) Middlesex: Penguin Books Ltd.
• Said, Edward. Orientalism. London: Penguin Books, 2003.

What does sustainability mean? According to the definition by the World Commission on Environment and Development, sustainability means meeting the current needs without compromising the ability of future generations to do the same. Sustainability embraces more than just the environmental concerns; it also includes both social and economic factors. Thus it provides a holistic and inclusive foundation from which to operate.

Why care about sustainability anyway? It is because our very own life depends on clean air, drinkable water, arable land, other species and one another to exist. After all, if we are not breathing air, drinking water and eating plants or animals, we are not living. We are all part of a system, whether on a local or global scale. In order to make choices that will help us to improve our quality of life, we must first understand sustainability and the environmental issues present in our daily lives and how our actions are related to those issues. Once we understand our contribution to the problem, we can then begin to make decisions that will help, not harm, our planet, our future generations and ourselves (Worksbook, p.10).

As Pope John Paul II stated “Modern society will find no solution to the ecological problem unless it takes a serious look at its life styles.” If we categorize our life style in a way that helps us analyze the environmental impact of our choices, we might end up having three main categories: Water, Energy, and Waste. This article focuses on the problems related with those categories and the solutions that can be done on a personal level.

Water

“By means of water, we give life to everything.” (Al-Anbiya, 21:30)

Water is very precious, yet it is very scarce. Even though water covers two thirds of the surface of our planet, the freshwater in rivers, lakes, and streams represent only 0.02% of the earth’s total water (United States Geological Survey). According to an estimate from the United Nations, by the year 2025, around 2 million people will be living in regions with absolute water scarcity, and two out of three people on earth could be living under conditions of water stress if nothing is done. So, what can you do about it? According to the Sustainability Primer Works Book, the things you can do include finding and fixing the leaks around your home; because leaking faucets and toilets can account for as much as 20 gallons of water lost per person per day (Treehugger team, 2006). You can also install water saving devices, because high efficiency toilets and showerheads can save the average household about 30 gallons of water each day (Walsh, 2009). A low flow high efficiency showerhead uses 2.5 gallons of water or less per minute, whereas traditional showerheads use 5 gallons or more per minute. The top priority is changing your behavior. Simply turning off the water while shaving or brushing teeth could save more than 5 gallons (19 liters) of water per day. Keeping a bucket or large pitcher in the bathroom or kitchen to capture the excess water while you are waiting for the hot water to make it to the faucet can get you enough water, which can be used for your pets, plants, to wash produce etc.

Energy

“To warn of the dangers is not to despair of the solutions.” Al Gore

Much of the world’s current energy production is unsustainable. The burning of fossil fuels such as coal and oil to produce electricity depletes non-renewable resources, and releases pollutants that contribute to smog, acid rain and other types of air pollution. Electricity production is indeed the leading cause for industrial air pollution. Replacing your incandescent bulbs with more energy efficient Compact Fluorescent Bulbs (CFLs) or Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) can be a good start to go green for energy around your house. Lighting accounts for up to 25% of home electricity use (California Energy Commission). CFLs use one-fourth the energy of standard incandescent bulbs to give out the same amount of light, and they last ten times longer. LEDs may even last 50 to100 times longer than the standard light bulbs. According to the US department of Energy: “If every home in America replaced just one incandescent light bulb with an ENERGY STAR qualified CFL, it would save enough energy to light more than 3 million homes and prevent greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to those of more than 800,000 cars annually.”

You can also pay attention to heating and cooling in your home.

Basic things like changing the filter, putting on a sweater instead of turning on the heater, and setting the thermostat appropriately might save up to 10% off your electricity bill. Think about buying energy saving appliances when you need to buy new ones, simply look for the signs like ENERGY STAR. Also, shut off appliances whenever possible. The U.S. Department of Energy recommends using “standby-mode” when our computers will be idle for more than 20 minutes. It also points out that 75% of electricity used to power home electronics is consumed when these appliances are “turned off.” You can use a power strip to turn everything completely off when finished for the day.

Waste

“Waste not want not!” Benjamin Franklin

World economies operate on a take, make, waste model, which is a one-way linear production system in a finite world. The problem with this system is that it operates as though everything were in infinite supply. But this is not the case for our limited resources. Our current practices for waste generation create significant environmental, economic, and public health problems. Generally, the public is unaware where our trash ends-up, and what it causes there. Landfill, also known as a dump, is a site for disposal of the wastes by burial. A large number of adverse impacts may occur from landfill operations. One is serious pollution of the local environment such as contamination of groundwater and/or aquifers by leakage and residual soil contamination during landfill usage. Another is after landfill closure; the generation of methane by organic waste decay (methane is a greenhouse gas many times more potent than carbon dioxide, and can itself be a danger to inhabitants of an area.) Then there are simple nuisance problems such as dust, odor, vermin, and noise pollution.

The problem is not only what we do with waste but also what we waste. According to United States Department of Agriculture, over a quarter of the country’s food that is approximately 25.9 million tons, gets thrown away every year. On the other hand, the number of cell phones Americans tossed out in 2008 is 130 million (Larry Greenemeler, 2009). Recycling them would have saved enough energy to power 194,000 homes for a year. The current U.S. recycling average for the so-called e-waste, including unwanted cell phones, televisions, PCs, computer peripherals, computer mouses, keyboards and many others, is in the order of 10 to 13%. Sustainability Primer points out the things you can do about waste issues. These include but are not limited to reducing how much you consume and to reuse items whenever possible, to bring your own reusable bag, and reuse paper and plastic bags. Reuse paper and envelopes at home or in the office. Recycle office supplies like printer cartridges, toner etc. At home, recycle everything you can or collect for hazardous household waste. You can also give away or donate things that you don’t use. Like the “good old times,” repair instead of discard, purchase well designed quality items that last longer. Try to recreate the old-good habit of borrowing and sharing the resources among neighbors and family. It may take some effort but start composting your food waste. In addition to all above, the best thing you can do is “close the loop” by purchasing products made from recycled materials.

All things considered, does it seem like you need to suffer at all to go green?

If we want to change the way things are going, we should listen to what Gandhi said, “I must be the change I wish to see in the world around me”. Living in balance with nature requires understanding the value of the bounties we take for granted. Because “In the end, we will conserve only what we love. We will love only what we understand and we will understand only what we are taught” Baba Dioum.

References

• Sustainability Primer Works Book, Worksbook, Community Partners/Sustainable works, Los Angeles, 2009-2010 Update, SMVersion 9.0.
• Treehugger Blog, “How to green your water,” December 03, 2006. www.treehugger.com
• Walsh, B. “Getting real about the high price of cheap food,” Time Magazine, Aug 21, 2009.
• California Energy Commision, http://www.energy.ca.gov/efficiency/lighting/
• Division of Information Technology, UW- Madison “Turn off your monitor to save energy? Do it.” December 29, 2005 http://www.doit.wisc.edu/news/story.asp?filename=598
• Greenemeler L. Scientific American blog, comment on Trashed Tech: Where Do Old Cell Phones, TVs and PCs Go to Die?, November 29,2009 http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=trash-tech-pc-tv-waste