The Thermodynamics of Fasting

The Thermodynamics of Fasting

Have you ever found yourself staring at a candle’s flame or a well-stoked fire? Remember the effect was nearly mesmerizing, even captivating, as you watched, with eyes transfixed, the candle’s stately, understated brilliance, or the incendiary power of a raging blaze as it rends asunder its hapless kindling to its molecular core, scattering its atoms to the winds.

Our fascination with fire may reflect our primordial preoccupation with what it has come to symbolize for mankind: the guiding light of knowledge; the burning crucible of test and trial; and the ultimate penal nightmare. The word Ramadan comes from a root denoting excessive heat, and true to its linguistic roots, Ramadan is the fiery cauldron where people’s souls are tried, the dross removed, and the spirits purified. It is a joyous month whose healing flame of hunger, thirst, and denial draws us ever closer to Allah, Divine Light of the heavens and the earth.

Warmth from a fire has come to symbolize life, and there is life indeed in this month of sacrifice and obedience. In essence, it is eternal life in the sacred incandescence of Paradise which is the primary objective of this annual endeavor, a reward for pleasing our Lord, the Most High.

Those Muslims who deliberately refuse to partake of the blessings of this month, and stubbornly persist in eating and drinking despite admonitions are imbeciles. The light of guidance is flickering out for them and their souls, untouched by the fast’s purifying flame, are encrusted with the vile accretions of disobedience. They perceive themselves clever for finding creative ways to avoid the fast. Yet, as they devour the meals the obedient have denied themselves, they do not realize that they have become combustible fools, renewable tinder for the last word in pyrotechnic displays: Hell.

Let us walk into this blessed furnace and set the dial on “high”. Let us pray that we come out well-done and well prepared to do our Master’s will.

The Magic Act

The Magic Act

Most people are fascinated by illusion. They marvel at the magician’s sleight of hand and are dazzled by cinematic wonders wrought by modern day special effects wizardry. In many cases, the illusionary effects are merely diversionary, just pure entertainment. But when applied to the real world, the realm of illusion can reveal its sinister, dark side, masking a life of evil and doom behind a cloak of pleasure and ease. This is predicated on the distortion of reality.

For a Muslim, his perception of reality is based on the guidance contained in the book of Allah, the Most High, the Qur’an, and the traditions of His Messenger Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him). This guidance is the core of his faith. It is his criterion for judgement and sets the parameters for all his actions. With this guidance, a Muslim is firmly rooted, solidly grounded, and clearly defined. Without it, he is ethereal, evanescent, an amorphous mass of aimless fluff.

Aimlessness is the hallmark of a world based on illusionary foundations, a world made prurient and hedonistic by malicious delusion. Transience is embellished and the temporal is bedecked with baubles of bewitchment. In such a rudderless existence, material possessions and the pursuit of homes, fat bank accounts, expensive furnishings, and unrestricted access to intoxicants and sexual gratifications are symbols of having “made it”. Yet human beings were not created by Allah for this purpose. As a result, every conceivable repercussion spawned by this life-style has afflicted humanity at great cost: broken marriages, wars, venereal and degenerative diseases, criminal anarchy, and the disintegration caused by all manner of social pathologies and psychoses.

To any sane person who could clearly see the cause and effect relationship between this unrestrained lifestyle and its destructive consequences, this would have as much appeal as a lifetime of root canals. The social misery is that great. Yet hundreds of millions remain devotees and defenders of this way of life in spite of tremendous human pain and suffering. This is a triumph for the real master illusionists, a grand collusion of big business, the government, the media and morally bankrupt pundits, many with the highest academic credentials, who soothe the masses into compliance with the ideals of hedonism and consumerism. This means, of course, untold wealth for those with a vested interest in profiting from a dissolute public’s relentless urge for gratification.

The master deceivers and their henchmen, modern admen, have convinced people that hedonism, the doctrine that the pursuit of pleasure is the highest good, is in fact an affirmation of life. It is actually the very negation of life. Newport once used the slogan “Alive with Pleasure” in its cigarette ads marketing disease and death. Sex is an important tool for the adman who uses it to sell everything from blue jeans to cars. With the complicity of Hollywood, the advertising industry has helped promote a climate of uninhibited sexuality divorced from the traditional moral underpinnings.

Take the word promiscuous, which has virtually disappeared from the airwaves and print media. It has been replaced in the language of modern doublespeak by the less specific and, therefore, less accurate term “sexually active”, which carries none of the moral overtones of the former word. So now “it has become socially acceptable for sexually active, uninhibited women to be more assertive in establishing intimacy with men.” Translation: “There is no shame in being a slut.”

We as Muslims should ever be on guard against this form of sophisticated deception and should always be eager to point it out to those unfortunately deluded. The objective of this deception is to turn one away from the remembrance of Allah and from the doing the doing of righteousness which leads to the eternal reward of Paradise. The road to hell has been cleverly concealed. Only strict adherence to our sources of guidance can lead us through the labyrinth of trickery relatively unscathed.

Chaos Theory

On Dinosaurs, Chaos, And Jurassic Park

The movie Jurassic Park was once an international sensation. It was wildly received by the public and grossed over 700 million dollars worldwide in its initial run. Virtually all the movie-going public in the United States had seen it and it made millions more when it was released on video. It set a new standard for public entertainment with its thrilling special effects which, for an instant of suspended belief, brought long-extinct dinosaurs back to life.

Yet beyond the standard Hollywood stock of thrills and chills, there was a deeper and more poignant message which is expounded in greater detail in Michael Crichton’s eponymous book. Jurassic Park questioned not the feasibility of dinosaur regeneration through genetic engineering, a remote possibility, but the ethical question of whether it should be attempted at all. It also questioned whether man was equipped to harness the forces his technology was poised to unleash.

Michael Crichton, who also co-wrote the screenplay, introduced to the public a little-known but important mathematical theory which has vast implications and was being made widely known for the first time: Chaos.

A Chaotic World: A New Reality

Chaos theory deals with predictability in complex systems. The main thrust of Chaos theory is that traditional mathematical models fail to accurately predict phenomena in complex systems. For example, computers were first developed to predict the weather over half a century ago. Yet even with the most complex computer systems, it is still impossible to accurately predict the weather. Even if you were to let drops of water fall on the precise same spot on your hand repeatedly, each drop would behave differently than the one which preceded it due to a multiplicity of factors ranging from microscopic skin imperfections to minute changes in water flow.

Man’s record in predicting and controlling complex systems is abysmal. Witness the mess he has made of the earth’s ecosystem and the environmental tragedy engulfing the planet.

A Grave Miscalculation

Even though mankind has not been able to accurately predict whether it will rain next month, people have been more presumptuous in their belief that they can take on the most complex of all systems and try to provide a solution for it: human life. Scholars, philosophers, and ideologues have presumed to provide the answers that have perplexed mankind since time immemorial. Yet nothing has proved more difficult and elusive than providing a system of life for human beings that does not end up in injustice, misery, and social disintegration.

All great ancient civilizations believed that theirs was the pinnacle of progress and development, in hindsight a colossally preposterous assumption considering that most were built on brutality and slave labor. This country, also, in trying to maintain its international reputation as the fortress of justice and democracy, downplays the role slavery and the near-annihilation of the American Indian had in the building of its empire.

Islam in a Chaotic World

Muslims, on the other hand, do not consider it a fault if they, of their own force of intellect, cannot provide the crucial answers to life. They acknowledge their own ignorance and realize that something so vast and complicated is beyond their ability to grasp.

Therefore, in humility, they turn to the Creator of this immense universe Who alone knows the hidden mysteries of life. Through the Prophets (peace be upon them all), Allah, Lord of all the worlds, has provided mankind with the answers to the most perplexing questions and has gifted His creatures with a system of life in consonance with their own true nature.

Islam is such a wonderful and perfect solution precisely because man had nothing to do with its formulation. As the movie Jurassic Park showed, man was not prepared to cope with the forces his technology had unleashed. How much more valid is his ignorance when it comes to himself and how much greater the need to recognize his limitations and submit himself wholly to the One Who designed and fashioned him and is closer to him than his jugular vein?