He: Listen to this:
There will be contemporary monarchs, reigning over the earth, kings of churlish spirit violent temper and ever addicted to falsehood and wickedness… they will inflict death on women and children, they will seize the property of their subjects … they will be of limited power their lives will be short, their desires insatiable…property alone will confer rank… wealth will be the only source of devotion… passion will be the sole bond of union between the sexes, falsehood will be the only means of success in litigation…and women will be objects merely of sensual gratification… dishonesty will be the universal means of subsistence, weakness the cause of dependence, menace and presumption will be substitutes for learning, liberality will be devotion, mutual assent will be marriage, fine clothes will be dignity…
What do you think this is?
She: I think whoever wrote this had a serious tense problem. I mean what is this “will” as in future, this is already happening, doesn’t this guy read the papers?
He: Let me read on: Thus in the Kali Age shall decay constantly proceed until the human race approaches its annihilation. This is from an ancient Hindu text: Vishnu Purana (Wilson Vol. 4 pp. 224-9) written about 2100 years ago.
She: You mean all this is a prediction: this writer was saying these things will happen… with such accuracy?
He: Exactly. Makes you think doesn’t it? Consider the strange fact there is a consistent series of predictions like these in all the major religions, and that they have come true with such exactness that it makes one wonder … wonder at the state of ourselves and our world.
She: I don’t get it. This is scary stuff. Do you mean that you take these ideas seriously… about the impending end of the world?
He: Of course I do. Why would I wish to not accept 4000 years of a consistent record?
She: But don’t you think evolution takes place and things get better? I mean this is the complete opposite of what we are taught to think. Aren’t we told that because man has landed on the moon the major plagues have been conquered, there is so much we know in an earth reduced to a global village. You don’t think all these things are signs progress is happening?
He: It would be absurd to deny that these things have happened…but to call them progress is another thing. I think we need to examine this whole thing more deeply. Just look at the collapse of the ecological synergy for one thing: the deeper malaise of our society, our ethical decline, our day to day lowering of aspirations … all these also are signs … but then another perspective is needed.
She: Now you’ve confused me again. You mean seriously that people who say things are getting better are wrong? Misguided? But that’s … so traditional!
He: Not exactly wrong. But let us say that their starting point is a philosophical commitment to a different set of ideas which we need to examine. And I like your use of the word traditional. I am always struck by the fact that the previous ages always felt that the end of the world (the cosmic dissolution so vividly described in all the major religions of which more later) was near, and that it could happen at any moment. But it seems as we have come towards that moment we seem to have become collectively oblivious of it. Thus your comment doesn’t surprise me. But the fact remains: the consistency with which the religious scriptures in all languages in all parts of the world have spoken about the end of the world cannot be put to a mere “vote winning” strategy.
She: Hmmm… could you explain this a bit more? It seems I am in for a major lesson today.
He: This is technically called apocalyptic thought. It comes from the word Apocalypse, thoughts of the last days of man and the Cosmos; it is the name of the last book of the New Testament also called (in the Revised Version) the Revelation of St. John the Divine. All the major religions have a set of ideas of the dissolution of the world: my work is to assemble these ideas and see if there are any interesting parallels and perhaps something we can learn from.
She: This sounds deeply disturbing, and raises another question: isn’t all this despair? If things are going downhill, why bother to change anything? What does it matter one way or another?
He: Yes, that is a common response. It is what a group of the world’s most respected sages and wise men (we call them Prophets of God because that’s what they called themselves) have been saying for the last 4000 years. Does that mean that the end they have been talking about was only a means they used to make the believers get in line, so to speak? No, it means as observers of the rhythms of time, they were saying something about the world: there is a thinning out of time which makes the world grow old and wear itself out…that we are nearer to the end than we would like to think — our age is perhaps the first in which a sense of Last Days is almost lost…that is why we are in such a state of denial most of the time. I will answer you on the despair issue a bit later. How do you understand this aspect of the teaching of the religions particularly the claim of the Prophet of Islam that he was the Last?
She: I don’t understand, though this has always intrigued me. Please go on.
He: One might see the long line of Prophets as fishermen who have cast their nets in the sea of time to catch the fish of humanity for salvation. Those who escaped the net of say Abraham (upon whom be peace) were reached by his sons… and so on until the last. It is no accident that Jesus Christ phrased his invitation to the disciples on the Sea of Galilee in exactly these terms: “Follow me and I will make you fishers of men” (Matthew 4:19). The Last Messenger had a peculiar duty: to not only cast his net so wide and fine that all mankind would have a chance but also to let them know that this was the last chance for them. Thus the references to Qiyamat, to the Youm al Akhirat, to the Sa’ah (the Hour) are the most detailed in Islam making them all the more urgent for modern man. They work in both ways: they depict images of a history of the future, as well as allow men to make sense of the present.
She: You are then telling me then that progress isn’t happening.
He: It is one thing to acknowledge that there is change, another to worship the twin idols of modernity: progress and development. To give a good hard look at these myths and what it will uncover may be quite unpalatable. it is only the myth of progress and the illusion of development that keeps us in this stupor of negligence and denial.
She: What about hope? Don’t you think we need that too? The religions are offering us a vision of doom and gloom, and these “idols” are showing us a better world at least as a hope. Why then do you say that it is denial?
He: True, when put like that. But if a building was going to collapse, because of the weak foundations, and someone told you to take care would you not also think that he was a spoilsport because you liked to believe otherwise? But then on a deeper note consider this:
Our ancestors could not make 32 flavours of ice-cream. We can. So we think we are superior. But we must ask: is that a measure of man? Could it be that our ancestors chose to do other things with the time and the energy that we have invested on ice-cream?
This is by Gai Eaton in his book King of the Castle: Choice and responsibility in the Modern World. Surely there is a price we are paying for this progress. For each thing we have, we are making decisions of what we choose not to have. And this is why this haunting tradition from the Prophet is so telling:
The Prophet said: There will come a time upon mankind when no piety of a pious person will be safe except when that pious person runs from a township to another township, from a mountain to another, and from one hole like a fox to another for refuge.
The Companions asked: O Prophet when will this be?
He replied: When no livelihood will be possible without sinning. When such a time comes, it will be permissible to remain single and not marry.
They said: But you have commanded us to marry … how is this possible?
He said: In that age a man will be destroyed at the hands of his parents, or if not them, it will be at the hands of his wife and children… if not them his relatives will kill him
They said: In what way?
He said: They will insult him on account of his (low) earnings (make him ashamed of his income), so he will work beyond his capacity and thus will be destroyed.
Shaikh Shahabuddin Suhrawardi, Awariful Ma’arif. 560 hijri transl. by Shams Barelvi Madina Publishing Company, Karachi, 1977
I cannot draw a better picture of the age we are in.
She: So in other words we are saying: “evolution is wrong, progress is a myth, development an illusion. Isn’t this sort of thinking fatalism, the very antithesis of true religion where the social upliftment and human justice are the very things that make the measure of a believer? All this is very hopeless. The dreams of progress at least have this virtue: they make one hope for a better future, and work towards it accordingly.
He: Do they? How many years has mankind known that the ecological crisis is impending and how many years did it take to atleast agree to reduce CFCs from room fresheners? No, I will now answer you on the issue of hope. Dreams of progress are exactly that: dreams. Religion also teachers you: Amr bil Ma’aruf wa nahi anil Munkir: enjoin the good and forbid evil. The Prophet also said: If the Day of Judgement comes and you are in the middle of planting a tree, finish planting it. Why? Because you are not to let the world and its affairs to deflect you from the good that you can do. It must be done in any case because this world is not the only reality.
She: I see — the whole error of the progressive way of thinking is to make this world eternal — the very thing the sacred books have been saying not to do. But I am still depressed.
He: Think of two people who have similar talents and spiritual abilities. Imagine that one of them is told that there is some disaster coming up, so you’d better develop your abilities quickly so that you may use them better —in any case you may not get the time later. And the other person receives no such message. Now which of the two will be in haste to get on with it?
She: Of course the first one.
He: Exactly. This is why there more hope in this message of impending doom than in the dreams of progress with only three years left for ½ the crude oil of the planet to be gone!