Honestly I’m not proud to admit that I was one of those people who questioned the need to Islamicize everything. Being an IIUM student, you can’t run away from that. It gets really overwhelming at some point. I was supposed to sign up for Islamic elective courses, all 8 of them. And as if that’s not enough, these Islamic values were intertwined with everything I learnt for my core courses. You’d think that learning English had nothing to do with Islamic teachings. I mean, let’s face it, for literature subjects, almost all the materials were from the West, no Islamic authors and all that. But somehow, to my dismay, my lecturers just managed to turn these English subjects into an Islamic discourse. That was until I came across a poem by W.B. Yeats titled The Second Coming, which was included in my 20th Century and Contemporary Literature.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The poem, of course, was not talking about the Christian belief regarding the return of Jesus to Earth. But rather, it talks about the coming and awakening of something dark and powerful. It has all these violent imagery and terrifying ritualistic language that send chills down your spine upon reading it. How does this relate to the Islamicization of knowledge, you ask? So when I was reading it, almost instantaneously I was reminded of the Day of Judgment. The similarities described were eerily unsettling. Then it dawned on me, yes, Islam is everywhere. There’s no escaping it.
I remember hearing one of my IRK lecturers saying that Islam is all-inclusive because it’s more than just a religion or a belief; it’s a way of life. Hitherto I TRY to relate everything I see or read to Islam. I read a lot of science, especially when it involves the galaxy. It’s one of my favorite things. So recently, you know how they say the Sun is going to come out from the West instead of the East as a sign that the hour is approaching, and I was having a hard time believing that because there’s no logical explanation as to how would that happen. And then, being curious as I always am, I searched for a scientific explanation. Eventually I found this one video from Youtube and it explained away how it is possible for the Sun to appear from the West. I’ll let you into a little secret, my little secret, I've always felt a tint of joy for sort of achieving to prove that everything can be related to Islam if I dig deep enough, and that’s really satisfying. It’s a therapy. You should try it.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The poem, of course, was not talking about the Christian belief regarding the return of Jesus to Earth. But rather, it talks about the coming and awakening of something dark and powerful. It has all these violent imagery and terrifying ritualistic language that send chills down your spine upon reading it. How does this relate to the Islamicization of knowledge, you ask? So when I was reading it, almost instantaneously I was reminded of the Day of Judgment. The similarities described were eerily unsettling. Then it dawned on me, yes, Islam is everywhere. There’s no escaping it.
I remember hearing one of my IRK lecturers saying that Islam is all-inclusive because it’s more than just a religion or a belief; it’s a way of life. Hitherto I TRY to relate everything I see or read to Islam. I read a lot of science, especially when it involves the galaxy. It’s one of my favorite things. So recently, you know how they say the Sun is going to come out from the West instead of the East as a sign that the hour is approaching, and I was having a hard time believing that because there’s no logical explanation as to how would that happen. And then, being curious as I always am, I searched for a scientific explanation. Eventually I found this one video from Youtube and it explained away how it is possible for the Sun to appear from the West. I’ll let you into a little secret, my little secret, I've always felt a tint of joy for sort of achieving to prove that everything can be related to Islam if I dig deep enough, and that’s really satisfying. It’s a therapy. You should try it.
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| W.B. Yeats' The Second Coming |
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