Breaking the Chains of Fear

In the midst of my journey to dismantle the system that had dominated the consciousness of the community for centuries, I found that the greatest obstacle to authentic consciousness was never a deficiency in our innate capacities. It was a paralysis of the will, produced by what I call the inherited wall of fear. This wall is an intricate and tightly built system of protection, erected by the guardians of inherited tradition to block any serious attempt to reach the pure essence of revelation outside the circle of their material guardianship. Here the influence of Dr Muhammad Shahrur, may God have mercy on him, on my path of knowledge stands out. It was not the influence of a teacher from whom I took my conclusions; my method of Abstraction differs radically from his school. It was the influence of a catalyst, a man who possessed that courage in its first alphabet. Shahrur was the force that dared to knock on the locked doors of the nucleus, and he demonstrated for all to see that the sanctity of human exegesis is not a divine reality. It is only a set of concretised mental images that can be criticised and cast down. In Shahrur’s courageous experience I watched how traditional structures collapse psychologically when they are confronted by a heart that does not recognise their artificial red lines. Fear is a shackle carefully planted in the human mind from the first stages of indoctrination, to make a person believe that approaching the logic of the Qurʾān without Salafi intermediaries will inevitably lead the spirit astray. Shahrur came to declare, by his actions before his words, that faith would not be lost; it would be rebuilt on firmer and more honest foundations. His example gave me a further push to cleanse my consciousness of the remnants of that manufactured dread. If Shahrur had opened a breach in the wall with his linguistic tools, I, with the tools of Abstraction and the study of universal laws, became able to pass beyond the wall altogether and build an edifice of knowledge that seeks the truth in its fullness. Shahrur was the shield that patiently absorbed the system’s first blows, and so prepared the ground for my ideas to grow in an atmosphere freer from the pressure of intellectual terror. As the poet said, who honoured the strength of the heart and boldness in seeking the truth: If you flatter the weak where the truth is at stake, you will never win a noble glory. And he does not fear the darkness of night who has wrapped himself in certainty as his ally. Courage in knowledge is not rebellion for its own sake. It is an existential necessity if we are to reclaim the Trust of vicegerency. This stage taught me that a heart that trembles before the unknown can never perceive what is knowable of God’s command. With this spark of boldness I set out to establish the sovereignty of an abstracting consciousness, one that sees in the Qurʾān a cosmic law beyond time and place as we know them, and that frees human beings from the yoke of dependence on others to stand face to face with the majesty of their Creator. Hashem Nassar All rights reserved