It’s hard to wonder that we just arrived in an age where imagination has never been so necessary than before. Some of the notable future projects, such as inter-planetary ambitions, genetics engineering, transportation breakthroughs, and even human-computer integration, will significantly redefine our lives as well as the very notion of human being itself.
In this emerging juncture, collective trajectories for a more equal, fair, and hospitable life are impossible to be traced without profound imaginative spirit. Imagination ignites a sense of curiosity, sketches the worst and best scenarios, calculates myriad factors, and encourages a person or a group in an explorative manner far from naivete, commonly produced by an ideological-centric mindset.
Unfortunately, some Muslim majority are irritated when facing the fact that those kinds of life-advancement, identically, belong to the people outside Islam. Moreover, since the end of Western colonialism in the 20th century, we have witnessed some Islamic movements maintaining their romanticist perspective on the status quo and the future. Consequently, insular, apologetic, and even conservative attitudes took mainstream for Islamic discourse.
What I mean by those preservative attitudes are none but refers to the fear against the questions, which is maintained by Muslims, both institutionally and ideologically. So preservative attitudes are unlinked to the partisan dichotomy, which is common in the sociological or political commentaries. Although to some extends, these factors are also essential to count.
But the fact, even in the most authoritative Islamic institution like Pesantren, the type of question also had a certain kind of border. A friend of mine (he is a biologist, as well as originated from Pesantren’s elite) once asked, “If the Doomsday’s fanfare will extinguish the whole creature, would it also kill bacteria? Considering that some of these microbes remain undead even in an oxygen-free environment.” He murmurs that, “I am not sure, if I send my question to the religious authorities, I will not get ‘infidel’ stamp.”
“What kind of trumpet that Israfil will blow? Would be the French-Horn? A Saxophone? A Trombone? Or an animal horn-made fanfare?” said another friend of mine from Ushuluddin, responding to that biological question. But, he continued, “I think it is important to ask what Israfil’s instrument is because it sums up the cultural affiliation of the Regime of God.”
Reflecting on SpaceX achievement on Mars exploration and considering the super-billionaires dream about making human inter-planetary creatures, the further question will be, “what does fiqh look like if Muslims become a part of Mars’ initial colony? And how pray from an inter-planetary distance should be conducted? How to decide when Ramadhan came? and how fasting supposedly be done?” In this wonderous question, we have to admit that the geo-centric tone is challenging religion.
However, those questions may light up a contentious debate among clerics. Still, the point is not whether those questions are being responded to or not, nor those questions will trespass community norms. Instead, the fact is that those questions may test how far and deep the freedom of imagination is allowed in the Muslim community.
When we dare to dig down on it, we may:1. Just revitalize our mentality; 2. Just committed to the further probability that may came-up; 3. It just refreshed the whole perspective on how we should look at the status quo and the future.
Yet, initiating a mind-based adventure is not as easy as wondered. One of the classic resistance coming from the following quote, “do not ask many questions; you may look like a Jew if you do so,” said a famous proverb that originated from a haphazard Qur’anic verse modification. Sadly, the quote is adequately renowned among Muslims.
Arguably, we should not stir up between fundamental doctrine and the historically-maintained ignorance, even if both came with a similar appearance. Thus, we must be prudent enough to shed light on the modus-operandi of tribalistic excuses that encourage our ignorance.
Historically speaking, Muslims once had a profound imaginative tradition and reached scientific cosmopolitanism hundred years ago. And for sure, The Arabian Nights will always be remembered as the pinnacle of this tradition.
However, the first tale demonstrates an extreme position against conventional Islamic morals through the Hikayat of Shahrazad and Shahrayar, an epic about sexuality, murder, and gender-based manipulation.
In the middle of the page of The Arabian Nights, we will encounter a multi-dimensional love story between a human and the supra-rational creature fighting for eternal togetherness, Hikayat Prince Jansyah. Other tales tell about human assassination conducted by a bunch of animals.
In the scientific cosmopolitanism realms, the name worth mentioned is Ibnu Al Muqaffa, a Persian-born translator who contributively converted a Hindi’s remarkable tale, Hikayat Kalila and Dimna, a fable written by Baidaba, a royal intellectual under the Anusyirwan’s throne. Before noting that, although Muqaffah had a significant contribution to Islamic literature, he loves to drink and ignore the mandatory sharia.
The extreme moral positions on The Arabian Nights infer the bravery of exploring, even, the most potent or eerie probability of life; wondering its consequences; and ignite further reflection on where life supposedly leads. In its preface, The Arabian Nights say, “the best people are those who learnt from the story of the odd.” At the same time, Muqaffah’s biography indicates that scientific or knowledge cosmopolitanism enlarge the vision, horizon, and even the trajectories of where a particular people could dream universally.
In Today post-pandemic era, bravery and openness are required, not only for the sake of the communal trajectory but also for the fate of humanity. But, on the other hand, the perspective from a romanticist, maintaining tribalistic hatred, or cropping the questions, will only lead to further ignorance and setbacks.
The more imagination we nourished, the more landscapes, perspectives, structures, probabilities, and alternatives we could encounter, contribute and, the more flexible we are.