The Poor-Man's Guide to Modernity - Independent Media Center

It is because of this empirical fact that the author of the Qur'an, in what it claims to be its last
Testament to mankind, has laid such strong emphasis on striving for “haq” – even making it
the underpinning of a life which is at a loss in its absence ( ‏خسر‏‎M‎ ‏لفى‏ ‏الانسان‏ ان‏ ). Otherwise, the Biblical “do unto others as you have others do unto you” is still sufficient
general principle. However, while the latter was merely advisory, striving for “haq” has been
made compulsory!
And what has man, “insaan”, done about such striving?
Nothing.
Caught between facile world views on the one hand, and bread and circuses on the other, man
continues to be manipulated into voluntary servitude to tyrants of modernity just as he was in
antiquity. While one may arguably understand the servitude in the Dark Ages to the tyrants of
antiquity, in the modern information age, the Technetronic Era (term coined by Zbigniew
Brzezinski), for the disease of the Dark Ages to persist is indicative of something far deeper
which has not changed despite the march of civilizations, liberations, exponential increases in
public knowledge, and the Technetronic progress.
Those who pursue “ilm”, knowledge, don't necessarily do so to strive for “haq”, or to redress
the human condition, but for their own narrow self-interests to achieve their own version of the
'American Dream'. As the knowledge bearers, they are often either the direct harbingers of, or
the silent bystanders to, the untold crimes against humanity. In the Technetronic Era of today,
the former are the scientists, engineers, and technicians of empire laboring under facile
delusions of all kind.
Tyranny of course only flourishes when many good men, and many good women, learned and
pious, too busy pursuing their 'American Dreams', stay silent, indifferent.
That is just too well-worn a statement to be anything but one of the best moral clichés of all
time. Edmund Burke wasn't the first to think of it. All the sages throughout the ages have
reflected upon it. And Solon, considered one of the seven greatest law givers of ancient Rome,
even made coming to the aid of fellow man in distress, a legal obligation!
Apart from the copious evidence of blood-stained pages of recorded history, the obvious
import of accurate knowledge to the pursuit of “haq” as its principled primemover, can also be
contemporarily judged by the empirical fact that due to the Muslims having a rather facile view
The Poor-Man's Guide to Modernity 184 / 334 Zahir Ebrahim