A culture of reverence for people
by fahd al-ahmari
“The first sign of maturity is the abandonment of the sanctification of people,” an inspiring phrase that stopped me a lot. It is frequently cited despite its short life, but it is one of the rulings that the riders in life should follow.
Today, we are in dire need of spreading the principle of abandoning the sanctification of people, which presents human idolatry, the disruption of thought, and the nullification of the mind, which is responsible for causing disruption in the normal course of our lives.
Although everyone agreed, theoretically, that no one should be sanctified, the practical reality reveals otherwise and foretells the principle of sanctification rooted in the convictions of many.
This becomes clear when you present an opinion that is contrary to the prevailing opinion on a religious or cultural issue, and someone throws at you, “are you more knowledgeable than so-and-so?”
A monotonous cliché that it is customary to hear when the defender expresses his heavenly icon that walks on the earth. “Do you know more than so-and-so?”
Obliteration of the identity of the mind and a setback in the concept of science itself by making it confined to so-and-so, and you only have to surrender your mind and submit to the first, as “the first left nothing for the last”, according to the wisdom of the pilgrims on what the ancients praised, who see the inadmissibility of the aforementioned “sacred” and the necessity of submitting His words and his opinion are always on the contemporary.
Someone said it best :
Say to the one who sees nothing of the contemporary
He sees the ancient as first submissions
That old was new And This talk will be old
Al-Jahiz said: “If you hear a man saying: The first left nothing for the last, then know that he does not want to succeed.”
As every era has its right to creativity and innovation, and the current era is replete with evidence of the explosion of knowledge that confirms the merit of the successors and their ability to achieve the achievements that previous generations considered impossible.
And any revering nation of persons, looking forward to seeing a present symbol living in its midst, finding in it a model for the holy dead.
Therefore, it finds, when a new star appears in its orbit, it accelerates the process of spiritual soaring around it and imparting an aura of new sanctity to his person, so that whoever criticizes him is considered a critic of god & heaven, which calls for a war Holy for a victory for this new, renewed envoy.
The strange irony here is that this new character may end its sanctity in one moment! And that is when he comes with an opinion that is contrary to what the “sanctified” adults agree, whether they are living or dead, and this is the relentless motive to attack and to confront his thought and search again for others, after he was their shining star.
Our real crisis is the issue of not differentiating between the person and his opinion, between the individual and his action.
A person, whoever he is, has his right to be respected and appreciated, but his action ranges between right and wrong on the principle (every son of Adam is wrong) and therefore he is subject to criticism and evaluation, whoever he is, except for the Prophets and messengers of God.
In order to treat this problem of sanctification, it must first be recognized as a real problem that stands in the way of development and construction, because time flows through us like a river for different eras, and new concepts must be developed for the correct texts that are, in principle, keeping pace with every time and place, but with the renewed “flowing river” mind and not the Frozen Ocean mind.
The treatment also requires recognizing that the sanctification of people is a mental illness that needs a real treatment to get us out of this crisis, because the established truth in human beings is the deficiency, and the claim of monopolizing knowledge and truth in a person is a deviation from common sense to a contagious pathological condition that may destroy the spectrum of society, nullifying human individuality and disrupting development work.
The pillars of civilized bankruptcy are being built.
We must devote as young people to the realization that constructive criticism is a healthy, positive state.
It is to highlight the positives and praise them, and to show the negatives and treat them away from defamation, because the goal is to address the same thought and not the same person, and this does not detract from the person’s position, but rather what is in his personal interest and the public interest as well, especially if the person is distinguished and has followers.
What calls for contemplation is the strange paradox in the case of our distinguished, for they are between dwarfing and glorification, between omission and reverence, freezing and glorification.
There are distinguished among our societies who do not receive attention and do not open a door for them!
There are distinguished people in every field that we exaggerate, and society is saturated with overwhelming praise and being surrounded by auras of reverence and glorification, and making them above the level of review and redemption.
The time has come, especially the fanatics of the sanctified people, to seriously affirm that all of our contemporaries and ancestors are under the umbrella of criticism,
which is a corrective balance through which opinion and thought can be evaluated, because every human being is subject to the inherent shortcomings of all human beings.