Presence Of Mind by Taqiuddin Nabhani

The problem now is not how to initiate thinking, for thinking exists in people by their innate nature. This is because man is created with a brain and with sensation that transfers the reality to the brain, which is a natural matter. What remains after that is the issue of the previous information and the issue of the reality that the sensation carries to the brain. Thus, the brain and sensation exist with man since his birth, they are both with him from creation and by innate nature. Therefore, initiating these matters does not need any effort or work, for they exist with man innately, i.e. by creation. What are important are the realities that are carried by sensation to the brain and the previous information that explains such reality. As for realities, they are available and abundant. Due to life in this world, sensation encounters many realities, besides the numerous and consecutive occurrences that are daily incidents. All that the sensation has to do is to carry these realities. Regardless of the excessive number of realities it carries to the brain, it will initiate thinking because the previous information that explains this reality is vast, accessible and easy to use. Therefore, there is no problem in thinking, nor does it represent any problem. How we initiate thinking is not a problem, nor should it cause any problem. The whole problem is from the Kaafir colonisation or the Kaafir West including Russia. The West knew from its study and awareness that thinking exists. So its main attention became how to suspend it, or how to make it unproductive and inactive and then consequently how to make it harmful if it could not suspend it. Nobody can suspend thinking, because the creature is animate, i.e. living, man is a thinking creature and the presence of life is natural. The fact that man is a thinker is thus natural. Therefore, it is not possible to suspend thinking in man as long as he exists, as long as life flows in him. Therefore, the West spent its effort to make this thinking harmful. From this the problem arose. So, the problem is that thinking became harmful. How then can this harm be removed and thinking made useful? The answer to this lies in the current thinking itself. The non-western person thinks, but he exaggerates and becomes excessive in thinking. He thinks about and studies everything and he philosophises everything. This, results in two matters: Firstly, he starts to think about objects by philosophising them. Thus he philosophises the chair, “what is it?” He philosophises the plate, “what is it?” He philosophises the cup, “what is it?” So he takes these things out of their nature, their time and their natural situation. Thus, they become more obscure; rather obscurity surrounds them, thus becoming remote from their true meaning. The listener or the reader becomes unaware of what the chair is, what the plate is and what the cup is. If it were satisfactory for it just to be mentioned, then he would have known it properly.

Had he not philosophised it, he would have known it as it is. So what made it vague is the thinking or philosophising. Therefore, it is necessary to remove this philosophising. This applies to the material and immaterial things. If mentioning the ‘risk’ were confined to saying its name only, it would have been known what it was. However, if it were philosophised as a calculated or studied venture, or as a reckless venture, it would not become a known venture; it would rather change to become a plan. Similar to this are the terms spontaniety, use of intellect, intelligence and the like. The more these words are explained and philosophised, the more vague they become. Therefore, vagueness is only removed from them when philosophising is separated from them, or thinking is separated from them. The harm in thinking, in this context, only came from its generalisation and making it include everything, even the automatic matters. Therefore, thinking in the automatic matters or philosophising them is what harmed thinking. Moreover, the inclusion of thinking in everything made it include spontaniety. In other words it created slow thinking, whilst spontaniety requires quick thinking. However, slow thinking, study and scrutiny are prevalent. Therefore, habituation to it and focusing the taste on it made it the indispensable basis that must exist. Thus, slow thinking became the norm and the basis and the tastes were focussed on it.

As such, it became necessary for everything to have study and examination. Thus, there was no place for speed or for the absence of study or the absence of examination. Accordingly, spontaniety disappeared. From this incorrect view, everything needs study and examination, thus spontaniety does not arise nor should it exist.

This is because it means thinking without study or examination, a matter that became rejected and disapproved of. Spontaniety became tarnished in their minds. It was deemed that it should not exist and nobody should be characterised with it. Therefore, spontaniety became detested and accordingly non-existent or viewed as incorrect to exist. Thus, the western invasion created this problem. It is not thinking; it is rather what results from thinking that is of harm. Thus, the problem became the harm of thinking and the solution to this problem is to remove this harm. Thus, the question that arises now is: How can one remove this harm from thinking? Thinking exists, it is natural and so it is not the problem.

The problem is rather: How can one remove this harm from thinking? The answer to that is that one has to know, before anything else, that the West is an enemy, that there is doubt in all of its thoughts. Therefore, first of all, one must have scepticism regarding all of its thoughts, so no one should not adopt any thought from it except after study and research: What is it? What is the aim of it? What is the purpose of presenting it? Thus, scepticism about everything that came from the West is the basis; this must be established firmly. Unless scepticism towards the West is established, in everything it exports, particularly the thoughts, then we will certainly continue to be captives to this thinking and we will definitely continue to fall victim to it and to its traps. Therefore, the first step one should take is to suspect the West and have doubt in everything it issues to us, even if it issues that for itself, because it might sacrifice itself for the sake of deceiving us. Deception is the West’s basis, even if it deceived its own people and family, for it depends on deception as its strongest weapon. Therefore, scepticism towards it and in everything it issues is the basis and origin; this is what should prevail in the lands of Islam or amongst Muslims.

After this scepticism comes the second matter or the second step, which is the thinking, or removing the harm from thinking. This is because the way of thinking was brought by the West among its deceptive thoughts. Following the scepticism towards what the West brought, should be scepticism towards its urging of us to think and to make the thinking comprehensive. So, we must have doubt in this encouragement to think. Why does it urge us to think, when thinking is natural and innate in man? They have an aim from this encouragement. So one must find the aim and the objective. One must know it and be wary of its consequences. The encouragement to thinking aims at making thinking sacred, making it a goal and detaching it from sentiment and emotions, or making them not active or effective. This is despite the fact that man has intellect and sentiments. So he is not sentimental only, nor intellectual only.

Rather he has both of these attributes. However, the leader of the march should have the intellect and not the sentiment. The sentiments are blazing emotions, so they are not good for leadership; besides they burn quickly and die down quickly. Thus, man has intellect and sentiments; the leadership should be given to the intellect and not to the sentiments. Once we reach this point we comprehend the aim of this encouragement to thinking and we cause it to fail in achieving its aim. At the same time we would not discard the sentiments and the emotions; we rather keep them.

However, we would use them in their right place, where they should be and where they fit. That is, they should remain directed by the intellect. Thus, one would have removed the first harm caused by its encouragement to thinking. By this removal, the sacredness of the intellect will be removed; making it the only matter that exists will also be removed if the sentiments exist beside it, even if they were directed by it. Thus, the intellectual divestment of sentiments that the West wants to establish would have been removed, together with harm it causes. Then one would take its encouragement to think in an intellectual way, to make the thinking exist, but in the natural form for which it exists. Another issue arises from its encouragement to think and making this a comprehensive principle.

Meaning to think about everything, study everything and scrutinise everything. This means to think about everything slowly. This leads to the abandonment of quick thinking and consequently the abandonment of spontaniety. We thus become accustomed to slow thinking and ignore or despise quick thinking. Slow thinking thus becomes the standard for the validity of thinking. Together with conviction and repetition, this, after some time, abolishes spontaniety and consequently negates its role. We thus fall captive to slow thinking; our enemy will find us unaware and we become blind fools before its hands and remain under its control. Quick problems will then take place while we can’t solve them; the fleeting opportunities will be missed, without being seized quickly. So the problems will multiply and opportunities will be lost.

As regards thinking being generalised, beside its removal of spontaniety, it makes the automatic thinking or the automatic philosophy subject for discussion, it in fact makes them a subject for philosophy and thinking. Thus, the vagueness of the ambiguous matters is increased and the clear and obvious matters become vague. Accordingly, we would not be able to benefit from the most simple of matters, which are the automatic matters, i.e. the clear matters, like the chair, the cup and the plate in the material issues; or like spontaniety, the use of intelligence and intelligence in the abstract issues. If the person can’t benefit from the automatic matters, which are among the simplest issues, or which are the most easy to utilize, then he will become a person whose presence and work are of no value.

Therefore, the problem is not in thinking; it is rather in removing the harm from thinking. This is achieved by making it a normal thinking process; where it speeds up when the matter requires speed, like spontaniety, and it slows down when the matter needs slowness, like the meaning of intellect and the meaning of thinking itself. This includes everything that needs thought in order to become clear, like the existence of Allah and the existence of justice. However, it does not include that which does not need thought and thinking, like the automatic matters such as the chair, plate and cup, the intelligence, using of intellect and spontaniety, beside other matters. Thus, the problem is only the removing of harm from thinking and nothing else.