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@ StrandedNomad
2025-01-21 18:56:07
The loss of sight is a grim tragedy. Are there words capable of describing the sorrow of once having been able to witness this world and all that it contains, bathed in it's wonderful colours, complimented by the symphony that the contrasts between them orchestrate; of having seen expressions on people's faces that sometimes amplify and sometimes betray the emotions of their person; of having had the agency of finding meaning in the beauty and forms of objects around you by virtue of the concepts you had read? If there are any words whose meaning can bear the burden, I am incapable of stringing them together.
Tennyson believed that "**'Tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all**". I reframe this line to ask you not about the experience of love, but the experience of sight; "**Is it better to have sight and lost it, than to never have seen at all?**" Whatever choice one prefers, the conclusion is still tragic. I ask this question not for the sake of literary flair, but because I do believe this is the predicament most of us find ourselves in without even being minutely aware of it.
Allah, in His infinite wisdom, has endowed His creation with senses on par with their purpose. The sunflower has no eyes, yet it tracks the sun, seeking the sunlight that will fuel it's photosynthesis, fulfilling it's purpose of growth. The animals possess eyes that are fine-tuned for their purpose of survival with predators having better depth perception and prey having a better field of vision. Humans also have eyes, but humans are not animals. While sharing the same basic requirements of the body, we have an intrinsic realisation that we were made for something more. If we were made for more, shouldn't our ability to see be greater than an animal's?
Allah has made our eyes capable of seeing realities deeper than the soul and greater than the expanse of the universe. Our eyes do not just serve to capture the sun-rays reflected from a towering snow-capped peak to create the image of a mountain in our brains. Rather, the eyes of the body and the eyes of the soul are meant to work in conjunction to generate an overwhelming sense of awe in our hearts that compels us to reflect on the magnificence of the One Who is capable of creating multitudes of these colossal mountains. That is true "sight". *Bani Adam's* purpose is to recognise, know, and submit to Allah willingly and we have been given eyes that serve that purpose. If our eyes cannot yet acknowledge Him in the objects and events around us, then our example is of those
*"...hearts they do not understand with, eyes they do not see with, and ears they do not hear with. They are like cattle. In fact, they are even less guided! Such ˹people˺ are ˹entirely˺ heedless."*
***(7:179)***
In conclusion, all I can do is ask myself, *"Can I see? Was I ever able to see? Or is it that I have lost the ability to see?*" Allahu A'lam