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Exploring Life's Horizons
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Shall We tell you who will be the greatest losers in their works? Those whose striving goes
astray in the present life, while they think they are working good deeds. [The Qur'an
18:104]
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Fanaticism
What qualifies one as a fanatic? What are the characteristics
of fanaticism?
Generally speaking, a fanatic is someone who is described as
having an unreasonable or intemperate enthusiasm for a
cause, belief, activity, or the like. If one can pin down what is
meant by an "unreasonable or intemperate" enthusiasm, one
will be well on one's way to having some idea of what
fanaticism entails.
As simple as this task of pinning down the meaning of
"unreasonable" or "intemperate" appears to be at first
glance, one encounters a number of difficulties. For example,
whose perspective will we use with respect to determining
what constitutes unreasonableness or intemperateness?
Consider a person who is very career oriented. Let us
suppose this individual works 16-17 hours a day, seven days
a week. Let us assume further this person tends: not to take
vacations; goes into work on holidays; takes work home;
doesn't take sick leave; associates only with colleagues or
industry people, and talks shop with anyone and everyone
that comes along.
Is this person's enthusiasm for work unreasonable or
intemperate? The board of directors of the company for
which the individual works probably does not think so. The
individual's boss or supervisor might feel the person is only
meeting the industry or company standard and may even
want the individual to squeeze in a few more hours
somewhere during the week.
Colleagues may or may not want to work that many hours
but, very likely, would not see anything unreasonable or
intemperate in such commitment to work. Ambition, moving
up the corporate ladder, competition, fear of being fired,
corporate politics, a struggling company, and so on, can all
contribute to this kind of work profile.
On the other hand, the husband or wife of this individual may
have a different view of the matter. In addition, the children
who rarely ever see this parent are not likely to consider
such behavior very reasonable or temperate. Furthermore,
the family physician may feel the person in question is driving
himself or herself into an unnecessarily early grave and what
would be reasonable or temperate about depriving oneself of
life?
One person's commitment is often another person's idea of
fanaticism. Capitalists frequently consider communists to be
fanatics and vice versa. Corporations tend to label
environmentalists as fanatics, and environmentalists
sometimes refer to corporations in a similar fashion. Military
and anti-military groups also square-off over, among other
things, which of the two sides consists of fanatics.
In all of the foregoing cases, a fanatic tends to be anyone
who has considerable enthusiasm for something which does
not meet with one's approval. On the other hand, one who
shows a great deal of zeal for something of which one
approves is considered to be a person whose dedication is an
inspiration to all reasonable people.
Ideally, one would like, if possible, to come up with an
understanding of fanaticism which does not depend on
whether or not one approves of that to which a commitment
is made. The aspect of approval seems to entangle the issue
in the arbitrary shifts of subjective likes and dislikes.
Besides an unreasonable enthusiasm, fanaticism, earlier on,
was also characterized as involving an intemperate
enthusiasm. The quality of immoderation may be a less
problematic indicator to use as an index for the possible
presence of fanaticism than is the quality of approval or
disapproval of that to which someone commits herself or
himself.
One of the things which strikes one about someone who
works 16-17 hours a day, seven days a week, is the lack of
balance in that individual's life. We may admire the person's
work ethic, and we can leave aside, for the moment, whether
we approve of what the individual does. Nonetheless, a life
which involved nothing else but this narrowly focused
expenditure of time, energy and talents would seem to
express a rather excessive and intemperate enthusiasm for a
given activity: namely, a specific kind of work.
Under such narrowly conceived conditions, emotional, mental
and physical health are considered expendable. One's spouse
becomes unimportant. One's family is subject to sacrifice.
Spirituality has no place in one's life. Rest and relaxation are
cut from one's temporal budget. There is no room for
expanding one's horizons in non-work related areas.
Community problems are not one's concerns. One has no
time for environmental issues.
In short, there is no harmony or balance in the life of the
person outlined previously. The individual's life is not
tempered and temperate. It lacks moderation.
According to practitioners of the Sufi path, everyone with
whom we interact has certain rights over us. Our spouses,
children, relatives, neighbors, and community all have certain
rights over us.
We owe them all duties of care and consideration. They have
claims on our time, energy, talents, intellect and compassion,
as well as our money.
If we permit any commitment, work or otherwise, to
undermine such duties of care and consideration, then we are
doing injustice to those around us. We are depriving them of
what we owe them from our humanity.
In addition, we owe a duty of care to ourselves and to God. If
we permit commitments in certain parts of our lives to
dominate us to the exclusion of realizing our essential identity
and to the exclusion of our spiritual obligations to God, we
are treating ourselves and God with injustice.
Furthermore, we have a spiritual responsibility to be
guardians and caretakers in relation to the rest of creation.
This responsibility imposes on us certain parameters of
permissibility concerning the way we can and cannot interact
with nature.
To be moderate and temperate in our lives, is, from the
perspective of Sufi masters, to bring all of the
aforementioned duties of care into harmony and balance so
that, as far as is possible, justice is done to all manner of
being.
From this point of view, fanaticism is a matter of any sort of
enthusiasm which, on a fairly consistent basis, prevents us
from bringing the different dimensions of our life into the sort
of balance which would permit us to, God willing, fulfil the
duties of care we have to God, other people, nature and
ourselves.
Intolerance is also frequently mentioned in discussions of
fanaticism. In other words, a fanatic is someone who tends to
be intolerant of others who do not share her or his
intemperate enthusiasm for a given kind of commitment.
Sufi masters maintain intolerance is a major source of the
injustice we do to others. When we are intolerant toward
others, we are not in a position to observe our duties of care
and consideration with respect to those people.
Intolerance affects our fiduciary equilibrium in the overall
harmony of our duties of care. We become emotionally and
conceptually weighted in certain ways, and, as a result, we
cannot keep our spiritual balance. When we lose our
spiritual balance, we commit injustice.
Consequently, fanaticism is the predisposition of an
individual to commit injustice as a result of intolerance
toward those who do not share a given enthusiastic
commitment one has. Moreover, the nature of this
enthusiastic commitment is such that it has compromised our
duties of care and consideration to others.
Frequently, the term fanaticism is used in contexts of
religious beliefs. However, the foregoing characterization
clearly indicates almost any kind of enthusiastic zeal
involving intemperate and intolerant behavior and, therefore,
which generates disharmony and injustice, is an expression
of fanaticism.
Religion, politics, economics, philosophy, science, careers,
families, literature, education, patriotism, journalism, war,
culture, class, sexuality, addiction, business, government,
law, sports, and so on, are all capable of giving birth to
fanaticism. In fact, fanaticism of all manner of descriptions
are probably among the most prevalent and persistent forms
of problem facing humanity today.
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