Series of Lucid Observation (SOLO)
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Have you ever been in the middle of of cleaning your room, fully motivated, when suddenly your mom yells from outside, “Clean your room!”
And instantly, all motivation you had a second ago evaporates?
I have experienced this countless times, and I believe this experience is nearly universal.
I have wondered about this phenomenon since childhood. The explanation is simple on the surface, yet its implications run much deeper.
Before continuing, a disclaimer:
If you are a non-believer of islam and approaching Islam with the sole intention of proving it wrong rather than understanding it, this article is not for you. It is deeply rooted in Islamic beliefs and assumptions, and without sharing that framework, it would just be a waste of time.
I learned this basic knowledge when I started self-exploring Islam. I read Quraish Shihab’s book titled “Logika Agama”. There is a quote in this book that altered every neurons in my brain and made me rethink my whole perspective on how to approach learning islam. The quote is:
“Seseorang yang berpijak kepada wahyu lalu menggunakan akal untuk memahaminya berbeda dengan seseorang yang berpijak pada akalnya lalu menggunakannya untuk memahami wahyu”
“A person who stands upon revelation and uses reason to understand it is fundamentally different from one who stands upon reason and uses it to judge revelation.”
Faith is not merely a set of beliefs, it is a framework of thinking. When two people operate within different frameworks, they may observe the same reality yet arrive at entirely different conclusions.
We can take AI for example. The goal of AI is to mimic human’s brain and train it so that it can output answers/solutions which are expected to satisfy the questions or the goals. An AI system is trained with vast amounts of training data, but the output it produces depends entirely on the model chosen by its creator. Change the model, and the same data could yield different results. Humans are no different. Our minds process reality through frameworks shaped by experience, values, and beliefs. That is why even identical twins can develop different personalities.
A secular-materialist framework will produce conclusions vastly different from an Islamic one. Each side claims its own truth, and within its framework, that is fair. This is why debating belief without addressing the underlying framework often leads nowhere. Switching frameworks is difficult and rarely gradual. More often, it happens suddenly, like a flick of a switch, like when you learn something and suddenly everything starts to make sense on a random afternoon.
One of my favorite scene in the movie Spiderman: Into The Spiderverse is when Peter B. Parker said to miles morales.
“That’s all it is miles. A leap of faith.”
Miles knew he has the ability of a spiderman, but he didn’t believe that he is worthy of being a spiderman. Just like how islam believes that everyone was born a moslem. Their soul knows Allah, but sometimes this world lead them astray. They need to find the islam inside of them, but they need to take that leap, and it’s not easy. You need to do the ikhtiar, and you need hidayah from Allah. So i’ll pray for all of us to get hidayah from Allah.
So that’s that for a disclaimer. Let’s dive into the crux of this article.
There is one interesting sentence a non-believer likes to say to a believer of any religion,
“why do you need a religion just to be a good person?”
I find this question really intriguing and basically it is the main difference between a non-believer and a believer of Islam (i can’t speak for other religion). In Islam, everything can be tied back to our faith or what we usually call, Iman. We know Islam have 6 of them, we also have learned this since childhood. This is the core fundamental thing in Islam and I can’t stress that enough. If you call yourself a moslem. You need to believe that Allah is the almighty, full of compassion and justice. You believe that dunya is a place of trials and tribulations. You believe that dunya is transient and the hereafter is eternal. You believe you exist to worship Allah, that you are just a slave, that you are insignificant in this limitless world. You believe the prophets are the messengers of God.
“why do you need a religion just to be a good person?”
The one implicit mistake in this question is that the person who asks this already has an assumption of what a “good person” is. As I said above, they make their own moral standard. If you decide to choose Islam as your belief therefore it has a consequence of being your framework of thinking. You have to believe that the rules that Allah set through Islam will result in an orderly world. Without Islam, the world will fall into chaos. You can actually observe this dissonance in the human world. We often see people who are really kind in one environment, but show a totally different personality in another environment. For example
- A good father to his kids, but does genocides to other kids in the world.
- A good parent at home, but does corruption at work.
- A good companion to their friends, but a disobedient to their parents.
These are what happens when humans are left to their own virtue. They create their own rules based on their own beliefs. Like the zionists who believe that their lives are worth more than the lives of other. Like the Nazis who believe that their race is superior. Like the people who think Islam is a religion of terrorist just because their country’s propagandist said so. It is very difficult to acknowledge that we all live in a bubble, the bubble that had been shaped by numerous propaganda and widely accepted beliefs. Humans are full of hypocrisy, and Islam was created to set specific rules to standardize the moral and the immoral. This is also one of the thing that we have to believe if we believe in Islam. That the rules created by Allah are the perfect rules and full of justice.
“why do you need a religion just to be a good person?”
This question also depicts the level of understanding of Islam. In Islam, we are often told to avoid sins and do good deeds. That’s a textbook definition of tawakkal, we (moslems) have learned that since childhood. However, when we dive deeper into Islam, we will realize that this religion is more than just a ritualistic routines, more than physical presence.
Our intention matters most. That’s why we are told to say bismillahirrahmanirrahim in the beginning of every activity we do. To address the things we do in the name of Allah. to believe that
nothing that we do in this world would be possible without Allah’s permission.
Don’t mistake the “Intention Matters More” as “It’s All About Intention.” We still have rules or syariah that we have to follow in islam. If you don’t follow these rules, it means you don’t believe that these rules are important to be followed and you can judge yourself with these examples of the things we know are prohibited in Islam that if you violate it can tell your degree of iman.
- A lot of people are having a romantic relationship before marriage. The question is: How distrusting are you toward God that you don’t believe you will find the love of your life which is the best for you if you follow the way God had specified.
- A lot of people are investing in places that are questionable whether it contains riba/usury or not. The question is: How distrusting are you toward God that you don’t believe that your rizq is already written?
- A lot of people are worrying about their future (This is the one I often fall into). The question is: How distrusting are you toward God that you don’t believe your future is in God’s hands and his qada and qadr are for the best?”
However, an excessive obsession over doing good deeds and avoiding sins can lead to a harmful way of practicing islam. Islam is much much more than that. Remember why shaytan got kicked out of heaven? You might think it was because they didn’t want to prostrate to Adam, but that’s only their action of disobeying God. What got them kicked out is not due to their action, but their intention. They think they’re better than Adam and they disobeyed Allah’s command just to protect their ego.
It’s a “it’s not the action but it’s the principle” kinda thing.
Because people love to focus on the rights and wrongs they forget about the key fundamental thing in islam. That is humility that leads to self-introspection.
We sin everyday, no one is free from sin, but the thing is Allah gives us a tool, a mechanism to erase our sins by doing taubat/repentance directly to God, every day, every chance you get. THAT’S BASICALLY THE WHOLE CAVEAT. You sin, you feel guilty, then you repent, then you sin again, then you repent again. No one is gatekeeping anything from you, you can access this tool provided by God with ease.
The only thing that is standing between human and an absolution from God is our own ego. People nowadays are too far up their own delusional head to admit they made mistakes in the first place, let alone feel sorry for it. So how can they ask for repentance if they don’t admit their mistake in the first place. That’s why humility which can lead to self-introspection is really important.
Humility is also needed when we do good deeds. Going back to the simple phenomenon I mentioned at the start of this article will help drive the point home. Why do we hate it when we are told to do things, but will have no problem doing it if out of our on whim? Especially for good things. We hate it because It feels like we are losing our autonomy over our own decision in life. The activity that was once a charity work now is categorized as a task, an obligation. It makes us feel less noble. We feel now there exist a person that can boss us around. Because we assume the one who tell us to do things don’t believe that we have a capability to do good things and all of that are tied to our ego.
“Why do you need a religion just to be a good person?”
And this is most likely stems from the belief of
“We do good things because we think we are a good person who knows what’s good for us and for others.”
You would think the hardest thing to do as a moslem is to not sin because, as I previously mentioned, we often reduce islam to a religion of sins and good deeds. In fact, The hardest thing to do in islam is the purification of the heart. To fight our ego and nafs. To realize that we are all just a slave of God. That we are nothing without God’s grace.
“We do good things because we are a good person.” If we think like this, that’s our ego talking. In islam, we have to believe that
“We do good things because we are allowed by Allah to be a good person and Allah knows what’s good for us and for others.”
There’s something I like to call the nuance of faith. It’s the subtle movements of the heart that we rarely pay attention to. We can do all the good in the world, but if we don’t do it in the name of Allah, then ultimately those deeds only serve our ego. And good done for the self is a fertile ground for arrogance and riya. You begin to feel like you’re above others. You catch yourself thinking, “Why can’t people do what I did so easily?” and that is the start of a long road of judging others, of quietly placing yourself on a pedestal.
This is why God gave us another mechanism to prove ourselves as His servants and also to keep us in check of our “nikmat” which is syukur/gratitude. It takes real humility to admit that everything we call our own was given to us. Your intelligence, your achievements, your friends, family, even your sufferings and don’t forget, the whisper in your heart that tells you to do good things.
So,
“why do you need a religion just to be a good person?”
The answer is no, you don’t need a religion or need to be a moslem just to be a good person. However being a good person is not as virtuous as you might think it is. Being a good person is just the bare minimum of being a human in this world. Islam as a religion only adds an extra layer of challenge to that.
The thing that destroy this world is not the lack of good people and the abundance of evil. It’s the lack of humility that can lead to self-introspection.
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