At-Takathur is the name of the Quranic surah (102), immediately relevant to the age in which we live – an age dominated by the materialistic world-view to the exclusion of all non-materialistic considerations. To understand the concept of takathur, we turn to a graphic episode from the captivating and enlightening autobiography of the late Muhammad Asad, entitled The Road to Makkah.
It is early twentieth century. Europe is intoxicated by unprecedented materialistic progress and its absolute control of the world and its resources – a condition which it has contrived to maintain up to this day in spite of two big wars and the challenges of a protracted Cold War. Muhammad Asad is travelling by train in Berlin along with his wife, Elsa. The train is overcrowded by men and women in sick hurry. As Asad looks around he sees worry writ large on each face. Elegantly dressed men and women, all strained by something gnawing at them from within. Asad asks his wife to take a look at these faces, ‘distracted’, in Eliot’s words, “by distraction from distraction.” She confirms Asad’s impression. When they reach home, Asad reads out to her the Quranic surah at-Takathur:
You are obsessed by greed for more and more
Until you go down to your graves.
Nay, but you will come to know!
Nay, but you will come to know!
Nay, if you but knew it with the knowledge of certainty,
You would indeed see the hell you are in.
In time, indeed, you shall see it with the eye of certainty:
And on that Day you will be asked what you have done with the boon of life.
(Asad’s translation)
Takathur from kathrat means excessive greed for more and more and desire to surpass others in amassing more and still more. This total engrossment with takathur has assumed the proportions of the most dreaded moral cancer of modern times. Individuals try to surpass each other in what is called the advanced standard of living.
Nations and powers are involved in a rat-race to monopolise and control the world resources. As a result the world in which we live has been converted into a place which, if not already a hell, is certainly a would-be hell.
It is early twentieth century. Europe is intoxicated by unprecedented materialistic progress and its absolute control of the world and its resources – a condition which it has contrived to maintain up to this day in spite of two big wars and the challenges of a protracted Cold War. Muhammad Asad is travelling by train in Berlin along with his wife, Elsa. The train is overcrowded by men and women in sick hurry. As Asad looks around he sees worry writ large on each face. Elegantly dressed men and women, all strained by something gnawing at them from within. Asad asks his wife to take a look at these faces, ‘distracted’, in Eliot’s words, “by distraction from distraction.” She confirms Asad’s impression. When they reach home, Asad reads out to her the Quranic surah at-Takathur:
You are obsessed by greed for more and more
Until you go down to your graves.
Nay, but you will come to know!
Nay, but you will come to know!
Nay, if you but knew it with the knowledge of certainty,
You would indeed see the hell you are in.
In time, indeed, you shall see it with the eye of certainty:
And on that Day you will be asked what you have done with the boon of life.
(Asad’s translation)
Takathur from kathrat means excessive greed for more and more and desire to surpass others in amassing more and still more. This total engrossment with takathur has assumed the proportions of the most dreaded moral cancer of modern times. Individuals try to surpass each other in what is called the advanced standard of living.
Nations and powers are involved in a rat-race to monopolise and control the world resources. As a result the world in which we live has been converted into a place which, if not already a hell, is certainly a would-be hell.
0 Comments
Please comment to let us know and improve.