Be human for God's sake

Bismillah.

Thanks to a much respected scholar friend from Iran for having left a valuable comment on my post - 'The joy of being'. He was commenting on three kinds of souls. It's my pleasure to quote him here one more time:

"According to the insightful scholars the human being fundamentally encapsulates three kinds of souls:

- the vegetative soul (consumption, growth and production)

- the animal soul (faculty of estimation (al-waahima) and its sub-faculties, faculty of desire (al-shahwa) and faculty of anger (al-ghadhab) and,

- the human soul (the theoretical and practical intellect).

What is so important for us, is to live the life of human soul. Otherwise so many do have this "life" but they do not attain the level of human beings. They are mostly busy in their plant and animal lives, observing what they eat, how they grow, what they produce, how they can satisfy their desires etc. May the Almighty enable all of us attain the human life. Aameen" - Shaykh Muhammad Khalfan

If I may reflect on this valuable point in my own simple language of faith, what am I? Am I a vege, an animal or a real human being? If I were a plant, I would just wait for my master to water me or wait for the rain. If I were an animal, ooh I imagine I would be very sensuous, always hungry and hunting for food and getting angry when feeling famish. If I were truly a human soul I should, as quoted above, I should be using both the theoretical and practical intellect. I think that makes a lot of sense. Obviously, we are smarter than plants or animals. Apart from keeping our physiques nourished with food and energy, and spending time to multiply [not me but many of you] we ought to be using our brain a lot more to justify our existence as a human being - our raison d'etre, a French phrase meaning 'reason for existence'.

And I think if we truly are optimizing our intellectual capabilities, we would not be so selfish, we would genuinely care for other people, we would contribute towards the progress of  mankind, we would give ourselves away, our time, our strength, our youth, our wealth, our ideas, our love. If we have the luxury of time, we could go visit the sick. If we happen to own a luxurious car, why not take some lonely orphans on a joyride. Surely we all have a loving heart, so let's act like we have one. Know what it takes to be human and behave like one, for god's sake!

____________________________

p/s People, I'm sorry if I'm beginning to sound blunt and candid, I think it's got something to do with turning 40. Forty is the new 20, they say! I think they are right cos I found myself spending my sunday reading InStyle magazine, Conde Nast Traveller and 'How to get from where you are to where you want to be.' Life begins at 40 perhaps, life as a human, not a plant and definitely not an animal. Na'uzubillah. God forbid cos I don't think a donkey knows that Allah gives us seven parts of the limbs so we could prostrate to Him, that we are here to make sajadah to the Creator, to worship.

“And I (Allah) created not the jinn and mankind except that they should worship Me (Alone)” - Quran Al-Dhaariyaat 51:56