Mirror of Reality
Usman Isa Modibbo
As for those who believe in Allah and His messengers, it is they who are truly the people of truth. And the martyrs, with their Lord, will have their reward and their light. But as for those who disbelieve and reject Our signs, it is they who will be the residents of the Hellfire.
Qur’an, Al-Hadid, 57:19
The 20th century was known as the century of physics, primarily due to the development of quantum physics in the early 1920s. Quantum physics investigates the natural world at scales of less than nanometres i.e. 10-9m. It is a bizarre world of particles that exist for the most infinitesimal moments in time, traverse space without leaving their original position, and interact instantaneously without any time duration! The advances in computing and the cellular communications technological ‘quantum’ leaps that owe their development to breakthroughs in this era to the discovery of laws operating at a level unseen to human vision.
The nuclear and hydrogen bombs are also the result of quantum physics. The destructive power of the smallest of things what Allah SWT has described as ‘miskala zaratin,’ ‘an atom’s weight’ was shown to be able to end our civilization; and the meaning and implication of the sacred metaphor was horrifically realised in the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki which murdered over 226,000 people. Martin Luther King lamented “guided missiles and misguided men.”
The dualistic nature of light as both particle and wave was revealed via double slit experiments. During these experiments particles of light fired through silts collapse into wave patterns on proceeding walls, showing light to exist as both a wave and a particle. This was later proven to be true of all atomic matter. Things are not as they seem.
The Hajj, a pillar of Islam, has as its commencing rituals the Tawaf, seven obligatory circuits of the Kaaba followed by the Sa’ay, and seven obligatory brisk marches between the hills of Safa and Marwa to commemorate Hajar’s (AS) desperate search for water for the infant Ishmael (AS). Tawaf is cyclic in motion and the Sa’ay linear. Einsteinian relativity—another 20th century advancement in humanity’s understanding of the universe—proved time and space to be unified dimensions; the space-time of our ‘dunya’ or physical existence. Added to space’s three dimensions of length, height and breath was the fourth dimension of time of which the Kaaba’s sacred geometry as space and the simultaneity of the cyclical and linear motions of the pilgrims as time are metaphysical unifications.
Tawaf and Sa’ay must be completed in counts of the sacred number seven, the number of wavelengths of light (radio, microwaves, infrared, visible light, ultraviolet, X-rays, gamma rays), and the number of colours of visible light (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet) which collectively weave the ecstasy of white light and separately forge the rainbow which in the Bible represents the Mercy of God1.
The Hajj is a pilgrimage to the House of God and symbolic of the Day of Judgement. During Tawaf the laws of the sharia which mandate the separation of sexes is nullified as the laws of classical physics are nullified at the quantum level of reality. An infinite line is a circle and a circle is a composition of infinitesimal lines. The Kaaba—the primal centre of the universe is the only space where the rows of prayer become circles. As pilgrims in prayer we collapse into waves of submission and as pilgrims between Safa and Marwa we collapse into particles arranged in rows. The hidden dual nature of light as wave and particle is metaphysically manifested.
On that Day you will see believing men and women with their light shining ahead of them and on their right. They will be told, “Today you have good news of Gardens, under which rivers flow, for you to stay in forever. This is truly the ultimate triumph.”
Qur’an, Al-Hadid:, 57:12
The Sa’ay is also the believer’s preparation to cross the Sirat, the bridge over Hell. Classical tafsirs have interpreted the terror of this eschatological moment as when we will most need of the ecstasy of Allah’s Light.
At Hajj we are reminded of the Day of Judgement and at its climax—the standing at Arafat—of the Day of the covenant when we acknowledged our Lord.
Allah asked, “Am I not your Lord?” They replied, “Yes, You are! We testify…”
Qur’an, Al-Araf:, 7172
Hajj is symbolic of the beginning and end of the human drama. A theophany of the Eastern cyclical time of Dharmic religions and the Western linear time of the Abrahamic faiths; for the Light of Allah is neither ‘of the East nor of the West.’
Allāh is the Light of the heavens and the earth. The example of His light is like a niche within which is a lamp; the lamp is within glass, the glass as if it were a pearly [white] star lit from [the oil of] a blessed olive tree, neither of the east nor of the west…
Qur’an, Al-Nur, 24:35
- The rainbow that I have put in the sky will be my sign to you and to every living creature on earth. It will remind you that I will keep this promise forever. When I send clouds over the earth, and a rainbow appears in the sky, I will remember my promise to you and to all other living creatures.
Usman Isa Modibbo resides in Nigeria.