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...it is reasonable to maintain that the spectacle of human nature extended to its uttermost limits has much to teach us about ourselves and is there… - Gai Eaton
" "...it is reasonable to maintain that the spectacle of human nature extended to its uttermost limits has much to teach us about ourselves and is therefore, after its fashion, a 'sign for those who understand'. According to a famous hadith of the Prophet, Adam was created 'in the image of God'; and we are Adam's progeny , 'the tribe of Adam', as the Quran has it. There is something in man, precisely because the One-without-associate, the Independent, the Self-sufficient is in some mysterious way reflected in his nature, which demands such freedom from constraint as only an absolute ruler has. But because man is not God this opportunity to extend himself limitlessly leads to destruction; in the desire for great power and in its exercise there are certainly elements of greed and arrogance, but there may also be an element of nobility striving for a supreme mode of self-expression. These men we have been considering revealed human nature, stripped to the bone, in all its grandeur, its instability and its ferocity; and those who find such men totality alien know very little about themselves.
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About Gai Eaton
Charles le Gai Eaton (also known as Hasan le Gai Eaton or Hassan Abdul Hakeem; 1 January 1921 – 2010) was a British diplomat, writer, historian, and an Islamic scholar.
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Charles le Gai Eaton
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An affair that might have seemed a mere trifle - and might seem so still under different circumstances - was shown to be 'something immense in the sight of God'. 'A'isha could not have understood the vast dimensions of the stage upon which she had been summoned to play her part, but everything that happened upon this stage took place in so brilliant a light - and had such tremendous consequences - that we should not think it strange if God chose to intervene in the matter; nor is it difficult in hindsight, aware of the significance of this incident in the development of Islam, to realize that the loss of a necklace by a fifteen-year-old girl travelling through an earthly desert might be of greater significance than galactic catastrophes or the death of stars.
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Modern Western art, particularly in the form of the novel, has become an instrument of self-exposure and, in most cases, what is exposed is inner sickness. The novelist works out his 'complexes' in writing. He exteriorises his despair and parades before the public all the elements of ugliness and disease present in his soul. Muslims can only find this unspeakably wicked if they recognise it for what it is, but for the most part they are unlikely to recognise something so totally alien to their faith and to their culture. The freedom of artistic expression appears, from the Islamic perspective, no more than a license to vomit in public.
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