Sorcery forgets the Source

قَالَ مُوسَىٰ أَتَقُولُونَ لِلْحَقِّ لَمَّا جَاءَكُمْ ۖ أَسِحْرٌ هَٰذَا وَلَا يُفْلِحُ السَّاحِرُونَ

“Moses said: Do you say [this] about the truth when it comes to you. Is this sorcery? And the sorceres will not prosper.” (Quran 10:77)

In the above verse, where Moses (upon him be peace) replies to Pharoah’s rejection of him, Moses doesn’t mention the Pharoah’s reasoning — hence why we see “this” in brackets. Essentially, one could re-render Moses’s statement as: ‘Do you talk about the truth when it comes to you?’

The recognition of truth demands that we do not simply chat about it and drop it, but that we act on it.

After all, this is may be why we can call the Quran manifest Truth: its rhythms and rhetoric penetrate the human heart such that one feels almost agitated to do something. Perhaps this is why after Qurra (professional reciters of the Quran) soulfully recite the Quran, the audience collectively hymns “Allah!” — in a beautiful “exhalation” of sorts. The agitating tension instilled into the heart by the heaviness of the Truth must be released by the act of remembering the Speaker — a breath of air under the weight. (Some can be so overwhelmed that they fall into prostration.)

But this urgency to act (or in the above case, to remember) is often numbed by the same things that bate our breaths. Not so coincidentally, much of entertainment revolves around manipulating your breathing patterns. We hold our breaths at the best thrillers and cannot even control them at the best comedies. At the very least, we become mouth breathers, lost in what we are consuming. Yet, health experts won’t stop bothering us about breathing correctly! (quite a conundrum self-care finds itself in, I think). Arguably, one could call this the “sorcery” of our times: rapid flashes of moving colors on a screen which produce spectacular effects that are ultimately illusory.

When the show is over, people finally breath normally again, often forgetting what they saw within a couple days. “What you have perishes, and what Allah has remains” (Quran). Allah’s majestic creation endures, while our’s dissipates from memory quite quickly.

Haqq, the word for truth in Arabic, is made up of the two letters haa and qaaf, both of which are produced from the very bottom of the throat. No other letters are deeper (even khaaf isn’t). Such is the truth: it is located deep inside of us — but its not easy to access. One must vigrously “reach in,” as it were. To follow the fitra (our disposition to the Divine) is not always easy. But when we do, its effects reverberate through our lives — much like the qalqalah.