A Brief Reflection on The Calf of Samaria

I continue my reflection on the theme of forgetfulness in the surah Ta Ha.  After telling the story of exodus, we have another scenery of forgetfulness and the necessity of remembrance: the story of Samaria’s golden calf:

"[God said], ‘Moses, what has made you come ahead of your people in such haste?’ [Moses had left his people in the charge of Aaron to contemplate on Mount Sinai.] and he said, ‘They are following in my footsteps. I rushed to You, Lord, to please You,’ but God said, ‘We have tested your people in your absence: the Samiri has led them astray.’ Moses returned to his people, angry and aggrieved. He said, ‘My people, did your Lord not make you a gracious promise? Was my absence too long for you? Did you want anger to fall on you from your Lord and so broke your word to me?’ They said, ‘We did not break our word to you deliberately. We were burdened with the weight of people’s jewelry, so we threw it [into the fire], and the Samiri did the same,’ but he [used the molten jewelry to] produce an image of a calf which made a lowing sound, and they said, ‘This is your god and Moses’ god, but he has forgotten.’ Did they not see that [the calf] gave them no answer, that it had no power to harm or benefit them? Aaron did say to them, ‘My people, this calf is a test for you. Your true Lord is the Lord of Mercy, so follow me and obey my orders,’ but they replied, ‘We shall not give up our devotion to it until Moses returns to us.’” (20:83-91)

It is strange that we can’t hold onto the imageless God.  And we constantly forget.  Not strange that through scriptures—words, not idols—God constantly reminds us to remember the ineffable and invisible God.  The horizon of human understanding is bound to what appears to senses.  The history of monotheism is the unbending insistence, advice, prohibition, persuasion, premonition, and warning not to pray the sun, the moon, the earth, and the sky, to what appears to senses, not worship the phenomenal world.  Repeatedly and unflinchingly, religions of the Book remind us to worship the ineffable and invisible God.  It is difficult for human beings, and they constantly fashion something tangible, an image, a statue, their own self and thinking power or one of their own creations such as Golden Calf of scientism, sociobiology, evolutionary psychology, genes, artificial intelligence, or technology as their God. 

It seems obvious that we are inclined to worship something visual like a statue or image.  Some justify this image-worshiping as the place in which the divine is present.  But the whole point is that this attachment to the near is also the source of our falling astray.  Historical training of our soul by God through scriptures is to teach us to see the farthest as the nearest, and the invisible and seemingly imperceptible as the most real and true source of worship.  The reason is that epistemically (in terms of knowledge) and ontologically (in terms of being) and ethically (in terms of how to conduct our lives) this liberation from “image”, and seeing gods and goddesses as a trap or delusion, is both true and essential.

We all know now that to take what is the nearest, for example seeming autonomy of the self, or to take our sense data as the most real in a reductive sense is fallacious.  We know now that we are wired into the biosphere of the earth suspended in the universe.  We know that our own self is only understandable within concentric relations with others, environment, and indeed with universe.  We have learned to see the farthest horizon of existence, the universe and Being, as real as the earth, and in terms of priority and sustainability in time, the universe precedes our existence here.  And that which gives, as Being and God, while they themselves are not a being, not a thing in the world, give rise to the world.  We and our earth are a drop of water in the ocean of existence.  Religiously speaking the self is constituted by the divine.  This is a non-reductive approach in which the self is not reducible to environment, nor is the environment-universe-God reducible to the self.

Ethically, to worship any idol or image ensnares us into sense data.  The point is to release ourselves form parochial centrality of the self.  In discussing Confucianism, Huston Smith states: "As for the increase of this heart-mind that is hsin (empathy-sympathy), it expands in concentric circles that begin with oneself and spread from there to include successively one's family, one's face to face community, one's nation, and finally all humanity. In shifting the center of one's empathic concern from oneself to one's family one transcends selfishness. The move from family to community transcends nepotism. The move from community to nation overcomes parochialism, and the move to all humanity counters chauvinistic nationalism."

["It has never been clearer that the country's best self is a global inheritance, its worse a parochial self-certainty." Jedediah Purdy, New Your Times Book Review, 22 Feb. 2009.

Nepotism: "The term comes from Italian word nepotismo, which is based on Latin root nepos meaning nephew. Since the Middle Ages and until the late 17th century, some Catholic popes and bishops, who had taken vows of chastity, and therefore usually had no legitimate offspring of their own, gave their nephews such positions of preference as were often accorded by fathers to son. Several popes elevated nephews and other relatives to the cardinalate. Often, such appointments were a means of continuing a papal "dynasty". For instance, Pope Callixtus III, head of the Borgia family, made two of his nephews cardinals; one of them, Rodrigo, later used his position as a cardinal as a stepping stone to the papacy, becoming Pope Alexander VI. Alexander then elevated Alessandro Farnese, his mistress's brother, to cardinal; Farnese would later go on to become Pope Paul III. Paul also engaged in nepotism, appointing, for instance, two nephews, aged 14 and 16, as cardinals. The practice was finally ended when Pope Innocent XII issued the bull Romanum decet Pontificem, in 1692. The papal bull prohibited popes in all times from bestowing estates, offices, or revenues on any relative, with the exception that one qualified relative (at most) could be made a cardinal." (Widepedia)

"Chauvinism, in its original meaning, is an exaggerated patriotism and a belligerent belief in national superiority and glory. According to legend, French soldier Nicolas Chauvin was badly wounded in the Napoleonic wars. He received a pension for his injuries but it was not enough to live on. After Napoleon abdicated, Chauvin was a fanatical Bonapartist despite the unpopularity of this view in Bourbon Restoration France. His single-minded blind devotion to his cause, despite neglect by his faction and harassment by its enemies, started the use of the term. By extension, it has come to include an extreme and unreasoning partisanship on behalf of any group to which one belongs, especially when the partisanship includes malice and hatred towards rival groups. Jingoism is the British parallel form of this French word, but its meaning has not expanded beyond nationalism in the same way that the word chauvinism has. A contemporary use of the term in English is in the phrase male chauvinism." (Wikepedia)]

Now in the age of Trump’s nepotism, parochialism, chauvinism, and Breitbart’s Steven Bannon’s religious bigotry and hatred, disregard for environment, and white nationalism against people of color, it has become more and more clear to us that worshiping our own nation, race, or even religion excessively is dangerous and a sign of idolatry.  If I disconnect from others and call my own immediate family, race, and nation better than others, ethically I am falling.  Not only it is shortsighted, but practically it is dangerous and self-destructive.  If I see my religion-Islam—as the best in the sense that forcefully I wish to convert others to it, I am falling.  Because Islam first and foremost is based on discussion and entering the hearts of people—if we understand what is the point of sending a scripture, the Quran, to us as a warning and guidance.  We are learning more and more to create a community of religions based on their common perennial ground, when we love and listen to others, others will listen to us.  Self-defense is different from cruelty and authoritarianism. 

As well, when I prioritize profit and self-interest of my country or multinational corporations, my regard and care about other species and environments will diminish because they will be seen as externalities.  I will be entrapped into the nearest, my immediate interest.  Ironically, we know now this self-centeredness is self-destructive.  Our excess is self-destructive, our disconnect from other nations is self-destructive, our disconnect from other races is self-destructive, our alienation from our own labor and nature is self-destructive, disregard for women is self-destructive, and being irreverent towards other perennial religions is ruinous to our own religion.  Satan enters through the door of excess.

Historically, we have been learning to move from the self—to the steep path of liberating slaves, overcoming racism and misogyny, reconciliation with nature, to long for our source in the universe and to arrive squarely to the message of Abrahamic religions that we should not worship what is the nearest and closest to our senses but seemingly the farthest and invisible God—who is in fact the nearest and the most real.  Now we understand better the anti-idolatry message of religions of the Book as a conceptual-ontological leap in remembering God and refraining from worshiping different variations of the golden calves in oblivion.

“In this way We relate to you [Prophet] stories of what happened before. We have given you a Quran from Us.  Whoever turns away from it will bear on the Day of Resurrection a heavy burden and will remain under it. What a terrible burden to carry on that Day!  When the trumpet is sounded and We gather the sinful, sightless, they will murmur to one another, ‘You stayed only ten days [on earth]’–We know best what they say– but the more perceptive of them will say, ‘Your stay [on earth] was only a single day.’

They ask you [Prophet] about the mountains: say, ‘[On that Day] my Lord will blast them into dust and leave a flat plain, with no peak or trough to be seen.  On that Day, people will follow the summoner from whom there is no escape; every voice will be hushed for the Lord of Mercy; only whispers will be heard.  On that Day, intercession will be useless except from those to whom the Lord of Mercy has granted permission and whose words He approves– He knows what is before and behind them, though they do not comprehend Him– and [all] faces will be humbled before the Living, Ever Watchful One. Those burdened with evil deeds will despair, but whoever has done righteous deeds and believed need have no fear of injustice or deprivation.’  We have sent the Quran down in the Arabic tongue and given all kinds of warnings in it, so that they may beware or take heed– exalted be God, the one who is truly in control.” (20:99-114)