Who are you and do you care?

الخلفية

This word is a noun derived from a three letter verbal root خلف pronounced, 'khalafa.' This base meaning literally means 'he deposited' or 'superseded.' In such a fashion, various words emerge from simple roots in the Arabic language with related and contorted meanings that link, in some way, back to a simple root. Sometimes common usage abolishes the apparent connection, but linguists have invested in this science much effort such that we can, to this day, know even the most esoteric meanings of words, based upon classical usage in pre-Islamic poetry.

This particular word, pronounced 'khalfiyya(t),' means background - as in heritage. Literally, it indicates that which is behind (or left behind).

Why am I talking about this? I believe, (and this is not novel, but an old concept), that cognizance of khalfiyya at an individual and group level is crucial for inspiration, honor, and a sense of purpose, among other things.

The decision to write this sort of overcame me when my maternal grandmother (Dadi) told me a deep and detailed account of her side of our family's history while she sat next to me as I washed the dishes and cleared the table one night. Compared to the usual reaction, this time I listened with the idea that this was not a story, but someone’s sentient, physical, emotional experience.

Typically, we become callous and deadened to the stories shared with us by older generations. This is where we get facetious phrases like having to 'walk to school barefoot, in the snow, 5 miles, uphill both ways.' Such phrases and mentalities exist because we poke fun, albeit without malice, at seemingly tall tales of yesteryear.

However, I would contend that the reason we do this is to compartmentalize the reality of the actual conditions that our heritage emerged from so as not to realize the multifarious magnitude of the responsibility it implicitly confers to us: the beneficiaries (or vicitms) of that struggle.

e.g. If you really understood what your grandparents (and even parents) likely did for, quite literally, the passage of the genes that comprise your being, would you really perceive that you have the luxury of living your life the way you do? (This is not meant to imply you're living your life 'wrongly,' but that you'd certainly change things in some relevant way.)

As an example, we can take this back a few generations and apply it on a societal level with cases like Black civil rights or Native American extermination. These are real experiences of our country’s historical background and emotional heritage. The extent to which we neglect them in our social consciousness is directly manifest in our nonchalant ability to repeat the self-same offenses without so much as a glance of collective insight.

This is why many of us can look at the Black and Native American socioeconomic and cultural reality and ask stupid questions while feeling justified: we don't think about khalfiyya. We think, why don't the former utilize their voting rights and why do the latter suffer from diabetes and alcoholism disproportionately? Why don't they take the initiative to change their condition?

Clearly, this is an infinitely extendable metaphor and one would be remiss not to take it to its natural conclusion, namely the Beginninglessly Eternal.

However, doing this is an extremely difficult task because it is, maybe, the very object of our lives to learn to appreciate what God has done for us; beginning at the end is quite difficult. Allah teaches us with human and natural examples. He does not speak to us of arcane and abstract virtues, but shows us, instead, our own psychosocial profile with a laundry list of those who came before us and how they behaved. In this case, the ‘us’ I am talking about is humankind – the ultimate heritage that we all share.

But we are clearly blinded to the fact that all our mitochondrial DNA can be traced back, by some accounts in present-day science, to 7 women; we are given to thinking we are all different. Be that as it may, we can all take the easier step of beginning, then, at a much more recent point, humanize it in our psyche and associate it with the source of all things, the one God.

I say this to myself before you:

Think - for just a few minutes a day, a week, a month, or if you are a wretched person, once a year - about who you are from and why you are from them. Realize that for your genetic makeup to exist, it is not unlikely that someone in history was killed while someone else escaped; someone studied while someone else failed; someone prayed while someone strayed. This may not be as far back in 'history' as you may think.

So who are you and do you care?