A few acquaintances enquired about how I came to Islam. Partly in response to that request I wrote the following text. In what follows I outline my life in brief. I was raised under communism, where equality was valued above freedom. I was educated in the West, where freedom trumps equality. I found faith in Asia. These three ways of existence stem from different roots. Egalitarianism and Nazism emerged in the West, where the Enlightenment superseded revealed knowledge as rationality challenged revelation. With the emergence of rationalism, faith took refuge in the personal realm. Europe became "scientific." The triumph of reason in relation to revelation in Europe was brought by problems within the established faith. The Reformation addressed a few of these but added a few, too. Apart from problems of belief, the problems of the Reformation encompass the perception that we attain redemption by faith alone, without performing praiseworthy acts. Another problem was the legalization of usury. Under the influence of relativism, the West became disoriented. We could no longer be "judgmental," and perceive problematic practices, for example usury or adultery, as aberrations. We became permissive, liberal, and easygoing. However, there is a deeper reason for the demoralization of the West. The chief reason for the dispiritedness of the West is its alienation from God. This estrangement is fostered by excessive reliance on reason, at the expense of alternative ways of perception, particularly "the heart." The problem is alienation from faith, not alienation from the factors of production. At the root of the spiritual paralysis of the West is a deficit of knowledge of right and wrong.
Philosophers were unable to articulate ethical teachings without recourse to faith, without the prospect of reward and punishment. It was an illusion to think that morality is sustainable without faith. By comparison, Asia remains "traditional" in a few ways, rich spirituality. Travellers will encounter diverse of ways of life in Asia. Asian values present alternatives to Western values. In the West, the efforts of thinkers brought a "trans-valuation" of values, to use Nietzsche's term. Upon inspection, however, the trans-valuation emerges as barely different from a tantrum against "traditional values." Nietzsche was the enfant terrible of Western philosophy. His writing was a rebellion against tradition. But his work is overrated. A few of his remarks, for example about fasting, reveal a remarkable hollowness of his "thought." Instead of rejecting faith, however, what is required is an examination of the understanding of faith. Hegel was wiser than Nietzsche. Hegel did not "throw out the baby with the bathwater." He attempted to retrieve the teaching of Jesus from a plethora of "unwarranted accretions," to free it of its "positive" or man-made elements. The marginalisation of revelation had important ramifications. Man became demoralized. The "burnout" of the West is palpable. Regeneration requires a retrieval of revelation. Revelation did not receive a fair trial from the Enlightenment. The disorientation inflicted by Nietzsche's thought on humanity in general and on America in particular was highlighted by Allan Bloom, in his Closing of the American Mind. Rather than broadening the range of available alternatives, the Enlightenment restricted them. Revelation receded as an alternative worldview. Thus, it is necessary to resist European "thought" and its adverse effects. For while it presented itself as "emancipation," it brought a "closing of the mind." The heart of Europe became closed to faith. Disillusioned persons keep "dropping out" from the West. They do this in different ways. They work as expats, or they run businesses in parts of the "emerging world." A few become "digital nomads" or "cultural fugitives." In Asia, I witnessed a different way of life. I found Islam.