Historian

WHO AM I? 

I speak Swahili. I am a Zanzibari who has Hindu roots.

Responsibility for your own life

Creating your image and that of your life depends on you. It does not depend on something that creates you, or any imagination or life in a specific historical time. It depends on you.

Be yourself. Discover yourself and live in harmony with who you really are

It is important for me to be myself. Do not pretend to be someone you are not, do not take any prescription about who you should be, but discover yourself and live in accordance with yourself – with who you really are.  When I lived in the West, some of my friends changed their names after arriving in the US, wanting to become like the new society. But is this their real face? Have they run away from their nationality because of it, will they be themselves? It means of course who you are is the result of a mix of many cultures, which are good or bad, but the most important thing is that you live by the most important values in your life. 

Understanding the past that lives in the present

Somebody told me, “Professor, you live in the past”. No. I am a historian who understands the past but lives in present. The past is in the present. I think that this is one of the problems of the young generation, a misunderstanding of history and the past. Young people do not think about their past. Some people only understand when they become adults. As you grow up, you begin to understand things that are difficult for all people. This is the beginning when you start wondering where you are from. Where you come from is your experience that determines who you are. What did your grandmother say? How did you get where you are now? How did you grow up in your community in which you are now? Where does your community come from? What happened in the past? If you understand this, you will understand what your past means. It is not the point to talk about your past but to understand its impact on the present.

Respect for your community and the people around us

In Morocco, my friend’s father who was living there told me that he had a good life. He could eat meat every day along with the whole family. But his neighbors eat vegetables every day, they only buy meat once a week. When he goes to the market he buys meat every day, but he hides it deeply into the bottom of the basket. Then he buys the vegetables and puts them on top. Returning home, everyone can see that he brings home vegetables. I thought, this is a concept for living together in a community. What does neighborhood mean? There are 40 houses around you, in which there are 40 houses, in them families, people you do not choose to be near to. Understanding your own community, understanding your own culture is important. And constant understanding the interpersonal relations. You cannot live outside a culture that is different: the poor and rich, women and men, white and black, there are always differences. This kind of respect for diversity probably originated from spiritual guidance. I do not think it is due to natural causes, though I may be wrong. 

Understanding what we do. Understanding the essence of religion. Not stopping only on external rituals

The prayer is meaningless for me, but not for everyone. I spoke to my good friend once, who was 100 years old. He asked me why I do not pray every day, I said that when I pray I only find some emotions in myself, but I do not feel the link with my heart, my beliefs. Prayer alone, without transferring its value to everyday life, is pointless for me. He answered “Well.” He did not try to convert me. Religion, Islam is a part of me and by this fact I try to get rid of my secularity. What I believe in my life is historical materialism, or processes that govern history. Even if you understand religion, you cannot quite understand its meaning. For example, a prayer. You may not understand why you are praying. Now a fashion has come, temporary fashion for some kind of behavior. Especially young people send messages to each other every day through “WhatsApp” or “Messenger“ by passing various types of information, ads, which are the same all the time. For many of them, it becomes a temporary fascination. If religions are built in the same way, then people are created who stop thinking. If we send a daily message to others only by sending, we do not even think what we are sending, what it says, what our recipient can read, what do we want to tell him? That is why it is important to know why you are praying. It is easy to open the same book every day on a different chapter, but only that absorbs you. Religion focuses mainly on prayer. Even if you do not understand all the words, you repeat them anyway. But even if you understand them and keep repeating them, you lose the understanding of what you are reading. It is important to constantly understand what you are doing. Every day. Even if you don’t understand a simple phrase today, you can understand it tomorrow. Understanding is a challenge but try to face it. For me, religion teaches life, teaches you to be in harmony with yourself. If religion teaches you, it means that it really guides you. The science of religion is first of all the science of how to be a human being. God wants you to discover yourself through relations with another human. If you spend your life praying in a mosque, you will feel good, but God will feel that you have wasted your life because you have not created understanding, you have not tried to know God through another human. Not only through another human, but also through relations with animals, plants and everything that surrounds us. It is important how you treat animals, plants and everything around you. That is the essence of religion.

Relations with God and man. Caution in assessments. Sensitivity

After prayer a teacher in a Mosque sat down at the entrance. A drunkard came and wanted to enter the Mosque. The young boys began to shout loudly that he was not allowed to come in because he was drunk. The boys wanted to throw him out. The teacher said “No”, and asked them “This man wants to come in to pray, why do you stop him? Because he is drunk? Is this what Islamic principles say? Is that the reason not to let him in? Let him come in.” He came in but he asked the teacher to help him pray. The teacher came up to him and he repeated every move after him. He needed assistance to touch the floor with his head. When he did so, he did not get up anymore. When the prayer ended, people approached him, thinking that he had fallen asleep. He was dead. This man came to the Mosque to die. This is a very important message.