The 21st Century has already been dubbed the Internet Age with the expansion of technology reaching new heights every day. However, with that increased technology, humanity creeps ever further from understanding it.
You may find this irony strange, that in the age of expanded technological and scientific breakthroughs, humanity goes further from understanding those very tools that are enhancing our cultures. Once pondered, this may not seem so unrealistic a thought.
Take, for example, the computer. This is a machine that steadily becomes more and more of a necessity in the 'developed' world. Today, computers run the banking systems, mechanical devices that are used in construction, the alarm systems that people use in their houses, and the cars that we drive. A computer is used even in preparing the very article that is being read right now.
All of this technology is wonderful from the perspective of efficiency and production. However, when something goes wrong with the computers that run services for any of the things that make our lives what they are, we are left paralyzed.
For example, think about the PCs that people use in their offices as well as at home. The average person may be computer literate, however they do not understand the tool that they are using holistically. When a person's computer crashes, they most likely do not know what happened. Not only that, but they probably do not even know how to get into the system to troubleshoot the problem.
Before the Industrial Age, people relied on the usage of tools that they made with their own hands. Not only that, but they knew all the different uses that a tool had, and how to fix that tool if it became damaged. The average person understood this. It did not take a specialist to come and fix the tool.
Today, we have specialists that understand the intricacies of the technology of our age. Without them, many devices of today are not repaired. Along with that, many of us would be unable to work effectively with the very tools with which we expect to earn our livelihood.
When an individual utilizes a tool that they cannot understand or repair, that individual is detached from the instrument of his work. This is fundamentally different from an individual who uses tools manufactured with his own hands and sweat. Modern tools alienate humans not only from their tools, but the jobs for which those tools are required.
Before the age of industry, humans possessed deep attachments towards their work because they understood not only the nature of the work, but the tools used to fulfill that work.
As an individual, you stand alone as being amongst the ignorant who are detached from the tools they use to do their work. When you put together the amount of individuals that are equally detached from their tools, the societal picture starts to become more alarming.
When you have alienated individuals glued together by industrial technology, the resulting society is only held together through superficial attachments. Instead of people held together through some Divinely mandated moral ethos, you have people that are detached from both their tools and jobs "bonding" together, not truly understanding the essence of that bond.
This is exemplified in the way Muslims in the West - especially America - depend upon computer technology and high-powered telescopes to figure out the times of prayer. This phenomenon is inconsistent with the methodology of the early generations of Islam, who understood that the basic tenets of the faith were supposed to be easily understood and practiced by all peoples, both scholars as well as lay Muslims.
Today in America, many Muslims depend heavily on ISNA to provide them with the calculations of the time for all five prayers. ISNA depends upon the calculations made by a specialist to put together what we call the "prayer schedule." For people who have computers, who can access this information, that is wonderful. However, what if you are a businessman on a trip and you are caught on the road without any technology? How will you know if the time for any of the given salat is actually in?
Traditional scholarship gave us a methodology of looking at the sun, moon and stars at the various times of day in order for us to know the time for each prayer. This methodology is very simple to understand. The most basic and simple of Muslims can learn and understand how to do this with no problem. However, because many Muslims do not know how to do this, we have become dependent upon prayer charts rather than using them as a tool of estimation. Some people even find a person weird if they want to wait a short period of time after the time of salat has come in according to the prayer charts.
Therefore, we have become a people who are detached from the very principles that enable us to coexist in harmony with one another upon a bond of substance. In its place, we have become a people that depend upon tools to guide us; tools that many of us not only do not have access to, but in addition, don't understand how to use.
As we get further into the Internet Age, we should not forget the aspects of our tradition that have enabled Muslims to be able to exist for centuries. We should also have a balance in the wave of technology that sweeps the earth today. After all, imagine if the time for the 'Asr prayer was coming and…I hope my computer doesn't crash!
