title: I Have Reason to Believe…

“That’s what I said,” she said.
“No, you said, B, like boot. Notice what I am saying: P, pa, park.
“Ba-rk,” she replied a little defensively.
“No, no, no, no. Look at me. Park…”

They call it blind perception . A seemingly oxymoronish name, the term refers to the strange, almost “blind” perception learners/speakers of a foreign language may experience when hearing sounds, rhythms, intonations, etc. considered ‘meaning distinguishable’ in the foreign language but not in the speaker’s native language. Sounds complicated? It really isn’t. If we take the beginning “story’ as an example, we notice that the the first girl insisted that was she saying the same thing as her English teacher was saying (yes, I am taking these two characters way too seriously). She couldn’t hear the difference between the English letter “P” (which her teacher was saying) and the English sound ‘B” (which she was saying) because in Arabic, there is no distinction between these two sounds; pronouncing one as the other in Arabic, doesn’t really cause a difference in meaning . For example, pronouncing the Arabic word for Saturday, Sabt, as “Sabt” or as “Sapt”, with a light p, wouldn’t really change the meaning of the word. And that’s why Arabic speakers learning English, who have no hearing problems at all, often cannot hear the difference between the two sounds!

But, it’s not only in language that we humans sometimes perceive things incorrectly. Just the other day, I heard a little kid telling his mom, “Oh, mom, look! The moon is chasing us”. How many of us, as children, were also convinced that the moon was running after us or following our cars? We looked out the window and that’s what we saw….and we believed what we saw.

We believed it, not realizing how limited human perception (including sight, touch, hearing, etc.) really is. Did you know that if you stood next to an elephant, this giant creature, SubhanAllah, you would hear only a third of its growl? Yup, the BBC recently featured an article on this. What about dog whistles? We can’t hear the sounds but dogs obviously can! Not only that, but if you looked at a flower, in many cases, you would be seeing something very different from what bees see. That’s because it turns out that many flowers have ultraviolet patterned petals; these patterns, which can be seen by bees but not by the human eye, help the bees identify the flower’s store of nectar. And what about touch? Have you ever touched something that was so hot, your body mistakenly felt it was cold or vice versa? Like an ice-cube?

The simple truth is that what we sense is only a fraction of what is all around us. It’s a well known fact that many animals start running for cover from earthquakes long before we do; the fact that we cannot, without our modern technology, sense this gigantic catastrophe, this overwhelmingly massive destructive force as fast as they can, should make us realize that our perception really is… unreliable.

It should also humble us.

And it should also strengthen our belief in all that Allah has informed us about….all that He has promised us…and all that He has, from His Mercy, warned us about.

Yes, knowing that there are things right now, at this very moment, right next to me that I cannot see or hear…well, it proves to me that right now, though I cannot see them, there are, on my shoulders, two angels recording every single one of my deeds.

And yes, around me, there are shayateen who see me, but who I do not see, and who are trying to lure me from Allah’s path.

And far far above, far beyond human sight, is the Throne of the Magnificent. And underneath His Throne, is a paradise with things no human eye has ever seen, waiting for its dwellers.

Dwellers who come right here from Earth- dwellers who dare to believe in the Unseen.