The shepherd was leading his flock to a green pasture using some help of his dog to maintain the herd organized. He was only bothered by one sheep that goes away from the herd.
This sheep was rebellious and opposed the shepherd, as he refused the idea that the shepherd is using him and his fellows to raise them to make a decent banquet of them one day. The rest of the herd were thinking that this one is a law-breaker, while all he was thinking about is to climb the mountain, get liberated from the crook and enjoy freedom with his companions.
I remembered that story and thought about what happens in Egypt. I wondered about the desire of some people to live acceding to the same policy. They chose blind obedience without making any effort to think or analyze. If they see people running, they will run with them. If they hear some people giving wrong answers to a question, they will think this should be the right answer. This policy makes them go with flock and the leader without thinking where they are going or why!
Most people are affected by people around them. It’s easier for them to go with the flow and not against it. Unfortunately, this is part of our minds, the primitive part that encourages us to follow herd like many other animals do.
People of western culture have liberated themselves from such thinking and decided that each individual is independent in his thinking, he have only to belong to his nation not any other herd. But in our Arab communities, the herd policy has affected many generations that can no longer use their minds. Their brains depend on the others to think about and solve their problems.
All of this calls me to believe Karl Marx when he said: "religion is opium of the peoples" as we have a real example of this like Hazem Abu Ismail and his supporters. It was said in the beginning that his mother is not a US Citizen. His followers believed that despite the confirmation of the Egyptian Foreign Ministry and the State Department that she does and has the right to vote. However, his followers refuse to believe anything save what they were told. They threat and make sit-ins as if they’re worshipping a god who is able to offer them a Paradise.
In fact, true Islam not only strongly rejects this intellectual terrorism, but also condemns and criminalizes who uses it. The teachings of Quran orders Muslims to support what is right against such intellectual terrorism. Fanaticism is a reason of intellectual terrorism and expresses a lot of vanity, arrogance and self love.
Such people apply the holy verse of Quran that says, “And there are some men who take for themselves objects (or persons) to worship with Allah, whom they love as they love Allah”. Unfortunately such people has made of their sheik a dictator and made themselves slaves to this dictator.
