The Garden We Once Imagined

Remembrance

Human beings have forgotten where they come from, and no longer know where they are going.

In the Qur’anic account of Adam, there is a verse that has always struck me for its simplicity:

“We had already taken a covenant from Adam, but he forgot, and We found in him no firmness.”Qur’an, 20:115

The Qur’an could have described humanity’s first error in many ways: rebellion, desire, or arrogance. And yet here it chooses something far closer to our everyday experience: forgetfulness.

Adam forgot.

And perhaps, in a sense, we are still forgetting.

A Civilization That Has Forgotten Its Purpose

The ancient Greeks used the word telos to describe the end toward which something tends — the purpose for which it exists.

It was not enough to ask what something was. One also had to ask what it was for.

The Greek word telos (τέλος) means “end,” “purpose,” or “fulfilment.” In Aristotle’s philosophy, understanding something does not simply mean asking what it is made of or how it works, but also what end it is directed towards. A seed, for example, contains within itself the potential to become a plant: its telos is the fulfilment of that potential.

Put simply, we might say that telos answers the question “towards what end?”, while technē answers the question “by what means?”

This distinction raises a question that remains fundamental today: does truly understanding something mean knowing only how it works, or does it also require us to ask about its meaning and the direction towards which it tends?

Applied to the human being, the question inevitably becomes existential:

What am I here for?

We can study the human body down to its cells, observe the brain, reconstruct our evolutionary history, describe societies and analyse human behaviour. We can understand the how of our existence with ever greater precision.

But the how does not necessarily answer the why.

Modernity has given us extraordinary tools with which to understand how the world works, yet the question of what it all means remains.

We can live longer without knowing what we are living for. We can be surrounded by possibilities and still feel directionless.

We can construct an identity, a career, a reputation, an entire social existence — and yet, in certain moments of silence, a question returns:

What is all of this for?

Perhaps the problem is not necessarily that we do not have an answer.

Perhaps we have simply forgotten it.

The Qur’an and the Purpose of Existence

On this point, the Qur’an is not ambiguous:

“I did not create jinn and humans except to worship Me.”Qur’an, 51:56

At first glance, such a statement might appear to reduce human existence to a series of religious obligations.

But the very next verse radically changes the perspective:

“I seek no provision from them, nor do I need them to feed Me.”Qur’an, 51:57

God does not need our worship.

He does not become greater because we praise Him, nor does He become lesser when we forget Him.

If God is self-sufficient, then worship cannot exist to satisfy some need in Him.

We are the ones who need it.

Worship therefore becomes not merely an act directed towards God, but a process through which the human being is continually brought back to their centre — a form of spiritual mindfulness.

To pray, to remember God, to act justly, to give, to forgive, to resist the ego, to care for others: these are different ways through which the human being learns not to lose themselves.

To Worship Is Also to Act

There is, however, a danger: reducing worship to something that concerns only the private relationship between the individual and God.

The Qur’an repeatedly seems to resist such a separation.

Faith is constantly accompanied by righteous deeds.

The vertical relationship with God must produce something on the horizontal plane of our relationship with the world.

There would be little sense in bowing before God only to become arrogant before other human beings, or in giving thanks for what we possess while ignoring those who have nothing.

This is why I find the Qur’anic image of the “goodly loan” particularly beautiful:

“Who will lend Allah a goodly loan so that He may multiply it for them many times over?”Qur’an, 2:245

Of course, God does not need our money — and that is precisely the paradox.

When we give something for the sake of good, it appears that we are losing something. A portion of our wealth leaves our hands.

And yet, from the Qur’anic perspective, what we have given away may be precisely what we have not lost.

What Remains

Much of life is spent accumulating.

We accumulate possessions, titles, knowledge, experiences, recognition, and images of ourselves.

Slowly, we construct something we call “I.”

Then the Qur’an introduces a destabilising perspective:

“You have certainly come to Us alone, as We created you the first time, leaving behind everything We had entrusted to you.”Qur’an, 6:94

Alone.

It is a word that suddenly reduces the importance of so much that appears absolute while we are alive.

What we possess remains here.

Many of the names through which we learned to define ourselves remain here as well.

What crosses the boundary is what we have become through our choices.

Perhaps this is why the Qur’an gives significance even to the smallest action:

“Whoever does an atom’s weight of good will see it. And whoever does an atom’s weight of evil will see it.”Qur’an, 99:7–8

Nothing is insignificant.

A kindness no one witnessed.

An injustice we chose not to commit.

Something given without seeking recognition.

A word held back because it would have caused pain.

A good deed performed without an audience.

Perhaps these small things form the most authentic biography of a human being.

The Path of Balance

Living with God as our ultimate orientation does not mean abandoning the world.

The Qur’an says:

“Seek, through what Allah has granted you, the Home of the Hereafter, but do not forget your share of this world.”Qur’an, 28:77

I find those words — “do not forget” — essential.

Once again, we return to remembrance.

We are not asked to despise this life, but to understand its proper place.

To study, to love, to work, to create, to travel, to contemplate nature, to build something, to care for our bodies and for the people we love — these things are not necessarily distractions from God. They can become part of the journey towards Him when they occupy their rightful place.

Perhaps this is where mīzān enters: balance.

Mercy without naivety.

Justice without cruelty.

Generosity without irresponsibility.

Discipline without harshness.

Love for the world without turning the world into our god.

Detachment without contempt for life.

Perhaps spiritual maturity consists precisely in learning this sense of proportion.

Remember

In the end, I return to Adam.

He forgot.

Perhaps this detail tells us something profound about the human condition.

We are not creatures who simply need to accumulate more and more information.

We are also creatures who must continually remember.

It is no coincidence that one of the central words of Islamic spirituality is dhikr: remembrance.

To remember God is, in some sense, to remember ourselves.

To remember that we are not what we possess.

That we are not merely our social roles.

That we are not our titles, our image, or the way others see us.

That this life is not without value, but neither is it final.

Perhaps the crisis of meaning experienced by contemporary humanity begins precisely here: we have learned an extraordinary amount about the world, while gradually forgetting why we are in the world.

And so the return does not necessarily require us to travel farther.

Sometimes it simply requires us to remember what the noise had covered over — that this world is a field in which we sow, not our final destination.

And above all, to remember that perhaps the most important question of our existence is not:

“What can I get from life?”

but:

“What am I becoming through the life I have been given?”