Learning from Beauty

The Arabian Peninsula is known for something that is more valuable than its rich oil fields, more elegant than its noblest lady, more sensitive than the delicate butterflies and a lot smarter than many who call themselves decent human beings. It’s the Arabian horse. This famous creature have captivated all who lay their eyes upon it and cast an eternal spell that will keep them bound to it. If we should look more and appreciate it we can learn quite a lot of how a simple beast of burden turned into an obsession of millions.

The graceful Arabian horse strides elegantly in between its ugly cousins. It raises its head always even when in battle, announcing to all that it is here and it would never bow down to any other. Its eyes scream with the most wondrous poetry that can sooth even the most savage beasts all while declaring its superior pedigree. Its strong bone structure and amazing endurance warns of those that will take beauty as a sign of weakness. Its sensitive nature is kin only to the most eloquent of poets that rise over the average sensitivity of human beings. Yet we seem to not notice that we can learn quite a lot from this creature, and this happens when ignorance is a state of mind not a statistic on a table.

Something to be noticed about the modern Arab is the lack of desire to learn and the inability to adapt rather than copy our western opposites. This fact has left us from being the center of the universe at one period of history into sadly a rock that orbits a bright sun. At first it was because of too much pride and the foolish sense of superiority, and then it developed into a feeling of despair and a dreadful inferiority. Yet we can still pick up the paces and shine again to become the lighthouse that once attracted the eyes of all of those that are beyond our borders. Just like the old myth of the phoenix that rose again from the ashes we can reclaim our rightful throne. It needs education, development and more importantly an open eye and mind.

The Arabian horse is but one treasure that we seem to have ignored in the pursuit of copying those who we believe to be superior to us in order to become superior like them. There are many other gems of our Islamic civilization that sadly have become objects to hide out of shame. As George Orwell famously says “He who controls the present controls the past. He who controls the past controls the future” can only be the way forward if we are looking for a brighter future for our future generations. If I’m wrong then I’m open for debate, because what I see is definitely is not right.