Magic and incantations.

I used to wish we lived in the time of magic and spells and incantations. Harry Potter style.  To be perfectly honest the idea of Harry Potter only came later after JK Rowlings wrote the book, but the concept has always been around in popular fables. 

I imagined that we would be taught the defence against the dark arts and every day spells for regular everyday stuff. 

Spells for doing the mundane chores, like doing the dishes, to protective spells that would protect us from bandits and disaster when travelling. 

I guess that, in a magical world, everything would look different and, feel, well, "magical". 

Then I found myself examining my everyday life as a Muslim and found that our daily lives are pretty much spent in magical incantations. 

We have the ritual incantations like the stuff we do and say at certain times of the day. There are loads of these. There are ritual incantations for every situation. There is an Incantation for protection from Eclipses, and from floods and almost every known phenomenon and the human condition. 

Whatever ails you, there is always a spell for that. 

This is by no means limited to Islam. 

All the established popular religions of the world are based on acceptance of the unseen. Blind faith is the currency. Most if not all have a back story and an anecdotal history of the adventures of mighty "wizards" that existed, once upon a time. 

We believe that we too have the ability to harness this energy if we believed, strongly enough and lived our lives in accordance with the scriptures. 

The fact that most of these schools of magic are based on ideals of benevolence and altruism makes the whole idea much more palatable. Nobody cared if you worshipped the great pasta in the sky, so long as you were a kind and honest neighbour. 

Over the centuries these great religions have clashed with each other and often simply fractured within. The ensuing conflicts have at times been brutal bloody and often deadly. There have been all manner of wars in the name of the one true wizard. 

Someday enlightened humanity might look back at this age as the dark millennia when we lived, afraid of the unknown. When one man used his imagination to create order from the chaos of ignorance, and countless souls fell to their deaths defending their interpretation of their word. 

At this stage, it might be prudent to point out that no religions were harmed in the writing of this piece. I assure you dear reader that no magical deity was offended by anything that was said here. 

Of this at least, I am dead sure. 

M Parak 

May 2020

To my friends.

I recently had a bit of a rant over magical thinking and I am afraid that you would feel that I was having fun at your expense.

The truth is that I envy you.