Hossein Dabbagh's article “Fear and Ignorance: A Path to Hope”

Tawfiq al-Hakim, the Egyptian writer and man of letters, in his book Arini Allah (Show Me God), recounts a fictional story titled “A Strange Invention” that can be used as a philosophical argument.[1] The story goes that a company intends to invent a time machine that reports from the future. But, strangely, the engineers involved in producing the machine commit suicide one after another. Until one of the engineers fails in his suicide attempt and survives. Investigators and inspectors go to question him and seek out the story. When they ask him, “What did you see that made you contemplate suicide?” the rescued engineer replies thus: When I saw myself in the future, I suddenly felt as though I were a captive who could no longer change anything. Life became tedious to me. The search for the “new” became meaningless to me. “Wonder” departed from my life. My hope in the “unseen” and in changing anything in the future was lost. I suddenly despaired and…

In this tale, a subtle point is found: hope bears a relation to ignorance, and one of the blessings and good consequences of “not-knowing” is hopefulness. One who praises the “virtue of ignorance” and cries out, “I am a fool, so blessed is this folly,” necessarily acknowledges unknown matters and does not consider everything known.[2] Such a person, since they still take the “element of the unseen” seriously, can hope for change and allow for the possibility of a good event occurring. But if someone does not consider themselves ignorant in any way and deems everything known, they will not allow for the possibility of a change in something for which they might hope.

Hope, insofar as it is related to ignorance, is not unrelated to fear and dread. One who is ignorant is likely to have apprehensions about unknown matters; the undisclosed secrets of the universe terrify them and fill them with fear. They always find themselves before a tremendous truth that they cannot grasp. In the words of Sepehri: “It is not our task to know the secret of the red rose; our task, perhaps, is to float in the enchantment of the red rose.” Nevertheless, fear of unknown matters can be hopeful, for the fearful person allows for the possibility that the unknown thing which is terrifying might show them its favorable side. In the words of Rumi: “Wherever there is ruin, there is hope for a treasure.”

But hope is not related to every kind of fear. What can open a place for hope in the human heart is rational fear. What is incompatible with hope is irrational fear (of the sort that is anxiety and agitation).[3] Rumi was right when he said:

The fearful merchant with a nature fragile as glass / In his quest, finds neither profit nor loss

Nay, he finds loss, for he is deprived and abased / He finds light who is a devourer of flames

There is no permission here to knock at the door / Save hope in God, He knows best what is right

One who is irrationally afraid of everything does not take a step forward and does not advance. The hopeful person, however, steps onto the perilous path, and while a fear accompanies them, that fear, in a rational way, provides the motivation for their movement. In the words of Hafez: “Where is the lion-hearted one who does not shun calamity?”

Such fear is existential fear; that is, the fear of the unknowable aspects of existence takes up residence in the individual's being. It is not a sudden fear that arises with an incident and then disappears. Rational fear is of the existential kind. In explaining such fear, one can point to the existence of the reptilian brain, which is common to animals and humans. The reptilian brain is responsible for the preservation and survival of animals and humans. Its mode of operation is the use of fear, which, according to the general view of brain scientists, its activity is highly correlated with the activation of the orbitofrontal cortex located in the prefrontal cortex and the frontal lobe of the brain. The frontal lobe, in general, and the prefrontal cortex, in particular, are responsible for many of the daily cognitive activities of humans: activities such as decision-making, social behavior, the individual's will to continue living, and so on. It is not without reason that damage to and deactivation of the frontal lobe and prefrontal cortex diminishes the activity of fear, and the person engages in high-risk behaviors. For example, during intoxication, people generally undertake high-risk activities that can threaten their survival. Incidentally, it is interesting that the gradual deterioration of the frontal lobe can weaken a person's will and hope to continue living. This means that the existence of fear can make a person hopeful about life.[4]

Whenever humans (and animals) encounter something unknown that they suspect might endanger their survival, fear pervades their being. Of course, this reaction generally occurs unconsciously and involuntarily, and the individual subconsciously develops a sense of dread towards what is unknown to them and avoids confronting it.[5] Fear is one of the basic emotions in humans, and such an emotion can well explain the mental state of hope. In the sense that fear and dread generally occur at a time and in a situation where something unknown is involved. The difference between rational and irrational fear lies precisely here: rational fear is fear of the unknown and mysterious, whereas irrational fear, like many phobias, is fear of known things. The unknown and mysterious, precisely because it is unknown, can be the originator of either a good event or an unpleasant event. In either direction, there is a probability involved. This probability is a basis for hopefulness. One who fears has hope for life and considers it probable that a pleasant event awaits them.

But someone whom no unknown thing frightens and for whom all matters are known and discovered, the thought of probability does not penetrate them to serve as a basis for hope. Someone who has no ignorance and imagines they grasp all truth has no fear of change. Suppose someone, as an "omniscient being," sees all truth plainly at once and no unknown thing surrounds them. It is natural that such an individual does not undergo the experience of fear. For they have no ignorance regarding any matter for fear to infiltrate them. Such an individual cannot hope for change. Speaking of hope is meaningless for them. When all truth is present to them all at once, what meaning could optimism about the future possibly have? By this account, if this is so, is it not correct to say that only one who is "omniscient" has the right to be hopeless?

In the narrative of the Abrahamic religions, God is considered omniscient or absolutely knowing. Past, present, and future are present to Him, and change and alteration have no way into Him. Change is specific to non-immaterial beings and temporal and spatial entities. Time does not pass for God, and He does not have a place like bodies. Thus, in such an interpretation, God is always “hopeless.” For there is no possibility of change in Him that could make Him hopeful. In contrast, however, earthly man, whose most important attribute is change, can never claim absolute knowledge. Ignorance is a property of man and the world around him. One who claims absolute knowledge has, in truth, stepped into God’s shoes and plays a divine role in this world. More importantly, one who becomes hopeless unknowingly, as it were, dons the garment of divinity. One who is hopeless must be aware of everything and consider the possibility of change in the future impossible. But who is aware of everything? No one! Hopelessness is a cognitive error of the mind that seizes a person. The individual imagines that he is aware of the future and that there is no unknown matter at hand. This arrogant awareness leads to a kind of unwarranted fatalism which, when it flows in the individual’s mind, robs him of the possibility of change in the future.

Final word: Does my argument in this piece mean that being ignorant is a necessary and essential condition for being hopeful? Can one not find ignorant people who are not hopeful? One can easily imagine ignorant people who are not in a state of hopefulness. But it must be noted that we are faced here with two types of ignorant people: those who are unaware of their ignorance, and those who are aware of and conscious of their ignorance. The latter are, in truth, a kind of knower. The first group of ignorant people are likely not hopeful. But the second group of ignorant people are among the knowers who acknowledge the existence of the unknowns of this existence and experience the mental state of “existential ignorance.” It is natural that such existential ignorance brings with it existential fear and can keep hope alive in the human heart.

What can be said about fear: Is the existence of fear necessary and essential for hopefulness? Or does the hopeful person always suffer from fear and live with fear? Not necessarily! One can easily imagine situations in which someone experiences fear but is not hopeful. Most fears that suddenly occur in dangerous situations are of this kind. Likewise, one can find situations in which a person is hopeful but does not experience fear. The tale in the Masnavi of “the villager stroking a lion in the dark, thinking it was his cow” is a good example of this claim. The villager in the darkness caresses a lion, thinking it is his cow. In truth, his ignorance has caused him not to fear the lion and to be hopeful of his cow’s presence. The character of the villager beautifully illustrates our situation in existence: our ignorance causes us to remain hopeful; sometimes we are aware of our fear, sometimes oblivious.[6]

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[1] A similar story can also be found in the book The Time Machine (1895) by H. G. Wells.

[2] Much has been said about the virtue of ignorance. Not only must man acknowledge that he is ignorant and that many matters are unknown to him, but he must also know that not all knowledge is beneficial knowledge. The famous story in Rumi’s Masnavi of “That man’s request to Moses for the language of beasts and birds” is instructive in this regard.

[3] Hope can also be reasonable or unreasonable. Unreasonable hope is hope that we cling to for an event to occur when we have definitive reason against its occurrence. In Arabic literature, they also say: “وَاليأسُ إحدَى الرّاحَتَينِ، وَلَنْ تَرَى تَعَباً كَظَنّ الخَائِبِ المَكْدُودِ.” That is, sometimes it is better for a person to be in a state of [reasonable] despair than to wait and then become distressed and hopeless.

[4] Neuroscientists believe that hopefulness and the instillation of hope can protect and strengthen the brain against fear. The fear neuroscientists have in mind is of the anxiety type, not existential fear. In any case, although both types of fear may manifest in a similar part of the brain, one is life-giving fear and the other is life-destroying fear. In Rumi's words: Contraction and expansion come, do not despair / The locksmith both makes the lock and the key.

[5] Such a principle holds true for the average. Those who overcome this unconscious delusion are not among the average. The majority of geniuses, especially throughout the history of science, have triumphed over this fear and brought forth a fine outcome for humanity.

[6] As another example, Mahmoud Darwish said: "في اللامبالاة فلسفةٌ، أنها صفةٌ من صفات الأمل". In his view, indifference and having no expectations are considered a form of hope. If we take his statement to be correct, we can conclude that hope exists without the presence of fear. The truth is that Darwish's opinion is not very clear to me. How one can be hopeful without having expectations requires reasoning.

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Fear and Ignorance: A Path to Hope

Author: Hossein Dabbagh

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