A prominent figure in Singapore’s Malay literary scene and Cultural Medallion Recipient (2007), Mr. Isa Kamari was invited as the next guest speaker by The Malay Heritage Foundation (MHF) for the third session of the Cendekiawan Lestari Series (CLS) in 2022. He spoke and shared his insights on the topic of “The Forgotten Wisdom of Firasat” (Hikmah Firasat yang Dilupakan)
MHF Assistant General Manager, Mr. Muhammad Fadli Idris, gave a brief welcoming address to audiences on-site and those who tuned in via FB Live and YouTube before handing it over to MHF Vice-Chairman Dr. Azhar Ibrahim to introduce the speaker. This season’s CLS is supported by the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore (Muis) and Rohan · Mah & Partners LLP (RMP).
Saturday, 27 August 2022 – Mr. Isa Kamari, an architect by training and armed with an impressive bilingual ability, started the session by setting the context of his lecture. He shared that we live in a world that creates an alienation in our lives, and his talk would offer an insight into the forgotten wisdom of Firasat. According to Mr. Isa, firasat is a manifestation of a more profound and more extensive body of integrated and reiterative knowledge derived from an attitude of mind, existential spirituality, and growth path that enables us to walk beautifully and live mindful, exploratory, creative, wholesome and meaningful lives in a fragmented world. He wanted the audience to focus on just two concepts – alienation and firasat, as he would discuss the relationship between the two philosophies throughout his one-hour lecture.
Mr. Isa shared that the throne in his poem, The King, directly references firasat, which has disappeared from our hearts. He also called on the audience not to think of themselves just as surgeons, analysing and dissecting things into the ultimate details. But they must also think of themselves as a weaver, creating patterns and never letting go of loose ends of thoughts. Mr. Isa added that this thinking process would help formulate new ideas and visions of life. Hence, this particular mode of thinking (the surgeon and the weaver) is a potent combination; societal progress would not materialise without one another. Being analytical and critical in our thoughts is one aspect of the thought process we ought to appreciate. Still, we ought to be creative and formulate ideas from our analysis.
Mr. Isa next emphasised that we should not just focus on dots and lines because they are mainly linear and reductive. Instead, we should consider patterns, not just rigid ones, and also harmonies. This way, we should be able to develop and cultivate a habit of thinking out of the box (non-linear). Alienation is so pervasive that we do not feel its presence. This is akin to “a fish in the sea which does not understand the definition of wetness”. Mr. Isa further illustrated the concept of alienation through his collection of intriguing short stories – The Orchid, The Bargaining, Glass, Green Man Class, Otai, The Gardener, The Clinic, Door, The Architect, The Bull, The Mimbar, The Sculptor and The Rendezvous. He next shared the signs and characteristics of alienation depicted in his shared stories. These comprise misfit and displacement, incongruence between religion, knowledge and culture, the dehumanised concept of achievement and development, desolation between feelings, mind and soul, the dehumanised concept of education, detachment of religion from societal problems, incongruence between creativity and method of production and lastly, dehumanised effects of technology. Mr. Isa hoped that by listing these traits, he could distill the principles of alienation (disunity, imbalance, chaos, obscurity and reductionist) compared to the principles of firasat later during the lecture.
Next, Mr. Isa described the fragmented world that society today lives in. Sadly, it has created alienation in our lives in many spheres and at multiple levels without us knowing. He stressed that we fail to detect and delve into the cracks and crevices of such lives in the social, political, economic, technological, cultural, artistic, psychological, and spiritual spheres. Why is this so? Mr. Isa explained that we live at levels of madness, enveloping our lives caused by estrangement, isolation, desolation, and loss of meaning in the contemporary world. He pointed out the disheartening fact that such alienated experiences are perceived as normal and acceptable to many. In addition, we live superficial lives at the surface of existence and seldom brave through the currents of uncertainty and controversy to discover the hidden meaning of tranquility in embracing truth, beauty, justice, and service to humankind and other creatures alike. Our lives have been compartmentalised, demarcated, and bifurcated by disciplines of knowledge, reduced by rational and objective thoughts, and denied by the fear, inability, and unwillingness to accept possibilities and the unknown. He commented that specialisation had its own set of ills, and one of those things is that we stay in compartmentalised lives. Hence, due to alienation, we often fail to find coherent and meaningful answers to the fundamental questions of why, where, how, what, and who we are in this world, granted circumstances and life are fluid and changes all the time.
He next shifted his focus on the thesis – firasat itself. Mr. Isa mentioned a term in traditional Malay-Muslim philosophy, which embodies an intuitive, interconnected, holistic and layered vision of life. It is called firasat, loosely translated as a kind of hunch, premonition, mystical intuition, clairvoyance and presentiment. Derived from the Arabic word ‘farasa’, it means insight or to pounce or hunt. In Urdu, it alludes to clear-sightedness, sagacity, wisdom, shrewdness, quick and penetrating intelligence, and keen sensitivity.
Mr. Isa provided some book references on firasat. One of them is Kitab Firasat by Imam Fakhruddin Ar-Razi, which provided perspectives of firasat from the realm of physiognomy. It listed ways to read a person via physical features such as facial and body language, which are means to understand and delve into an individual’s behaviour and psychological and spiritual nature and status. Most importantly, the book explained the physical, psychological and spiritual unity. Another book is Firasat by Ibnu Qayyim Al-Jauziyah. It showed examples of how people use firasat to judge or assess a situation. Judgement on a matter of a dispute is made not based on documentary evidence alone but by intuitive evaluation of circumstantial evidence, intent and outcome, and perception of behaviour and body language. It adopts a holistic approach to both the physical and inner dimensions of the case at hand, and the judgement thus made is deemed valid. The third book Mr. Isa shared is an ancient publication – Firasat – Almanac of Malay Magic Tajul Muluk, banned in Malaysia in the 1970s due to superstition. Malay geomancy prescribes methods of planning, designing, and constructing buildings based on observation and evaluation of the physical, psychological and spiritual realms. It contains spells and incantations, predictions and premonitions, and answers and meanings to the questions about daily Malay life.
Delving into the spiritual dimension of firasat, Mr. Isa shared a quote by Muhammad Al-Wasiti, who defined it as a ray of light that enters the heart. In other words, it is a mastery of inner meanings that convey secrets into the heart through layers of the unseen until the person can see as God sees. This ability enables a person to communicate with other creatures. Another quote by Abu Said Al-Kharraz defined firasat as whoever sees from the light; he sees with the light of Ultimate Truth. His source of knowledge is from the Ultimate Truth and the laws of Ultimate Truth from his tongue, and he sees and speaks with the light that God gives him explicitly. In Sufistic parlance, this is known as Ilmu Laduni. Mr. Isa stressed the many realms (cosmos and physical context, physical self, action and community, mind, psychological and spiritual) of Firasat. All of these embody existential spirituality.
Towards the end of the lecture, Mr. Isa shared anecdotes, firasatic thought and poems. He revealed its principles – unity, balance, harmony, clarity and holistic, which are the direct opposites of the principles of alienation. He concluded that it is a manifestation of a more profound and more extensive body of integrated and reiterative knowledge and life experiences derived from an attitude of mind, existential spirituality, and growth path that enable us to walk beautifully and live mindful, exploratory, creative, wholesome and meaningful lives in a fragmented world. Through a refreshed interpretation and practice of firasat, madness of the mind, maladies of the soul, disrespect of other human beings, and irreverence of nature and the environment arising from alienation of life are acknowledged, addressed, given an antidote and chance to heal. At a fundamental level, firasat enables us to find coherent and meaningful answers, albeit shifting and ever-evolving, to the basic questions of why, where, how, what, and who we are in this world. Mr. Isa concluded his lecture with the recital of Surah An-Nur (The Light) 24:35, which talks about firasat and his poem, Jasmine.
A Q&A session followed the presentation, with Mr. Isa Kamari addressing questions posed by the attendees on-site and those tuning in via Facebook Live. CLS is one of our initiatives to provide a discursive platform for featuring ideas and perspectives from prominent figures and key thought-leaders in the Singapore Malay community. Close to 50 participants attended the third CLS session in 2022, and more than 600 people were reached via FB Live.
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