A Severe Pain Overwhelms Us
Mahdi Kawrani — 2026.10.01
A severe pain overwhelms us… Not a pain of the body, but a pain of the soul, a pain of faith, and a pain of fear for humanity, for our children, and for the generations that will come after us.
We are living in an era in which materialism and secularism advance aggressively, seeping into the finest details of life in endless guises. A world submerged in images, bright lights, screens, advertisements, and entertainment—immersed in tools of amusement and distraction that leave the human mind no sustained opportunity to ask: Where are we going? Why were we created? And what is our ultimate purpose?
Humanity has become besieged by an overwhelming flood of information, which is by no means a flood of true knowledge. Millions of news items, clips, comments, photos, opinions, trends, games, shows, platforms, and notifications… A vast abundance of information that remains largely superficial, fragmented, and consumed at breakneck speed—draining attention and robbing human beings of their most precious possessions: awareness, time, and the capacity to reflect on life’s supreme priorities.
Simultaneously, global elites and centers of power move in massive technological, economic, and cultural directions. The pressing question is no longer merely: What can humans create? The far more dangerous question is: Where will these human capabilities lead if they are severed from faith, ethics, and the Divine purpose?
We have entered the age of Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, behavioral engineering, predictive analytics, and platforms competing fiercely for human attention. Now, we head toward Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), and perhaps toward systems possessing even greater capacity, influence, and dominance over the nuances of daily existence. Amid progress, modernity, and technological advancement, the allurements, lights, and temptations of the worldly life expand before humanity in ways unmatched in human history.
In religious traditions, we find stern warnings regarding the tribulations (fitan) of the End Times, as well as the process of sifting and purification. Narration speaks of how people “will surely be sifted, then sifted, then sifted again,” pointing to the intensity of these trials and to the deception of the Antichrist (Dajjal), to which no trial compares. Narrations also depict Iblis (Satan) rejoicing over the proliferation of worldly wealth. These texts—regardless of the varying strength of their chains of transmission—vividly convey a sobering reality: wealth, worldly life, and temptations can transform from tools in human hands into instruments that enslave human beings and cause them to forget their Creator.
Hence, the battle is not merely against desire, wealth, or fame; it is an addiction to lostness and distraction.
It is a battle for the mind, the awareness, and the heart.
Numerous forces converge today to distance humanity from God: materialism, consumerism, hyper-individualism, endless entertainment, the worship of fame, the sanctification of the market, the reduction of humans into mere consumers, the weakening of the family unit, the emptying of moral values, ethical relativism, constant busyness, digital addiction, the attention economy, media disinformation, information overload, relentless technology, and now AI integrating deeper into every facet of life.
This does not imply that all science, technology, or modernity is inherently evil. Science is a blessing and technology is a tool. However, danger begins when the tool becomes the end, when the worldly life becomes the absolute center, and when God, the Hereafter, the soul, and morality are pushed to the margins.
Here lies our true pain.
Our generation struggled immensely to safeguard its religion and faith amidst these successive waves. Yet we fear that the struggles of our children will be greater, and those of our grandchildren even greater still.
What will happen to humanity decades from now, when the digital world becomes even more fused with the human mind—more capable of capturing attention, shaping choices, manufacturing desires, and steering behavior?
What will remain of the human being if they possess everything, except a heart that knows God?
We do not weep solely out of fear of a technological future; we weep out of fear for the faith, minds, awareness, innate nature (fitrah), and morality of our children, and for their ability to discern truth in a world that grows increasingly noisy, seductive, and distracting.
Our pain today is that we glimpse a portion of the trajectory humanity may travel, and we fear our children will reach an era where turning away from God becomes easier than ever before, and returning to Him becomes harder than ever before.
Therefore, warnings alone are not enough.
We must build individuals capable of living in the heart of technology without becoming its slaves—individuals who utilize science without worshipping it, derive benefit from the world without letting it inhabit their hearts, and master technology without being mastered by it.
We must restore the mind to its divine mission, the soul to its elevated status, the family to its protective sanctuary, religion to its living presence, ethics to their central position, and humanity to its ultimate goal: to know God, purify itself, reason soundly, and live a good, dignified, and just life.
If our era is difficult, we must raise a stronger generation.
If the trials are immense, we must elevate our awareness.
If the world raises its distracting voices, we must raise the voice of faith.
If the world fills the minds of our children with data, we must teach them wisdom, meaning, and insight.
The true fear is not that the world advances. The true fear is that the world advances while the human being loses their own soul.
O God, protect our children and the generations to come. Firmly establish their hearts upon faith, illuminate their minds with awareness and wisdom, make not the worldly life their greatest concern, and let not technology, wealth, fame, or pleasure veil them from You.
O God, we complain to You of the absence of our Guardian, the abundance of our enemies, the numerical paucity of our ranks, the severity of the trials upon us, and the adversity of the times against us.
O God, leave us not to ourselves, nor abandon our children to this world.
And place us among those who navigate the age of tribulations with faith, reason, and insight—until Your relief arrives and the sun of Your radiant coming civilization shines forth.
I do not fear for my children the severity of impending wars, massacres, and extermination, nor even hunger and thirst as their first signs appear, as much as I fear for myself, my children, and future generations the following:
I fear that materialism will become the only language human beings understand.
I fear that the worldly life will become the ultimate goal rather than a means.
I fear that faith will weaken before the overwhelming torrent of allurements.
I fear that remembering God will become a strange occurrence in daily human life.
I fear that secularism will shift from separating religion from state to expelling religion from life altogether.
I fear that humanity will lose its sense of the Unseen (Ghayb) and the Hereafter.
I fear that freedom will mutate into an unbridled detachment from every moral value.
I fear that pleasure will become the metric of success.
I fear that fame will become more valued than virtue.
I fear that money will become the measure of a human being’s worth.
I fear that the human being will turn into an insatiable, perpetual consumer.
I fear an economy that turns humans into commodities, their data into commodities, and their behavior into commodities.
I fear the attention economy that competes to steal our minds and our time.
I fear addiction to smartphones and screens.
I fear that algorithms will become more powerful than human willpower.
I fear relentless entertainment that leaves the mind no opportunity for reflection or reasoning.
I fear an abundance of information accompanied by a scarcity of knowledge.
I fear an abundance of superficial knowledge accompanied by a scarcity of wisdom and insight.
I fear that our children will know everything except why they were created.
I fear that noise will overpower the voice of innate nature (fitrah).
I fear a world where a human being cannot survive minutes without a screen.
I fear that virtual life will become more significant than real life.
I fear the disintegration of the family under the weight of individualism and consumerism.
I fear the weakening bond between parents and children.
I fear the decline of respect for the elderly and people of wisdom.
I fear human isolation despite the proliferation of communication tools.
I fear psychological loneliness behind a world saturated with connections.
I fear the normalization of values that family and religion once rejected.
I fear the transformation of everything into authoritarian choices lacking a fixed moral anchor.
I fear that what is lawful (Halal) and prohibited (Haram) will become mere historical concepts in the eyes of future generations.
I fear the erosion of modesty and chastity.
I fear the commodification of the body and the human person.
I fear that human relationships will turn into transactions of interest and consumption.
I fear the retreat of mercy before the logic of competition.
I fear that material success will become more important than personal righteousness.
I fear that upbringing will be reduced to securing a job and a paycheck.
I fear teaching children how to succeed without teaching them why they ought to be righteous.
I fear science advancing faster than the morality needed to govern it.
I fear powerful technology placed in the hands of humans who have not matured ethically to the same degree.
I fear Artificial Intelligence if it becomes a tool to manipulate minds and behavior.
I fear Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) if its capabilities outpace society’s ability to govern its risks.
I fear that humans will become dependent on machines for thinking and decision-making.
I fear that we will gradually lose our capacity for independent thought.
I fear that systems will know more about us than we know about ourselves.
I fear behavioral prediction occurring before we choose our behavior.
I fear behavioral engineering that makes a person believe they made a choice while they were nudged into making it.
I fear pervasive digital surveillance and the loss of privacy.
I fear that algorithms will be capable of manufacturing desires before we even feel them.
I fear technology shifting from serving humanity to managing humanity.
I fear that modernity will mean an advance in tools and a retreat in meaning.
I fear that technological progress will outpace human capacity to comprehend its consequences.
I fear that human power will increase while human wisdom diminishes.
I fear that data will multiply while awareness declines.
I fear that speed will increase while direction is lost.
I fear that means of communication will proliferate while genuine connection diminishes.
I fear that physical comfort will increase while illnesses of the soul multiply.
I fear that humanity will become capable of doing many things without knowing which things ought to be done.
I fear that a small elite will make decisions affecting the future of all humanity.
I fear economic interests turning into a force dictating culture, science, and politics.
I fear humanity becoming captive to economic models focused solely on growth and consumption.
I fear the widening gap between those who own technology and those subject to it.
I fear the deployment of science and technology for domination, war, and control.
I fear that human beings will become more capable of generating tribulations (fitnah) and weaker in resisting them.
I fear a trial (fitnah) that reaches a person from within their pocket, smartphone, and mind—not just from outside their home.
I fear a continuous, evolving trial that adapts to every human being according to their specific vulnerabilities.
I fear our children reaching an era where turning away from God is easier than ever before.
I fear leaving them a world rich in tools, yet destitute of meaning.
I fear leaving them a civilization mighty in power, yet frail in mercy.
I fear that our children will inherit the technology we created alongside crises we lacked the courage to address.
And I fear more than all of this that we become so accustomed to these things that they no longer cause us pain.
Most of all, I fear the arrival of a generation that feels no sense of loss when losing its connection with God—because the world around them convinced them from childhood that this very loss is the essence of progress.
I fear that my children will read this text with eagerness, yet be unable to finish a quarter or a half of it due to their addiction to short, colorful social media clips.*
Source: https://mohammadabbaskawrani.com
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