Even though a heart warming emotion at times, and a very inspiring one, Nostalgia is a very deadly concept. By definition Nostalgia is a sense of sentimentality towards the past, which in itself is harmless. The origin of the word, however, is a different case. Nostalgia is a compound of two Greek words, “Nostos,” and “Algos”; which translates roughly into “Homecoming”, and “Aching” respectively. In other words, Nostalgia can also mean Homesickness. Moreover, it is then, that Nostalgia becomes deadly. When the past becomes “Home”, the present becomes “Exile”, and the future becomes a threat. An entity which faces this situation, would try to retrieve the past, maintain the present, or at least avoid the future; at all costs. Either ways, the entity stops evolving, and eventually dies out.

On an individual level, this phenomenon might occur, when a person reaches a stage in his or her life where he or she is no longer fulfilled or satisfied. At this point the person would start reminiscing on past memories of better days. If the state of dissatisfaction with the present continues or grows, the reminiscing becomes a crippling sense of Nostalgia. The person will spend more time remembering , and less time living. Until that person eventually dies.

Another person might be born into an unsatisfactory or unfitting situation, and would develop a sense of belonging to another period of time. thus diving into a form of a Golden Age Dilemma. As this person learns more and more about his or her favorite era, his or her obsession with it grows bigger. The person then, reaches a point where he or she starts to relate to that era more than he or she relates to the present time. Moreover, the person will develop a sense of Nostalgia towards an era, in which he or she has never lived.

The Islamic Civilization is now in danger of death by Nostalgia. The idea that the better days of Islam are behind us, and that the future will bring us nothing but more and more of our miserable present; leads to no good. The portrayal of the Companions’ era as nothing but a time of Angels and Saints and Martyrs, and heroes, not only, does no good to adult Muslims with real day-to-day life problems, but also, places an unbearable amount of unnecessary pressure on young Muslims. If a person truly believes that the companions were simply perfect, never weak, never doubtful, never sinful, never vulnerable, and never fallible; then he or she would never be able to relate to them, and would lose any hope of ever coming anywhere close the their state of spirituality.

Realizing that those people were nothing but normal Humans who faced similar temptation, struggles, doubts, weaknesses, failures, and mistakes, to the ones we face; is the first step towards recovery. The companions don’t have to be perfect or better than us, for Islam to be Perfect or Better than us. The same applies to their followers, the followers of their followers, and every other generation of our ancestors.

Furthermore, Questioning those or Criticizing them, should never be mistaken for or associated with Questioning or Criticizing Islam. Questioning and Criticizing Parents and grandparents should not be considered Domestic disobedience, or a Mortal sin.

Furthermore, it is only when we stop basing our faith and that of our children, in Islam, on pink and peachy fairy tales of better times and golden ages, that we become forced to evolve. Only when there is no going back, does a person go forward. Only when we stop using phrases like  “Old is Gold”, and telling our children the same lies that our parents told us to enforce a diminishing dominion over the new generations; that we and our children become free of the past. Only when we realize that our parents and their parents before them were not simply perfect and better than us; that we start to believe in ourselves and our children. Only when we realize that our times are not worse than those of our parents and grandparents, but are simply different; that we stop fearing the future. Only then, can we start to understand that our children can be better than us. Only then can we understand that their times might be better than ours. Only then can we have enough hope in the future, for us to live on.

With the exception of the prophet’s life time, there is no telling which period of Islamic history is better than which. However, as long as we keep Idolizing the past, we will always fear the future. Only when we start seeing the imperfections of the past, and comparing them to those of the present and the future, can we realize that we don’t know if certain times are better or worse. We just know that they are different, and that different is sometimes better.