Chasing Shadows

Ten consecutive days. Three countries. Japan to New Zealand for IEEE TALE 2014 in Wellington. Then New Zealand to France for ICAST 2014 in Clermont-Ferrand. Airports, layovers, time zones blurring into each other. My body was in transit. My mind was exhausted. And somewhere between flights, waiting at a gate with hours to kill, I opened YouTube and found a two-minute video that rearranged my priorities.

The video is called "Mengejar Bayangan" (Chasing Shadows), from Yufid.TV. It is only two minutes long. A man on a beach tries to catch his own shadow. He runs. He lunges. He dives. The shadow moves with him, always just out of reach. Then he turns around and walks the other way. The shadow follows.

That is the entire film. And that is the entire lesson.

The Shadow is the World

The metaphor is rooted in the teachings of Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyya, a 14th-century Islamic scholar. The world (dunya) is the shadow. If you chase it, you will never catch it. The harder you run, the more it eludes you. But if you turn your focus to what comes after (the Hereafter, akhirah), the world has no choice but to follow you.

This is not about rejecting the world. It is about reordering your priorities. The world is not the enemy. It is the shadow. It is a consequence, not a goal.

The Hadith

The video closes with a hadith (a saying of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ) that I have not been able to forget since:

"Whoever makes the Hereafter his preoccupation, Allah will place his richness in his heart and gather his affairs together, and the world will come to him submissively. But whoever makes the world his preoccupation, Allah will place his poverty before his eyes and scatter his affairs, and nothing of the world will come to him except what has been decreed for him."

— Sunan al-Tirmidhi, 2467

Two paths. Two outcomes. The same person, the same life, but a completely different experience depending on where the heart is pointed.

What the Hadith Teaches

Richness in the heart (ghinahu fi qalbihi). This is not about a bank account. It is contentment (qana'ah). The feeling of "I have enough" regardless of how much you actually own. Some of the wealthiest people I have met are the most anxious. Some of the simplest people I have met are the most at peace. The difference is not their balance sheet. It is their heart.

Gathering of affairs (jama'a lahu shamlah). A focused mind. A simplified life. When your priority is clear, decisions become easy. You stop agonizing over every fork in the road because you know which direction you are heading. Things fall into place not because life gets easier, but because you stop fighting the current.

The world coming submissively (atathu al-dunya wa hiya raghimah). This is the counterintuitive part. Worldly success and sustenance reach you without you having to degrade yourself chasing them. You still work. You still strive. But the desperation is gone. And without desperation, you make better decisions, build better relationships, and produce better work.

Poverty before the eyes (faqrahu bayna 'aynayh). The opposite state. Constant anxiety. The feeling of "never enough" no matter how much you acquire. The next promotion, the next purchase, the next milestone, and still the emptiness remains. This is not financial poverty. This is spiritual poverty. And no amount of money can cure it.

Why This Hit Me at 30,000 Feet

I was on a 10-day academic trip across three countries. Presenting papers. Networking with researchers. Collecting stamps in my passport. By any measure, I was "succeeding." But sitting in that airport, exhausted and far from my family, I felt the scatter. My affairs were not gathered. My heart was not rich. I was chasing.

The video did not tell me to stop traveling or stop publishing papers. It told me to check my intention. Why am I doing this? If the answer is "to build my CV" or "to impress people" or "to feel important," then I am chasing the shadow. If the answer is "to contribute knowledge that benefits others, seeking Allah's pleasure," then the shadow will follow on its own.

The difference is invisible to everyone else. Same flight. Same conference. Same paper. But a completely different experience inside.

The Creed I Carry

Since that layover, this hadith has become a creed I carry. Not perfectly. I still chase shadows sometimes. I still get caught up in worldly metrics (citations, rankings, followers). But the video gave me a reset button. When I feel the scatter, when the anxiety of "not enough" creeps in, I remember the man on the beach. Turn around. Walk the other way. The shadow will follow.

Two minutes. One beach. One shadow. And a truth that has outlasted every conference paper I have ever written.