The principle of improvisation | The six principles of the prophetic call

In this Prishtina Talks lecture, Rudian Zekthi continues the cycle “The six principles of the prophetic call” with the second principle — the principle of improvisation. As in the previous session, where the principle of reality was presented together with its opposite, improvisation is read here against the principle of gradualism; the two, Zekthi says, are two sides of the same coin and cannot be understood apart.

Zekthi begins from an observation he draws out of the concept of reality itself: reality is not made up only of the past and the present, but also of what we expect to happen — and precisely that part of it always remains unknown. On this he builds his central thesis: a person's relationship with reality carries within it, genetically, the obligation to improvise. You may get it right often, but never always; and so improvisation is not a methodological choice but an unavoidable condition of every attempt to give reality a shape in the name of the truth.

The central part is given to what Zekthi calls the injustice done to this principle: among Muslims improvisation has acquired a bad name, and in the name of caution and of keeping the “adventurers” out, a whole pedagogy has been cultivated against it. The real danger, he argues, is not the unripe who take on great tasks, but the ripe who never take on any. Here comes his criticism of the principle of gradualism — which, over-emphasised, works to coagulate energy, presupposes a prior knowledge of the stages that nobody in fact has, and turns the work of the caller into a kind of laboratory where a mathematical guarantee is awaited before anything is done. The consequence is a psychological transfer: a man convinces himself he has done the work merely by blocking the unworthy, when all he has done is prepare the conditions for working — and the work itself stays undone.

He grounds the argument in the sira: Ta'if, where the Prophet did not know in advance what awaited him and where, after the refusal, he made the well-known supplication; the use of every opening reality offered — the fairs, the caravans, the meeting with the pilgrims of Medina that led to the two pledges of Aqaba and to the hijra; and the fact that even in the prophetic era the ground was never “cleared” — from Badr to Tabuk the hypocrites stayed where they were and were managed. The lecture closes with the classic example of gradualism in Islamic literature — the prohibition of alcohol in four Qur'anic stages — and with the distinction Zekthi draws: gradualism is natural and legitimate for customs, habits and culture, but not for the confrontation between truth and falsehood. There, he says, there is no gradualism — there is immediacy.

Some of the points covered: 📌 Reality and improvisation as two sides of the same coin 📌 Why reality always keeps a hidden side 📌 Improvisation as an obligation, not a methodological choice 📌 The pedagogy against improvisation, and the fear of “adventurers” 📌 The dark side of the principle of gradualism 📌 Turning the caller's work into a laboratory, and the demand for guarantees 📌 Ta'if, the fairs and the pledges of Aqaba as prophetic improvisation 📌 From Badr to Tabuk: the ground is never cleared 📌 “Important people are not born — they are formed in dealing with reality” 📌 The real question is not whether we improvise, but who does 📌 The prohibition of alcohol in four stages, and the limits of gradualism 📌 Why there is no gradualism where truth faces the taghut

📍 Prishtina Talks