Sir Emaduddin Qazi, the psychology teacher at BLA A-Levels, delivered an enlightening session during the assembly on Friday, 19th January 2024. The following is a brief summary of his session:
Usually when we hear the word meme, we think of internet memes, like, grumpy cat etc. However, the word meme was coined by Richard Dawkins in 1976, and means anything that is spread in society through imitation. Even though the word was coined in 1976, memes have existed as long as society has existed. For eg, during WW2, allied soldiers would write “Kilroy was here” wherever they would go. Another example is Urdu poetry, where some poets take lines from other poets and incorporate them in their own poems. Just like modern memes, you cannot understand the meme unless you know the reference. So a meme is anything that is replicated in society, which means that all are actions have the potential to become memes.
If we do something bad, and it goes viral, we will get the blame for starting it, and if we do something good and it goes viral, we will get its reward. We should pray to Allah to put barakah in our good deeds and suppress the impact of our bad deeds. Barakah in good deeds means that the smallest of our actions can go a long way and spread far and wide, becoming a source of ‘ajr’ (reward) for us with minimal effort, if Allah wishes so.