Pursuit of Satisfaction

For some time recently, I've been perplexed by self-projections and how i should judge my myself. Should i judge myself from my professional (ie academic) achievements, or the quantitative influence of my work (though I'm yet to produce a single thing)? This all sounded egoistic afterwards, as soon as i tried to reduce the anxiety by little introspection from a spiritual point of view. But. Even this spiritual understanding of my ambitions didn't solve the conundrum. I got the answer from iqbal's persian poem.

(English trans by me from Urdu)

Laazt e sair ast maqsood e safar.
Gar nigah bar aashiyan dari mapar.

Purpose of journey is in its pleasure.
If you aim at your destination/home, don't fly

***
Zindagi juz lazzat e parwaz neest

Ashiyan ba fitrat e Oo saaz neest

Life is nothing but taste of flight.
Ashiyana (home) is not nourishing for his nature

I've moved to old blog: Umer Toor Blog I

In Jan 2010, my first blog, Umer Toor Blog, was hacked. Very recently i discovered the hacker, and he agreed to return it.

I will be blogging to that place. I've transferred all posts to that blog. Hope to see you there :)

Get smarter & better effortlessely

Interact with those who're smarter than you are, who're don't have any feelings of adulation for you, and who're ruthless in giving critical feedback to you.

Why Hope is like Hair or Nails?

I friend of mine sent an SMS, "Our hopes are like hair and nails. No matter how many time you cut it, they grow up again." Provided a person is not suffering from some kind of biological disease that don't allow these to grow at all.

What can justify such an analogy? Freedom movements. Our rising up from falls or failures. Seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Night's being darkest just before the sunrise. Yes the last 2 sentences are merely poetic and not arguments, but no matter what they do testify that humans do not fail to be hopeful. Perhaps only this explains existence and constant invocation of such idioms.

What do Modern Muslims Love?

Of Levantines' historical roles and professions, son of Levant/Lebanon Nassim Nicholas Taleb writes in The Black Swan:

"The Arabs, who seemed interested only in warfare (and poetry) and, later, the Ottomon Turks, who seemed only concerned with warfare (and pleasures), left to us the uninteresting pursuit of commerce and the less dangerous one of scholarship (like the translation of the Aramaic and Greek texts)."

Source.

History remembers the Arabs, the Turks, and Levantines for their individual, independent and original pursuits. They were true to themselves and realized their own potentials without imitating anyone. History remembers those with a vocation and an essence. What about those who are too dazzled by the enslaving, ruling 'decepticons'? Despite the fact that modern Muslims belong to warrior races, they turn their backs on political and territorial independence, succumbing to the pressures to every bullying new super power. And above all, in all aspects of life and thought, only love to be second-best copies of "enlightened" Western men. For what will history remember them, for being parrots trying to mimic voice of a superior species?

What do Pakistanis love? They love to be front-line foot soldiers of Amerikanos with all F 16s and a mercenary Army, for sure... And few franchises of junk food chains, few concrete roads, few ugly huge plazas, few modernized educational instituitions, few mass destructive gadgets, and a an English accent that puts Englishmen to shame.

Old Blog: Very Near to Get it!

My older beloved blog: Umer Toor Blog. was hacked in Jan 2010.

I'm very near recovering it from the original hacker, who despite everything didn't change a word of it!

I'll be exporting this back and redirecting it to the older blog inshaAllah! If you're following this blog, please follow Umer Toor Blog too.

Colonists Bluffed Us, the Mozlems! Still Do!

That's a euraka! post that i want to share. I would rather allow Gai Eaton to shed a new light on the Muslim perception of West and ensuing self-pity and reactionism that harms Muslims alone:

The Muslims´ lack of self-confidence may be attributed in part to the experience of colonialism, but it still endures chiefly, I think, because the West has bluffed the Muslims into accepting it at its own valuation and has succeeded in hiding its weaknesses, its vulnerability. It seems to me that this was exemplified in the early 1970s, during the so called "oil crisis." The oil producers — the Saudis in particular — had what amounted to a stranglehold on the Western world; they had very great power, which might have been put to use to their own advantage and to the advantage of the Ummah. What they lacked was the self-confidence which would have enabled them to use that power wisely and effectively. They lacked also that spirit of daring which encourages the powerful to make full use of their power. The opportunity was missed and may not come again... When I talk with my fellow Muslims about the nature of Western dominance, one of my principal aims is to persuade them that this power rests upon very shaky foundations.

These shaky foundations and bogus pshyco-propaganda has to be exposed with so much academic sources available at our disposal. All these academic sources provide logical foundations to the truths already to be found in Islam. Dr Asad Zaman is doing a seminal job by persuading his research graduate students through lectures in this regard by making us realize that we've been bluffed by self-deception (freely available online here). His analyses draw from variety of sources: Islamic reasoning, "subaltern" history, empirical evidences, economics, philosophy, etc. One such introduction to his lectures asserts:

Mostly people believed that history is objective, factual but in fact history is always biased. West claim that they feel the white man burden that’s why they attack other nations to make them civilized but its not true, in this lecture we have tried to show the true picture of why west attack other nations.

Its the game of confidence which Muslims lack at individual level and societal level vis a vis West. The point is: Muslims/easterners are not inferior in any sense to Western men; guess is that they are more advanced. The latter guess has to be induced in the minds to arrive at the former truth, because the confidence level is abysmally low.

What do i envy?

I envy:

• people who know nature of things
• people in love with Allah and his Prophet
• people who are bay-niyaz, i.e., to whom nothing matters except will of God
• non-mercenary, really patriotic and morally aware FIGHTER PILOTS! [My only janoon/extreme passion-obsession-love: a realm beyond that of love/ishq and anything else you know; pure passion: in which one personifies his target job/field/role and behaves like one everyday; only such janoonis as per psychiatrists outperform the rest and do miracles no one else can dare imagine doing]
• productive people, especially academically 
• people with expertise
• people with encyclopedic knowledge of fields that really matter, like philosophy, medicine, fiqh, history, mathematics, physics, metaphysics, etc., not fluff being taught in universities - the outliers in non-outliers
• people with indomitable courage
• with vision, wisdom, perseverance, people knowledge
• bloggers who get lot of comments
• people who can theorize and explain through essays and even books with lot of evidence (either factual or mental/logical/metaphysical/philosophical)
• people on the right track! fixated please...
• people with cute children [can i adopt one being single?] and devout wives (hoors later)

Disbelievers are mad, mad, mad

Mad not in the sense being suffering from some mental or biological disorder but not being reasonable and logical, and being contradictory. There are many living concepts, so to speak part of the world, which we recognize to be existent but we don't observe them, or know them by seeing, or, even, fully understand them. We don't know how such things as gravity, unconscious, invisible rays, etc., as work. We don't know how they make things behave, and on and on and on. We don't know their inner processes or reality through our senses, but know that these exist through their manifestations. Gravity exists because we its effects. Unconscious exists because we see its effects. Although these forces and entities are hidden and beyond our observations, their behavior, their 'products' are however observable.

Take the Freud's unconscious. Despite all criticisms made against him on purely scientific grounds (not that i believe in absolute truthiness of scientific methods), his idea of the "unconscious is intact," as per professor Bloom of Yale. Unconscious is fascinating. All the slip tongues, memory gaps, and other crazy stuff comes from unconscious of which we have no conscious trace or understanding. Still its there. A better example than this is gravity that we can feel but don't observe the way we want to observe God, which is impossible for our perceptions.

The simple logic behind believing in these unobservables is their fruits, to be poetic. Then how we deny the Creator? Dr Asad Zaman in his lecture on logical positivism [lecture # 7] shows how these atheistic scientific theories are so grounded and motivated by this urge of non-believing communities to deny the Maker of the Universe. This logically explains their consistent efforts to deny Allah despite their admission about existence of life and universe being nothing short of a miracle. Allah shows the disbelieving miracles but they deny, as their predecessors did. Allah knows best.

Sidi (late) Charles Gai Eaton shows difference between a Muslim-believer and modern agnostic/atheist western's approach towards faith:

"Formerly, this confrontation [b/w Muslims and Christians in middle ages] was between men of faith who had more in common than they could ever have acknowledged. That likeness, that shared devotion to an almighty and unseen God, no longer exists. The gulf has become infinitely wider and mutual comprehension has become far more difficult. The believer to whom the transcendent reality of God is the most compelling fact known to him cannot really understand unbelief or imagine its sterility. The unbeliever, try as he may, cannot even guess what the experience of faith is; his imagination is baffled by this strange, other-worldly phenomenon."

Sum-total of Modern Man's Efforts

i think sum-total of modern man's efforts to satisfy his "polymorphous perversity," i.e., total pursuit of pleasure, where suppression of it occurs only as a mean to get to something more pleasurable. The real disappointing part is his instance on being called being civilized, whereas as per their own modern prophets this is the animal part, the most stupid part of human being, the id. God knows best...

A Psycho-Experiment

Image source.

I'm performing a psychological experiment mentioned in a slide on Freud. It consists of two activities: writing 3 positive features of someone i love. And then: writing 10 positive features. Here it goes.

List 1: 3 features of a person a love: my mother

- caring
- hardworking
- loving

List 2: 10 positive features of my mother

- good at budgetary regulations
- perfectionist
- educated and literary
- good at social relations
- disciplined
- ethical
- helper of poor people
- emotional about positive things [where feelings are necessary]
- traditional in approach towards life; archetypal eastern
- was very obedient to her parents

___________

What was i supposed to feel: The reading asserted: Liking goes up in 3 group. Liking goes down in 10 group.

What i actually felt: Not much change. I totally disagree with the above assertion. My emotions remained same; although writing the traits was exhaustive.

1 timer: When Simple Invaders Converted Advanced People

The so-called barbarian conquest of Rome led the invaders to convert to the religions of the conquered. The Mongols, who butchered millions of people, second in Barbarity to Westerners only perhaps. There're clear proofs that Westerners cooperated so much with Mongols to destroy Muslims that Mongol leaders were expected to convert to Christianity. Unfortunately, they converted to islam and never repeated their history of  barbarity in cooperation of West.

Abdal Hakim Murad, while mentioning these two conquests, mentions how simple, unsophisticated noblemen of Arab in a blink of eye spread through most cultured and sophisticated lands of their times and instead of getting converted led the conquered to convert, although over centuries because they didn't point swords at their throats. It's nothing short of a miracle, he adds.

"Newsflash": Pakistanis are far more advanced

Image source.

In Pakistan, by grace of Allah, population of villages is still much greater than of cities, although with much less basic necessities, health-care being top priority. This or few other deficiencies don't have to be part and parcel of villages at all. Nonetheless, overall village life and even of semi-Urbanite non-cosmopolitan city-dwellers in Pakistan is liberating. People like me, younger age with cell phones and internet, are becoming slaves of technology day by day, but we're still much more advanced in our human relations, in living a meaningful life devoid of avoidance & superficiality, and in being at ease with nature. Something Westerners - those who're baby-sit by tv and other visual and auditory devices - are very backward at. In the end, it's all about freedom to be Archetypical, Primordial Human, true to our nature forged in the image of God.

The realization of this backwardness is not limited to outward observers - i.e., Asians or Africans or those few in West who still adore nature and rawness. First, the movie Mr Lorax debunked the sterility of anti-nature and artificial living style of Western capitalism. Now, a high school in America is doing something about it: taking students on a 3 month term in a country-side region with no cell-phones, no Facebook and little internet. Please watch the video [click on the link pls] to feel how precious and advanced Eastern way of life really is.

Liberty Books' Home-service: Awesome

I ordered a book online yesterday for the first time and in 24 hours, it's here all the way from Karachi with no TCS courier charges. Above all, with payment upon delivery!

Here's a book for record... Nassim Nicolas Taleb's much renowned The Black Swan.

Picture taken by yours truly

A heart-rending post: Inferiority complex vis-a-vis English

Update: It's under bold heading, end para.

I'm too shocked to read this post on a blog and want to share these sickening words and my stammering reply.Please add to it from psychological and other perspectives and the cure to this ugliest disease of self-hatred. Of course the author here doesn't seem to personally hold these views.

"It was in one of the short stories back in the O-level's syllabus that a guy tells a girl (or perhaps it was the other way round) that he loves her and the girl replies that if you had said that in Urdu, it would have sound so bazaari (vulgar) ... or something similar to that ... English does have this intellectualizing, legalizing and toning down effect over here. I have seen people happily bearing abuses hurled at them in English but usually they are not so comfortable with Urdu or Punjabi. Similarly when the Pakistani stage dramas were gaining notoriety with their abundant double entendres; English sitcoms were usually let off scot-free with their sexual innuendos."

My reply:

"I believe, with plenty of evidence, that this is merely because of inferiority complex and hatred of our own culture, and one of the greatest triumphs of our Devilish Egoism. We can ruthlessly mock our own brethren, our friends, our countrymen who can't speak English well grammatically or are too vernacular. Go out of Pakistan and these self-haters would be bootlicking Gori Chamri [whiteman's skin] with no respect from their meaning-masters (or meaningless-masters) - cause they have no self-respect of their own."

"Intellectualizing, legalizing and toning down effect" of English in Pakistan

There's nothing intellectual, "legalizing" effect inherent in this language of Anglophones. If one comes to know about the history of rise of Euro barbarians, s/he would get disenchanted to a considerable degree. Nonetheless, it is modern education that creates this sense of cultural and civilizational inferiority, although in reality this isn't the situation. Shaykh Gibril F Haddad talks about anti-tradition modernists and purists which explains at certain lower level such disastrous cultural infections "excellently" summed up in the 1st quote:

In complete contrast, today, many purportedly educated Muslims – both purists and anti-traditionists – revere bookish knowledge and non-Muslim institutions of learning over and even at the exclusion of Islamic ones. They accredit Western titles and disciplines above the Islamic offices of learning and mashyakhas. They speak, write, read, study, teach, debate after the fashion of non-Muslims just as they may also eat, dress, marry, divorce, and die as Westerners, without a second thought other than implicit or expressed hostility at the heritage of the forerunners in the Religion of Truth (although purists have managed to trumpet the art of lip service to “The Salaf” into a full-fledged ideology). Their approach to learning in our time is to orphan themselves of the principles of the learned Muslims of previous generations – their spiritual foreparents as Imam al-NawawÏ defined one’s Muslim teachers in al-TaqrÏb wal-TaysÏr ila Sunan al-BashÏr al-NadhÏr. They still have isnad – not so much to the people of the Prophetic Way and the Muslim Congregation as to the culture of the non-Muslim world and the ideas of “progressive” journalists, activists, news analysts, social scientists, and, at the other end of the spectrum, Marxist-Leninists and anarchists born-again as purists. Such are the manufactured imqms that have infiltrated the ranks of Muslim leadership and pose as the very Ulema they and their followers desert and belie. The Seal and Last of all Prophets said:  

“There will be, towards the end of time, Anti-Christs and arch-liars who shall say to you what neither you nor your foreparents ever heard before. Beware of them and keep away from them! Do not allow them to lead you astray nor sow discord among you.”

Reminds of eclipse only! of reasoning faculties.

Poll: See Right top

There's a poll going on right now for a year! Please help me by knowing which topics you like on this blog. Feel free to crtiticize and give your feedback no matter how personal and critical. I love it.

It'd me much appreciated if you give feedback here (comment section) about my writing and topics discussed or what you might like me to be focusing on and what not.

Hilarious: of moderate mozlems

"The Moderate Muslim: ‘Islam is against mass murder! Deep down, we’re just as lovely as you! er … Where’s the buffet?’"

- Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad. Source. # 26 of Contentions 15.

Moderate Islam is that of extreme apologeticism, forged in the fire of Protestantism. It is being shaped by the policy makers of Imperial Power of America through funding of "moderate voices." This is the greatest of pitfalls of terms because Muslim ummah is that of middle path, who always strives to be moderate in its actions and even in theory. We can no more use this currency anymore. Seyyed Hossein Nasr i believe came  with a better solution who is opposed both to modernism and fundamentalism. He places mainstream, orthodox Sunni-Shia dimension of Islam at the Centre, and judges all other sects or interpretations from their proximity to the Centre, to the Orthodoxy. Those interpretation which seek to by-pass 1400 years of orthodoxy, a diverse yet unified systematized development of an understanding of Islam, are extremists. It is so because they're away from the centre. This is both evident in the wrongdoings of Al-Qaeda and Progressive/Modernists/Re-formulationist (or Deformists) movements. There's at least one monograph dedicated to this very topic but which limited its scope to fundamentalism alone, edited by Joseph Lumbard (a Muslim scholar of Islam) entitled, Islam, Fundamentalism and the Betrayal of Tradition. There's now greater need of a detailed surgical analysis of modernist Islam as well.

Presumed Innocent & Punishment for adultery

Presumed Innocent (1990). In the end of the movie, the adulterer blames in absolute terms her wife for murdering someone he slept with. The women committed fornication; the man, adultery. The wife made the plan of killing the women her husband had slept with like a water-tight mathematical equation with best results for her, being a doctoral mathematics student. The plan is irrelevant here.

In Islam, with 4 witnesses the adulterer(s) are stoned to death; fornicators are treated differently. In the presence of circumstantial evidence - around which the fate of accused in the movie rested - the guilty goes to jail for whole lot of years, as per religious scholars of Pakistan (at least).

One can ponder over the wisdom behind this divine injunction in many ways. One logic the movie provided is the rage, disintegration and destruction adultery brings to family which makes its punishment - in the presence of such strict condition - much more severe and applicable. Surely as Deterrence to say the least. Deterrence is something Islam so much professes in theory and practice from national defense to self-matters.

Image source.

Sentimentalism vs Lack of it: Pakistan's "Liberals" vs Reality Checkers

Word liberal is disgraced when used with pesudo-liberals of Pakistan who worry most about the vested interests of their spiritual masters in the West, then Britishers now Amerikanos. They occupy the English public discourse not through their scholarship, but pure sentimentalism; and as for the books, their credibility as scholars ranks much lower than Orientalists as perceived by Edward Said. One of my academic goals to write books debunking their self-esteem in their very own eyes and those they lead astray, inshaAllah.

Here's a uni-phase 'debate' between a fiery-some response to a column by Orya Maqbool by an aspiring Native-orientalist, followed by a response who upholds the views of Orya with no sensationalism as such. Orya is Islamic-minded and anti-imperialist (hence much closer to western liberals).

Source: The Difference? Mosaafir e Dasht

1. Mr Native Orientalist: Well...ISI helps Haqqani network and for obvious reasons, given the fact that Pakistan army is 'concerned' about Kabul's future after US leaves. The likes of Orya Maqbool Jan who apologize for the army and ISI more than they themselves would do so, need a reality check. I come from a family hosting a number of military officials (and I take no pride in that) and all of them very frankly admit that army has always been in bed with Haqqanis and a number of other Afghan militant factions.
   
   Oh and our Afghan brothers did 'defeat' three super-powers within a century - only, they lost just millions of life, life is no longer normal there, peace and tranquillity is a forsaken dream and we, the proud Muslim neighbours (alhamdulillah) have reaped the benefits in the form of terrorist bombings within our lands, the millions of Afghan immigrants and a culture of arms and drugs. The kind of intellectuals who want to brand this as a great 'fatah' are as deluded as they love to brand those who called US the 'saviour' when it attacked Iraq and Afghanistan. Critical eye and a knack for not 'adjusting' facts to suit one's ideology are pertinent for a rational discourse - sadly, the author of the article cited merits none of these qualifications.

   Reply
2. 
   Jehanzeb Idrees10:35 PM

   Realpolitik cannot be adjudged by personal accounts it always has a historical perspective without which the understanding of an issue can always fall short. Giving opinions and making judgments are expressions crafted carefully by nuanced words which can either be based on emotional inclination or factual deliberation. However, the subtleties of logic shouldn’t be irresistible enough to end up resisting the very grounds which form a sound judgment or a safe opinion.
   
   After reading the article and the comments I have a few questions to ask from Mr. Salman to learn exactly where his objections actually lie: -
   
   1. ISI helping Haqqani networks OR not helping Americans against Haqqani networks?
   
   2. Pakistan’s concerns about Kabul’s future in US absence OR Kabul’s future with complete absence of anyone?
   
   3. Demands for the likes of Orya Maqbool Jan for the need of reality check OR for the pay cheques of Ahmed Rashids, Hassan Askaris, Hoodbhoys, Aisha Jilanis or Marvi Sirmeds?
   
   4. Army being in bed with the Haqqanis OR not in bed with the Yankees?
   
   5. That Afghan brother did ‘defeat’ 3 super powers within a century OR that they were thrice occupied by 3 different arrogant powers?
   
   6. Or that Afghan brothers’ victory came after losing millions of lives OR those millions of lives were lost under a foreign occupation?
   
   7. Afghan immigrants (along with their culture of arms and drugs) coming to Pakistan because WE invited them OR we invited the Russians to occupy Afghanistan and send all those immigrants to our lands?
   
   8. On the intellectuals who want to brand a certain kind of ‘fatah’ OR the pseudo-intellectuals who drum it as the ‘freedom for democracy’ when Iraq and Afghanistan went into occupation?
   
   9. Does a critical eye need to adjust on ‘known facts’ OR the critical eye needs to adjust on ‘hidden facts’?
   
   10. And finally how a rational discourse should base upon?
   
   i. Personal opinions based on certain ideologies.
   ii. An original analysis based on historical facts.

Experiencing Higher Realms through Books

I too have felt that when you read and reflect on certain books, especially of religious, philosophical and metaphysical nature and even about science, astronomy or social sciences, you feel yourself to be in a different world. The mind seems to have escaped from the worldly surroundings and transferred into a much more beautiful and pure world... Its an amazing feeling that is a fruit of piety. For if i'm not in a good spiritual state, my heart would block the soul from "passing out"!

It takes a thinking mind to be Indecisive

Source.

Part of being conscious means when one has to choose (with or without painful deliberation) between choices, consciously. Only a conscious person would be troubled by the choices, because he values his time and is careful; because he recognizes the trade offs involved and opportunity costs he might have to incur. He might end up doing the futile things impulsively, but he has more chances of gaining control over his impulses.

Part of being slave of nafs can be mindlessly floating in the flow of neuorotic impulses. I was careful to use modal verb 'can' because one might be very intuitive in one's approach towards doing things, yet free of base impulses that hate focus. I'd like to be that (latter) person though :D

"Extremism is not the Problem"

Image source.

"Extremism is as American as Apple Pie." Shaykh Hamza Yusuf

"Violence is." Argues Hamza Yusuf, especially when talking to Amerikanos about Muslims. He points out that Amerikano culture is based on all kinds of extremism. If you think that's true, be sure you don't know basic facts about Amerikanos :P

He's not arguing about 100% elimination of violence, rather persecution of dissenting voices, and dominance of one strand of thought over the other.

Without being apologetic about anything, one founder of a school of Law Imam Shafi or perhaps Imam Malik was asked by Khalifa Mansoor: i want to implement your interpretation on all of my dominion. To this Imam replied in an emphatic nay. In the presence of other towering luminaries and in the light of one's legitimate right to recourse to a differing expert opinion, he refused this historical choice that could've influenced heavily the religious and legal history of Muslims, perhaps. It is exactly the betrayal of tradition that sects have taken up arms against each other while we dialogue non-Muslims with such civility that bewilders a local who had the nightmare of watching sectarian strife. Of course, honorable, respectable academic intra-dialogue is only necessary and perhaps sufficient if executed.

"Quran Connections": Western Scholars Uphold Tradition

Concerned Muslims in the east who are doubtful about Western scholars of Islam, Muslim and non-Muslim, as these academians are used to betray the Tradition just like their counterparts in the shape of puritan reformists, the extreme example of which is al-Qaeda and their sympathisers: Think again about western scholars of islam!

Here's a verbatim synopsis of a project by a number of top muslim and non-muslim scholars, who were tasked with studying and exploring Qur'an again for western audience. The result is production of a DVD, watch trailer here. And please don't take their instance on Islam being peace as surrender to imperial threats, or as being America's moderate interpretators of an emasculated, marginalized religion; Muslims ought to bow before Allah only. However, i've not watched the DVD, hence can't claim conclusively.

 Here's a description of this mission impossible by the producers, with the findings summarized in 1 para about the 'mysteries of islam'.

"A group of American professors is asked to probe deep into the minds of more than a billion Muslims. To find out what drives them to suicide bombings, multiple wives and religious fanaticism .

The team:
Mark Juergensmeyer: International expert on terrorism in religion and President, American Academy of Religion. Hossein Nasr, Harvard alumni, author of fifty books on Islam and science, and Professor at Washington University. Bruce Lawrence, Abrahamic Pluralist and bestselling author of From  Hajj to  Hip Hop. Maria Dakake, Editor Harper Collins Study Quran Encyclopedia and Professor, George Mason University. Jonathan A Brown, Omer Mozaffar, and Joseph Lumbard: all fine scholars of comparative religious traditions in prestigious universities of the United States. 

The team is asked to find out if The Quran is out of step with modern times. It is directed to disregard traditional clergy, if need be.

Unaware of each other’s assignments, the panel delves deep into the fountainhead of this most enigmatic Faith: The Quran. 

It uncovers shocking facts, astonishing revelations and intriguing results about Islam. The findings raise as many questions as they answer.

The panel’s no- holds- barred, hard hitting findings include: 

“In Islam, sex is a good thing. Allah is not a Muslim specific God; even Arabic speaking Jews and Christians use the word Allah in their liturgies. Polygamy is a blessing. We are not God and God is not us. It is mandatory for Muslims to revere all the Prophets of Judaism and Christianity. Muslims do not worship Muhammad. Everybody is a born Muslim!” [Emphasis mine]

If you thought you knew about Islam, you better think afresh."

So if you thought you knew about islamic scholars in the west, think afresh about this small, powerful minority, which isn't restricted to these scholars of course!

Self-love

my nafs abhors admonition and strikes that tarnish the idol of self-love, although belief in one's being blessed and honorable are only part of our eemaan. This is an age of self-love and self-indulgence... The realization is the step towards the cure which lies in detachment and suppressing nafs through mental and physical exertion.

Academic Wish-List: Path i want to tread

i've wasted a lot of time in relation to my quest. wasted 4 years as such in a degree that is hardly of any worldly utility and nor for my stammering, scholarly ambitions. having failed to fulfill the janoon to become a fighter pilot, i'm lost!!! thoughtlessly going into a job field seems a cowardly act. i've one more chance to re-boot and pursue a dedicated, no matter how inter-disciplinary field that fits my grand non-monetary, unworldly, intellectual quests.

My quest is ultimately search for Absolute at personal and academic level. For that i've to master many disciplines including logic, grammar, philosophy, metaphysics, irfan, methods of analysis & description, mathematical thinking at deep levels, jurisprudence, legal theories, and above all knowledge and understanding of the Revelation. These are the fields our Muslim forefathers would have mastered at 17 or 18 as in case of many. I know none!

Rumors of worthlessness of Social Sciences

This post is only in regard to Pakistan.

Social sciences (SS) include as you know from pure philosophy, literature to techno-economics. I've not given any time trying to understand what differentiates it from physical sciences, after all psychology today take great pains to present itself as scientific, i can't pass a judgement over it having no working knowledge of it even.

The concern of this post is not to reflect on the definition of it, of which all of us considerable intuitive understanding. The concern is concerning the lack of concern about it in Pakistan. And given the fact that nobody reads this blog (except few special nobles), i face a dead end: i've to talk to myself. Talk to Pakistan's faux-liberal-elitists in academia and newspapers and they'd lament over Pakis not getting themselves trained in Western social sciences. Its not that concern i'm concerned about here, rather what Dr Asad Zaman, primarily a math-stats-economist from Ivy Leagues, argued in his paper Improving Social Sciences in Pakistan that in a post-positivist world Muslims have a great opportunity to offer world a perspective in nearly all major SS fields from economics to education. The reason for this is that we've not committed and invested in building SS based on rationalism and logical positivism, and that our religious tradition is still intact which is the fountain of all sciences concerning humanity, man, society, law and afterlife.

i just reiterated his position without adding anything to it, simply because this viewpoint is least heard in academic circles, and certainly doesn't resonate well with those trained in Western thought who cannot see anything beyond it. The second-hand commitment to falsehood of slaves can be more enduring than those of the leaders. This is exactly why muslims have to be at the fore-fronts of all supposedly "secular/profane" fields of knowledge. (Its only the perspective and the methodology (perhaps) that make it profane. For more clarification i should read S Hossein Nasr's Need for a Sacred Sciences, and chapter, "Profane and Sacred Science," in rene guenon's Crisis of the Modern World.)

On low perceptions about SS in Pakistan. Those who don't see anything more worthy that fruits of modern technology deny the importance of less or non-productive fields of knowledge like philosophy, literature, etc. They do not know that they themselves are the very product of some world-view and a combination (perhaps) of various SS ideas, ideologies, etc., of which they've no khabar (news). This is not to deny what Hamza Yusuf said that these modern universities are teaching many programs that are just fluff and cut from the cheapest cloth. This is a misery too. Nonetheless, one should not comment on something one has not understood, let alone mastered. I cannot express how often times i've been shook by power of SS world-view or even, to be modest, a set of  ideas that shape and carve whole societies in a given direction when adaptation of a different world-view or set of ideas could have driven them somewhere else. Where are you going? We must invoke this Qur'anic verse, i.e. sign, every time we do something, or even think.

And as for the greatest myth that hard social sciences (as opposed to some time-pass programs, if any) require less exertion and utilization of brain cells and hardship of soul: it's just plain wrong! Give them a 100 page scholarly book and see how they sweat...

What i need to be doing is to articulate in laymen terms the importance of major fields of SS of which i've little acquaintance...

And Allah knows best.

The Grand Task of Modern Homo Islamicus

As a scholar of Islamic and modern sciences, what is the task a writer, researcher and academic face in spreading the message of islam, without any tinge of self-imposed reformation, rather with complete conformity to the Tradition as passed down and developed throughout generations? Seyyed Hossein Nasr eloquently explains what the Guardians of pen should be up to:

"Today in the West, as well as in the Islamic world itself, there is an ever greater need to study both the principles and manifestations of Islam from its own authentic point of view and a manner comprehensible to sufficient intelligence and good intentions. Moreover, this needs to be achieved by using methods of analysis and description which are at once logical and in conformity with the Islamic perspective; for this later places the highest value upon intelligence (al-'aql) and logic, which is inseparable from it, although of course the transcendent realities cannot be reduced to logical categories. This type of writing which can 'translate' Islamic teachings into a contemporary idiom without betraying it is very important not only for non-Muslims who wish to learn about Islam but most of all for your Muslims, who are now mainly products of modern educational systems." [Italics mine; although each phrase of these 3 sentences is important and comprehensive]

Introduction to Islamic Life and Thought.

The Philosopher's Corner

The place where yours truly finds solace, i've to be honest. I don't get lazy here, slumber in odd times doesn't take over. It has 3 windows, two coverd and one parallel with neighbour's wall, so doesn't open in street and faces the wall like a dead-end ahead; while 10% of the top opens to the sky, like a sign of hope and freedom. The dead end is good, for it doesn't let too many visual stimulation get into my tender head. It's cool because a blank wall one has to glance through transparent window-glass helps keep reflections on track; one has to focus more on beauty to avoid its ugliness taking over.

i like my books, my laptop, my work, writing here, talking here. like a very sedentary person. and am 'always in agony of coming back' here... may Allah add barakah and purity to this place, from where i can serve ummah and humanity... (this 1st sentence is adaptied from Norman Finkelstein's description for himself.)

the seat shown here is my cousin's who shares the room. i wonder why i'm sharing this. maybe for myself. to document, document, document (something i enjoy in later days)

Another view