Ghalib & nature of universe

عالم تما م حلقہء دام ِ خیال ہے

Footnote: Hoodbhoy & Iqbal

"It may be pointed out here that Syed Ahmad Khan, Syed Jamal-ud-Din Afghani and hundreds of the latter’s disciples in Muslim countries were not westernized Muslims. They were men who had sat on their knees before the mullas of the old school and had breathed the very intellectual and spiritual atmosphere which they later sought to reconstruct. Pressure of modern ideas may be admitted; but the history thus briefly indicated above clearly shows that the upheaval which has come to Turkey and which is likely, sooner or later, to come to other Muslim countries, is almost wholly determined by the forces within, It is only the superficial observer of the modern world of Islam who thinks that the present crisis in the world of Islam is wholly due to the working of alien forces."

From, Islam & Ahmadism, by Allama Iqbal.

Dialectic & Poetry

Frithjof Schuon writes:

Dialectic convinces us with ideas,So that we may understand things abstractly;Poetry has feeling, works with imagesAnd seeks thereby to soften the austerity of thought —So that we may see the truth with our heart.

Like a seed bury yourself

Fears about uncertain future cloud my mind. But more than that i have failed to appreciate the potential i've within myself, like any other human being. Dr Hameedullah compares potentials of man to a tiny seed that turns out to be a colossal tree if nurtured well, and in the first place if it buries itself in the darkness of the mother earth.

How can i be so ungrateful to Allah and be hopeless of my in-competencies? I've to tell myself again and again. I've to be singularly focused on my growth like a selfless seed. I've everything at my service due to Grace of God. Yet this yaas, despair and irrational doubts...

Toxic Effects of Inferiority Complex in Pakistan (III)

Read part I and part II.

In South Africa there are two million whites against almost thirteen million native people, and it has never occurred to a single black to consider himself superior to a member of the white minority.

– Frantz Fanon

The feeling of inferiority of the colonized is the correlative to the European’s feeling of superiority. Let us have the courage to say it outright: It is the racist who creates his inferior.

– Frantz Fanon

(First quote of Fanon really shook our spines to the core. This thought has never occurred to us! We must confess. Ask yourself. The second one is a ‘proven’ psychological fact.)

There’s an undeniable existence of self-hatred, self-pity and total disregard for our Way (cultural and above all religious) present in many of us, especially those dazzled by all things ‘western’. Another term for this disease is Occidentosis. Speaking of which Jalal Al-i Ahmed writes in his famous Occidentosis: A Plague from West:

“Under [occidentosis] we are like strangers to ourselves, in our food and dress, our homes, our manners, our publications, and, most dangerous, our culture. We try to educate ourselves in the European style and strive to solve every problem as the Europeans would.”

Jalal has comprehensively summarized negative effects of westernization in various aspects of our individual and collectives lives which we’ll attempt to examine as following.

Read full article here.

Blasphemy Laws: A Rationale

Muslims - by the virtue of the Prophet - still have a sense of Sacred. This is why they so emotionally and intellectually react to any desecration of Sacred. It is their civilizational right & duty to defend the rights of God, his prophets & his idyaan. West fails to understand that, perhaps.

 In USA, if you curse God or Prophet Jesus, nobody would even care, they won't even look at you and pass by. But if you curse someone's color, race or even nose, you'll get sued for 100k dollars or even worse.* This is because they've lost that sense of Sacred. It is against this aggression towards the rights of God that blasphemy laws exist.

Last para example is taken from an audio clip on Salman Rushdie Affair by Dr Seyyed Hossein Nasr.http://mac.abc.se/home/onesr/af/_audio/A065e_SH.Nasr_Sh.Tantawi_19.mp3

Modern Science & Beauty?

The morning dew is a source of freshness and is a proof of God too (at least for a saint). Unfortunately, those who worship modern science and technology whole day, do not realize that from its standpoint everything is nothing but matter, with no vertical dimension and causality to it. Divine Imprint is the source of all meaningful beauty.

This mechanistic and materialistic view of nature, that modern science possesses, is also the cause of so much destruction of environment. Because from its view, there's no sacred element to material world, hence it's there to be captured according to free market forces. They realized it later that destruction of nature creates imbalance (too obvious to us though). We must salute from heart all native cultures that are disgusted by the idol of indefinite economic progress. Yet, many muslims who're envious of worldly power and resources have fallen to the same trap seculars did.

Historical Roots of Inferiority Complex in Indo-Pak

Blowing brains and spirits out

Colonial Invasion & State Structures. Loss of self-confidence in Muslims is justifiably related to defeats on the battlegrounds at the hands of west. But a military defeat is not enough to enslave hearts and minds, as it can be an impetus for revenge. Today Muslims are envious of West’s power, which proves the fact that the real challenge of west is not of materialism, but of intellectuality (which modernity certainly lacks in the true sense of the world).

However, what happened after the first phase of colonial invasion? How did colonials succeed in subduing large populations in vast areas? We’ve partial answers.

Realizing the danger that native “monkeys” might overrun them by sheer numbers, colonizers had to play the games of perceptions and mind control. They had to look big and strong. Few in numbers, they developed railway and laid communication systems to travel fast over the huge mass of land to subdue any possible mutiny, which did take place and successfully crushed. But the physical assets won’t do the job if the natives were enthusiastic and confident of their victory. Hence, that spirit of rebellion was decimated, and fear and inferiority complex were placed like time bombs beneath our (un)conscious. Self-confidence was shattered when Muslims’d see Tipu Sultan’s majestic dress being worn by peons of whites. Healthy, buildup, young officers constantly replaced older ones to give the illusion that all whites are brave and strong and can’t be messed with. These are just few of countless examples of this social-engineering.

We’ve to contextualize heroic things we attribute our colonial masters. Colonialism was about dispossession. In a paper on this very topic, Cole Harris summarizes colonists’ grand strategy of dispossession as following: 

“The initial ability to dispossess rested primarily on physical power and the supporting infrastructure of the state; the momentum to dispossess derived from the interest of capital in profit and of settlers in forging new livelihoods; the legitimation of and moral justification for dispossession lay in a cultural discourse that located civilization and savagery and identified the land uses associated with each; and the management of dispossession rested with a set of disciplinary technologies of which maps, numbers, law, and the geography of resettlement itself were the most important…” (‘How Did Colonialism Dispossess? Comments from an Edge of Empire’, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. 94, No. 1 (Mar., 2004), abstract)

Hence, administrative and other infrastructures, and all the technologies were means to loot and pillage, although in a more civilized or face-saving way.

Education: Colonists’ Most Favorite Vehicle (MFV)

While military and political subjugation of colonists broke the spirits of many, colonial education convinced many that modern West’s ventures in barbarism were for our own benefit. When defeat induced fears of a mightier foe, the education changed the victim’s heart. As Akbar Abadi said: ‘An easterner would cut off the head of the foe; a westerner would change his heart’. British justified their rule to their own people on the pretext of ‘civilizing’ natives. This was different from what was happening to Blacks in Africa. This comparison will make things more clear.

Blacks were made colonizers on the basis of their color. They were led to believe that their skin color reflects that of sin, ugliness. Black lies are unforgivable, white lies are ignored. They don't have any right to exist. Be white or disappear was the attitude of their colonizers. Blacks even had dreams of being white. They craved for white color at any cost.

Our minds were made slaves. Our color is not such a problem to them. Our culture, religion, and thought endangered their existence. They worked to snatch our inheritance, our ilm from us. That is why they used education. They changed minds.

Economic-historian Atiyab Sultan writes that in the beginning of 19th century, colonization became more ‘pedagogic’ in India. Previously, Britishers were consolidating militarily and administratively. It was time to tend to education, which was primarily used to create a special kind of class of natives, loyal to them.

Liberals and utilitarians advocated ‘civilizing’ natives in the “universal image” of modern western man. There were 3 distinct groups in British parliament who lobbied for their own educational programs (with unmistakable similarities): Evangelicals, utilitarians, and uiberals. Evangelicals like Charles Grant believed Indians to be 'race of men lamentably degenerate and base'; liberals like Macaulay fancied, “A single shelf of a good European library is worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia”; and utilitarians like JS Mills considered Indian stock of knowledge to be ‘obscure and worthless’ (perhaps he did so without digesting a page of Indian literature). On the contrary, Dr Asad Zaman argues, “A single chapter on sacrifice in a book like Fazail e Amaal that teaches man to go against his nafs, is worth the whole literature of modern West.” Only Orietnatlists, Atiyab mentions, argued that colonial educational system in India should be according to indigenous sources and be taught according to indigenous views.

In a way summing up the educational policy, which was fiercely debated in English parliament, Atiyab further writes:

“Education was also a chief instrument in the creation of a colonial subject that would be a loyal and willing consumer of British knowledge and produce. Macaulay voiced this concern thus: ‘Indians should not be too ignorant or too poor to value and buy English manufactures’ (Basu 58.) In a larger sense, the loyal subjects were needed for the calm preservation of empire, echoing the imperial policy of cultivating supportive local elites …”

It becomes clear that their educational institutions served colonists needs, not ours. This reminds of what Iqbal called the “un-Muslim character” colonial education produced. Also, that system was unfair to the masses as it sent few to higher service, leaving the rest impoverished. We should also add that this created an anti-native character in Indians at large, to which Hindus responded very well, boycotting foreign goods.

Triumph of Materialism. Hamza Yusuf (HY) notes that the colonists saw the global and historical link Muslims maintained due to their religious Tradition. Muslims had many global learning centers which played vital role in this regard and maintained some kind of visible unity (although the underlying unity of ummah is still undeniable and, in fact, crucial to the venture of Islam). In order to destroy that unity among Muslims, colonists sought to destroy this ‘historical link’. And as per HY, they did so by injecting inferiority complex in Muslims regarding their lack of material progress. “It’s all documented how they did this,” he emphasizes. For instance, they’d compare paper to pre-modern tablet, which Muslims used for instruction. “Using a tablet is backward. Now we’ve paper!” This notion of backwardness is still on the lips of 75-80% (if not 100%) of Muslims, especially the educated class.

Eurocentrism. The roots of civilizational inferiority complex may also lie in the venom called eurocentrism, especially for uncritical bookish minds. These are more less two central tenets of this mythological, racist & historicist thesis: All civilizations must develop along the lines of West to achieve the idols of indefinite economic progress, civility and “enlightenment”; and that Europe is at the center of world stage, and that all other civilizations are mere supporting pillars, resource fields to it. But western civilization not the end of civilizations, argues Rene Guenon:

"So long as western people imagine that there only exists a single type of humanity, that there is only one 'civilization', at different stages of development, no mutual understanding will be possible. The truth is that there are many civilizations, developing along very different lines, and that, among these, that of the modern West is strangely exceptional, as some of its characteristics show."

Further Guenon scrutinizes the true nature of this highly over-rated civilization, which dominates the world materially so far (we would concede to the objection that even its material dominance is soon to be surpassed):

"The civilization of the modern West appears in history a veritable anomaly: among all those which are known to us more or less completely, this civilization is the only one which has developed along purely material lines and this monstrous development, whose beginning coincides with the so-called Renaissance, has been accompanied, as indeed it was fated to be, with a corresponding intellectual regress; we say corresponding and not equivalent, because here are two orders of things between which there can be no common measure. This regress has reached such a point that the Westerners of today no longer know what pure intellect is; in fact they do not even suspect that anything of the kind can exist…"

Post-Pakistan: British Legacy goes on. Leadership produced by the British took over the country after the partition. They molded state policies and institutions in the image of their departed masters, more or less. Discussion of continuation of such structures is not relevant here. What’s important is that the inferiority complex of native Brown Sahibs’ turned into superiority complex that caused much harm.

After 1947 we witnessed exploitation of our Bengali brothers, which was at once racial and materialistic. It wasn’t religious extremism that separated two brothers, but the absence of spiritual training of the governing “elites”, in bureaucracy, politicians and army. We’ve accounts of how West Pakistani elites treated Bengalis as lower level race. Our false-elite was certainly a clone of their masters.

Co-authored with Noor.

Despair & Knowledge of Self & God

In despair, man rises above the fetters of this world. This world, i intuit, has an element of forgetfulness to it. Its a trap of illusion that deludes many. The chains of senses imprison us. Hunger, passion, thirst, lust, caprices, etc., can reduce us to an animal. But in despair all of this is cracked open. In fact, all of the chains melt away. Forgetfulness of imminent, inevitable, unavoidable death vanishes. Delusion of independence of man is seriously challenged. Naive belief in absolute efficacy of our efforts, and the causes, falters.

Interestingly, while the whole day is spent in the agony of despair, it is punctuated by very brief moments of unjustifiable euphoria. After it dissipates, horizon looks gloomier.

Despair only teaches us to lean on the Absolute. Tribulation is seen by spiritual and religious masters as a blessing in disguise that connects us to our Beloved, with whom depths of our souls so want to reunite. As one's animalistic desires dissolve - of eating, drinking and taking pleasures of various kinds - one sincerely and actively invokes Allah's name. And after tribulation ends, hearts solidify and everything becomes history.

This isn't the sum-total of something one might experience from despair. A skeptical mind, (either) brainwashed by modernism and/or thanks to the whispers of Satan, can view things differently, although not objectively. He can say in his very despair that i'm invoking God because i need him. Hence, my mind has invented him as a support. He doesn't necessarily exist. (Curiously this has nothing to with the realm of pure intellect, rather emotion. For if pure intellect [not separated from heart] had been operating, there won't have been any despair in the first place.)

Here, firstly, the existence of God has nothing to do with this inversion or error-ridden whisper by torch-bearer of falsehood. The fact that one yearns to lean on the Absolute and find solace in it is what metaphysicians point to as 'truth within us'. 'We know truth because we are truth,' says Frithjof Schuon. Secondly, this has to do with skepticism, which doubts everything. In its limitation lies its singular cure:

"Ibn-e-Sina talks of a hanging man, who is hung in the middle of space. His feet don't touch anything; his legs don't touch anything. He doesn't know where he is. [Thus] he can doubt the existence of earth, he can doubt the existence of air - there is nothing he cannot doubt! The one [and only] thing he cannot doubt is himself that is doubting everything."

"'I think therefore God is.' Not that 'I think therefore I am'." - Seyyed Hossein Nasr, In the Beginning was Consciousness, The Dudleian Lecture delivered at Harvard Divinity School.

Response & Absorption to Modernity: Religion in India & Pakistan

Dr Hina Azam reviewing Dr Qasim Zaman's insightful work, The Ulama in Contemporary Islam: Custodians of Change, observes the political thought and advocacy of Pakistani vs Indian Deobandis, or more generally, Pakistani religious elite ("pro-Pakistan Iqbal" and Jamat-e-Islami) vs Indian religious leaders ("Maulana Azad and Wahid-ud-din"):

One cannot help but notice that the religious establishment, perhaps unwittingly, frequently ends up justifying existing state policies.

I believe that this is not very accurate picture of Pakistani religious elites and establishment. In Pakistan, since its inception, we've seen a very strong contest b/w religious elite which advocates state-level implementation of their interpretation of Shariah* vs modernist/secular leadership (although in minority, but very resourceful and powerful).

In India, we don't see religious leaders advocating that. Their framework is "pluralistic secular" political solutions, which obviously is optimal solution for protecting Muslims there.

However, what is very interesting [it's so interesting, i'm quoting whole summary of this argument] is the following argument of Dr Qasim, summarized by Dr Hina:

"Another provocative theme of the book is Zaman’s insight into what happened when the Western notion of “religion” met a traditional Muslim society’s much older understanding of its deen (usually translated as “religion”) in the asymmetrical context of colonial domination. We know that after the time of Hume, Hegel, and Darwin, European thinkers generally conceived of religion as developing, on the metaphor of biological evolution, alongside the progress of human societies from primitiveness to civilization, from simplicity to complexity, from irrationality to rationality, to find its end in either (Protestant)Christianity or in science. In the liberal view, religion is that which is best left to private life, separated from the public, civic sphere. In contrast, the centuries-old tradition of Islamic thought did not draw any firm lines between the sacred and the secular; it conceived the divine command as overseeing both the private and the public domains. What Zaman tells us is how the British carried their ideology of religious evolutionism into India with them, and how out of the marriage of European liberalism and South Asian tradition was born the concept, new for the indigenous Muslims, of their deen as a “religion.” Indeed, says Zaman, the ambivalences created by the tension between religion as private and religion as comprehensive, as well as the doubt created by the idea of “religion” as that which is less than “useful,” continue to express them-selves in self-contradictory approaches to religious education and relations with the state to this day. 

Building on a standing religious studies thesis that Islamic “fundamentalist”movements are in fact thoroughly modern in their technical and political strategies, Zaman adds that, first, the modernity of contemporary Islamic movements is reflected in their very notion of Islam as a subtype of “religion” and that, second, not only the modernists and the Islamists but also the ulama have inherited this new discourse of “religion.” This is seen in their belief in codification and implementation of Islamic law at the statewide level and in the role of the ulama as “specialists” in religion. These efforts are possible, Zaman insists, only due to the reification of Islam that resulted from Muslim absorption of the European idea of “religion” as a fixed content (rather than, say, aprocess of moral transformation or a relationship of spiritual surrender)." [got to know full explanation of this author]

Source.

West's Routes to Wealth: Old & New

(If you came from the article on MybitforChange: please see lecture # 3 on this page by Dr Asad Zaman.)

Dr Asad Zaman gives an account - a rare account - of a major factor of rise of power of West. Western people were so barbarian that they'd engage in continual warfare with each other, on sectarian, tribal or such issues. They developed a lot of mastery over the technology of warfare. The Orient was living in a much relative peace. Due to certain experiences, they realized that world was aloof there 'progress' in killing humans, and were leading much peaceful life (perhaps because they lacked the technology, who knows?). Hence, the agitation and impulse of intra-warfare was calmed down to focus on rest of the world. For various reasons, they're able to come over many countries; and that gave birth to endless plunder of resources, which helped the west become richer and richer.

Today this task is carried out in much more subtle ways by America. See Confessions of an Economic Hitman by John perkins, where he explains how a group of secretive 'economists' (on US govt's payroll actually) would convince surrogate govts to sell off their national natural resources to America; they would convince them to take loan from IMF and World Bank, which would never go out of American economy though. They are the first line of attack of enslaving countries. If they fail, CIA sends in 'jackals' to remove patriotic leaders (like Mossadeq, and perhaps our Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto too). And if CIA fails, as they did in Iraq, the country worth enough is invaded. Perkins was such economic hitman. After 9/11 his conscience finally decided to unleash his secrets that he had been withholding beforehand. The agent of imperial America has spoken to us.

Of Extremism

We need to reflect on the proposed meaning of the terms that are susceptible to abuse in this dark age. There's no limit to the abuse of the term extremism, etc. The most rational, sound, compassionate and/or traditional/orthodox would be called religious extremist if they say something inconvenient about modern superstitions. At a mundane level, son of America and Islam, Shaykh Hamza Yusuf notes that in reality "extremism is as American as apple pie." He points to the fact that it's not the problem in the context of it's actual usage: violence is. I suppose he implicitly would agree to my adding important adjectives like indiscriminate, unjustifiable, "without right." Synonym of this kind of violence may well be "oppression/a-fitnah", which as per Qur'an is worse/greater than killing.

Similarly, calling such fascist-liberals or false-liberals, or even liberals [based on philosophy of liberalism] would be a disservice and abuse of the term extremism. Because it is about wrong thinking, as such.

Use of word extremism is only appropriate when things are view from the Centre and Origin, which is the Prophecy, or traditional, orthodox understanding of it. Anything that is away from First Principles or Centre or Revelation of Islam, is extreme. The 'radical middle way' from which we can keep check on extremism is very clear and pluralistic at once: the sunnah of final Prophet sent to humanity. What more need to be said on this than the fact that Prophet Muhammad warned against "ghulu" (translation as extremism) in religion.

Foundations of Secular Educational System

While nineteenth century materialism closed the mind of man to what is above him, twentieth century psychology opened it to what is below him (René Guénon)

The ‘eclipse of human soul and intellect’ by secular thought has brought disastrous consequences not just at pure intellectual level, but at societal and practical level as well. The change agents have been ‘false prophets of modernism’ (i.e., modern philosophers and theorists). At intellectual level, they’ve lost the traditional, religious view of nature and knowledge, and created false alternatives – the cause of mass misguidance. Not only that, these handful of men have produced this ‘Dark Age’, a material civilization, in which both human actions and intellectual efforts are profane and cut off from Divine guidance. At practical level, though they have discovered in their way great deal of facts about human mind and body, but still paved way to moral degradation, materialism and suffocation of public morality.


Read full article here.

1st 2013 Post: What do I love about modernist culture & art

Anti-Knoweldgism of East & West

Deep down our society has become perverted due to the historical process called colonization, and colonial education that stripped away elements of sacredness from the very business of instruction and education. In Mirror and the Lamp, economic historian Atiyab Sultan with illuminating and ground breaking research from earliest and contemporary scholarly sources show how Britishers in the name of reform actually deformed everything.

Our society has developed a materialistic mindset. A pursuit of knowledge for personal ilmi consumption that is not related to something "practical", (say the professional degree) is frowned upon as a toxic waste that will rust one's mind, especially if it serves no monetary purposes. Our muslim forefathers, a philosopher and a polymath scholar told us, would sell everything for ilm, and not sell their knowledge for money. (Surely stipends were given to teachers, scholars and their those who reflected on deen.) Their love for knowledge was unearthly - starting with the First Principles of Prophecy which influenced all other fields like a canopy over earth. I too want to drink from that cup. For Iqbal, taking the sip from modern west is a big no-no (perhaps because their 'intellect is atrophied'), for the method in the recipe of Hashmites is unique. As Frithoj Schuon put it: West thinks too much and thinks wrongly; east is sleeping over treasures and doesn't think much.

Biggest Idol

Imam Al-Ghazzali considered the greatest idol to be the idol of the Self. This was his starting point."

- Hamza Yusuf in a speech: Critical Importance of Imam Ghazzali in our Times.

Counting Probabilities in Movies

My tiny brain cannot comprehend the delusions perpetrated by movies. I was perplexed and doubtful - but never sure - of these delusions.

Have the screen play writers ever wondered what they are producing? How would people perceive the writers?

They do mention here and there the odds a hero is up against. But. Take into (some level of) free will of so many people and things surrounding the heroes. That hardly seems to count. Occasionally, one or two things won't go according to the plan and that's it. That's just not enough to even remotely satisfy or honor randomness at work in the world of chaos in which the plots are set.

Do they have anything else but "escapism" as an excuse for fooling themselves and their audience? Probably not. Maybe that's the point that even if the possibility of doing a feat is 1 in a million times - it's doable. However, the process of getting there is brutally by passed in the name of Greece's self-delusional fantasies..

We mistake high definition graphics and few moments of breathtaking actions as a recipe for stretching beyond the limits. Not even a chance. Censorship is required by those with deep introspection into these matters.

Fooled by Singularities

Source. Its no physics' singularity theory i'm talking about :P

By singularity here i mean a single explanation or a theory about something which is not fully understood to a person. The person fooled is the one who is trying to fully understand something. This problem seems to be most relevant in history, philosophy and like social sciences, and even for mathematical thinking. When presenting our explanations, we can be a victim of confirmation bias. Latter is all about looking at data that fits our narrative, and not looking for what go against it (see The Black Swan). This is what Iqbal protested in his PhD against the singular explanation of scholars of historical events. IT seemed egoistic to me why they'd stick to just their unique proposition, when even in their minds other explanations would be as helpful as theirs.

In econometrics, people have gone madder than that. They take two data set and run tests to see correlation between the two - without thinking about any causal relation between the two. They do so because of their adherence to logical positivism which is nominalistic and denies the study of unseen/unobservable. Hence, they look at data and not what lying beneath it, the 'reality', the unseen. (See Methodological Mistakes and Econometric Consequences.)

Perhaps that's why we say: No god but God. Denying everything else first to confirm the Unity of God.

I just had a flash of intuition that above 2 paras imply in some way the latter.

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

Comments on 'Lambs to the Slaughter': On Alif, Bay, Pay Education

Comments/response by Hassan Habib to the previous post: 'Lambs to the Slaughter': Reflections on Geo Network's New Educational Campaign.

1

First of all, bravos on this try of presenting the truth. It denounces wickedness behind this despicable slogan of GEO. The thing that I found in the piece of writing was that it presupposes that the reader knows about the deep routes of concepts of Tawheed.

The world-view of Islam is in total opposition of what we believe today. For example, the industrial revolution, the revolution itself identifies the height of ignorance of humans. Why? Because it provided the seed of materialistic endeavor and attitude towards life, it replaces everything with regards to morality on the sentiment of material and material alone.

The modern theories of quality and obsession of companies to achieve it is just a futile endeavor from Islamic perspective. Islam views the world as a temporary abode while the real wealth and real life is the life of hereafter. It focuses on the principles of purifying one’s self from this worldly glitter. While, the whole idea of education today is revolving around this idea, that, we have to satisfy the ‘customer’. Customer’s needs are not the ones that are necessary for its survival rather these are the voluptuous desires that the companies have to ‘satisfy’. The engineers, scientists and managers work to ‘make a winning team’ that fulfils this task of providing the ‘best quality’ with ‘agility’.

The concepts of Total Quality Management, Computer Integrated Manufacturing and Just in Time have evolved into the defining techniques of development today and are being taught with awe in Pakistani institutions. If you go through these in detail you would know that the basic idea is to increase profits and make more customers by attending to their needs. There is no morality and no values that these people follow.

Jack Welch in his book ‘winnings’, describes the idea of values that the leaders should define and the employees should follow. The values are the ones that have ‘competitive advantage’ and are aural for the company itself.

Today all the specializations and modern subjects are catering the needs of these business giant companies that are just robbing people off by selling them things they don’t really need.

When I reflect on this I am left unanswered about how things will change or how can people realize that instead of selling these luxury items to elite, these should be rather sent to areas where still people remain without food for days.

With these words we conclude that the education is nothing but a way for the rich to continue to increase their wealth while their counterparts continue to suffer.

2

What should replace this idea of education? What should be the foundations of building up the moralities of men? How knowledge should be used to create harmony among people? What is the concept of wealth? How this challenge of defining Islamic education be met? What has the researches in modern technologies given humanity? What do we have to do while standing on the brink of this destruction? What does Islam say about this? I think that the utopian debate of Socrates must follow these questions and answers should be sought.

It should be noted that the development that has happened in some of the Islamic countries in the past few decades have followed the same pattern that is being followed by the West. Entrepreneurship and elevation of industrial sector has been the foundations for the development of Turkey and Indonesia.

The subjects that really add to our good character are the ones that we stop studying after our matriculation. Like history, Geography, Social Science and Islamiat. These subjects are always given the second priority while the ones that add nothing to our character are given the first priority. There are no regular subjects that teach us Quran or Hadith. The history being taught to children is itself modified and does not align with the true ideals of Islam.

All the education that follows after our college supports the idea of materialism and inculcates an egoistic approach towards life. That destroys the moralities of humans. Whether it is commerce or management, engineering or life sciences all are void of any sensuality and spirituality.

What is the need then?

First is the idea of realizing that we are the servants of Allah and we cannot spend lives according to our own wishes. Based on this fact we have to rethink our priorities.

Secondly we should recognize what are the major problems being faced by humanity today. How can we practically free people from modern idols of Nationalism and materialism? It is that dawah that prophet S.A.W did and freed people from idols and made them the servants of Allah.

Thirdly we must provide the solutions to these problems that can really solve these problems. We should analyze how different professions interlink with our Islamic needs. (By Islamic I mean the ones that are a necessity and not a luxury). Then we would have to separate the ones which are contributing up to a critical amount to the Islamic ideals and we have to finish those that are opposing those ideals in totality.

Fourthly we must practice and promulgate the true Islamic character. For this the thinking, dedication and sincerity has to be induced in people that makes them to work so hard that they not only become good managers or doctors or engineers but they become a true Muslim. It is also necessary then to abolish those technologies or inventions that directly act in corrupting the character.

Extensive debate and discussion with authentic resources is needed to elaborate further all these needs.

There are many people who can really add to these struggles but they are trapped in the vicious circles of life. There is this need of freeing them from these circles so that they can contribute their part.

Media is using tools that quickly adhere to the brains of people, while it is needed to present people with truth with more passion and enthuse. We are still not doing enough I think so as to reverberate in the minds and hearts of people for that we need a strong synchronization and unity.

These are just the thoughts of an ignorant mind that were reflected on the article you wrote. These are just words while action is rather much needed. I would like to hear from you further on refuting the idea of GEO and presenting the truth. It is very much needed that we debate on practical models of change so that we can meet the aspired end.