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 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.

An Old Debate: Islamic & Western Imperialism

My friend Bilal Zubair had a debate with his friend on Facebook. I am reproducing verbatim the debate here. His answers/arguments are still in vogue and require detailed additions, editings and expansions from various perspectives, if applicable. The arguments, which are basically that of orientalists, he is up against are not new; and i believe muslim scholars would have replied in detail of voluminous books. Please do give references to books and scholarly articles on these historical, political and theological questions from Islamic point of view.

Focus on bold and italic sentences. Plus, words in brackets '[ ]' are mine.
________________________

Friend's comment: The wars they fought in order to take some river in possession, or take same agrarian lands. And this was done most in his time, The 1st khalifa was not that violent. Hazrat umar ki to personality ke baray main documented hai ke wo violent thay. Ab ye na kehna i am making this up. Ye har superpower karti hai theek hai na? imperialism musalmano ne bhe kiya tha. Aaj america imperial hai. UK buhat ziada imperial raha wa hai. USSR has remained imperial. Power is exploitative. And if you really need a justification for imperialism. Musalmano ki directions on war. 1) accept islam. No? 2) Pay jizya No? 3) war. If you talk about USA breaking UN resolutions when attacking in gaza, you policy of jizya and accept islam, if applied today breaks more than half of UN resolutions i guess. And one fundamental law, the freedom of religion, which interestingly is a part of islam as well. [Bold & italics mine]


Bilal ZubairViolent? To me violence lies in transgressing Divine Laws and Hadud. If you agree with this definition, by God there wasn't more god-conscious, just, believer of equality of men and women before Law and God, upright, soft than Umar I. If you mean to say that revealed Islamic Law is violence, I'm done with you. For you've lost any Sacred perspective on the nature of things, and you alone are required to re-consider your world-view. It is clear your source of these otherwise discredited pesudo-intellectual arguments come from centuries old Isalmophobes, who to this day spare no arrow, no missile to kill innocent Muslims; whereas, a birds-eye-view of medival and current history is enough to prove who benevolent and just Muslims have been on battlefield. For instance, Jersulam was captured with spilling how many drops of blood? None.

And as for other wars on Persia and Rome, I recently started to read up on these, and what serious historical documentation shows is only 180 degrees opposite to the Islamophobic propaganda you're spouting without any sense of decency and sanity, with at most hatred, haughtiness and sheer ignorance. In 20th century, it was for Amir Abdl Qadir who saved thousands of French, including those with whom he was fighting for decades in Algeria. and he saved them from irrational Muslims, who in the garb of Islam, were acting in treason to Prophet, s.a.w. Oh, and ever heard about the conduct of Hazrat Umar bin Abdal Aziz, who's known as Second Umar? Probably not.

I've read the kind of fictiotious pseudo-historical interpretations you're reproducing without any serious reflection, out of mere sentimental reactionism, many times refuted in scholarly books. Time for me to read up again, and probably you should hear the other of the story. Maybe you don't have time to find books from Islamic point of view. And nothing is more heinous, laughable, mistaken, horrible and ad hoc than comparing medival history with present day extreme war of terror being unleashed on little children. It shows where your allegiance lies. A child is attacked by alleged taliban and it is enough to arouse whole nation, but dead bodies of innocent infants, doesn't even stimulate a goose-pump. Why? Your heart lies our Colonial Masters.

Superpower? Please take an online course in comparing and contrast simple ideas. How dare you compare a mere force of 50,000 simplest, sincerest, and extraordinary human beings with agents of an Empire that believes in no Divine Power, cares not an iota about sanctity of human life. Perhaps, reading up on modern Imperial powers would do some good to you.

Produce one incident where Sahaba engaged in collateral damage, and attacked civilian buildings killing infants. Produce one incident where took jizya and didn't protect the populace from tyrants. In fact, in one case, they gave jizya back to people when they left the area, and people lamented. The jizya sahaba charged was way too less the taxes their tyrants charged.

 And as your over-simplifications about Islam threatening then Superpowers (Rome, persians, byzantines), try reading an impartial account before assaulting Sacred personalities and Sacred history of a civilization with your childish, orientalist fiction. But if you feel you're a mr know-all and Islam is deen of indiscriminate violence, don't bother.

Friend's reply:  I do get that you are an amazing intellectual. Lets lay some of ironies in all that you just stated with alot of emotional element and ofcourse acrimony and fury. Because you are ''done with me''. here goes. There are some terrible generalizations in all these accounts you put up. And some ironies too. Now that you question my knowledge i question yours. Look how you call it a mere force of 50,000 and then go on to say they CANNOT be compared with those who do not believe in divine power. [He failed to understand B's point here, which was bit confusing though.] Here the implication is ke jo divine power main believe karta hai wo koi buhat aalim faazil aur superior cheez hai. [He didn't imply that. He meant they don't care about hadood Allah, which in case of Islam do not have any room for collateral damage, and killing of non-combatants.] Talk about muslims of cordoba, was that a mere force of 50k they send into Europe? And captured alot of it we know that. Wasnt that imperialism? You say muslims were people who were not imperial, you say jizya was justified. Here you make another generalization. ''Their tyrants'' you say. As if each of these tribes were under tyrants. The tribes from whom you took jizya and went to war, you call them the mischief makers which is one of the stupidest terms ever created.

Now lets think about it. You live in an area, open. And someone comes and says 1) accept islam. You impose on someone, you IMPOSE on them by denying them the freedom to follow their own religion, i am sorry this is not preaching, you asked them to follow islam. But no? 2) Pay jizya. [Please share any articles that explain Islamic point of view.] haha. Yes they protected them right. Tell me something, if they turned Muslims, they wont pay jizya, but would be given protection, both of the protections are at a cost. One is giving up your religion and two is paying money. And if you dont pay the price. You die. You go on war and die. They might not kill women and children(which has not always been the case in muslim dynasties) but they do kill men. Men who refuse to pay them money in exchange of protection and refuse to give up their religion. If i come to you and say pay me and i will give you protection. will you accept? what if the other party does not want protection? Ajeeb log ho. We used to use their lands, have them pay jizya and use the surplus of their lands to our own use, that how the pre industrial societies have worked all along before the industrial revolution. Now the biggest piece of induction you did ''Why?your heart lies and is in love with zio-nazi terrorists of the diesease known as western civilization.'' These are your sugar coated words. See how my criticism of some behavior of past muslims turns out to be a supporter of westernization. You induced that information, created a narrative and then put it all in front of me trying to portray it as a fact. What is this ''disease'' you say is ''westernization''. I am sorry. facebook is a western product. Stop using it. You read your books in light, a light which a western scientist made, you travel in cars, use androids. Put a display picture which is made on a western software. You call westernization a disease? then to hell with half the things you do everyday. Stop doing them. You induce things and call me a supporter of something just because i criticize some behavior. Your wonderfully sensitive heart bleeds for muslims does it? it bleeds for infants of gaza. Well look at this place you sit it, the one you call islamic republic of pak. Thousands of muslims die here, everyday. Their infants get devoid of their own parents. If your heart is that much in solidarity with infants have some for these too. You all sit there with displays when america does something, shout against drones and never do you raise your voice on what goes in pakistan. Mukhtara Mai case, aap sab so rahay thay. Murder of the Governor, people called it islamic. Jeez man look at your stupidity i mean uff. 1 lac Shia's killed in pak in the last 2 years. Some fear a slow genocide. Yesterday we had blasts killing people just because they were Shia and you sit here and tell me if i ask people like you to raise a voice for your own country i am a westerner. Well good. Look at your pre programmed mind. Inter sectarian wars started in khalifa periods. Not all the khalifa's were angels. They were human beings and they did make some mistakes. If you hate the west that much, then stop all this crap, say no to half the technology you use. Its a disease known as westernization. You think you can bring US under the control? seriously? The country gave alone 580 million dollars of aid in the reign of Ghulam muhammad. they are not conspiring against muslims, they have helped alot of them too. But stop criticizing US, thats easy to do, pinpoint others. FOR F***'s SAKE. POINT THE NEEDLE ON YOUR OWN COUNTRY AND ONCE IT Is FIXED. ONLY THEN DO YOU GET ANY RIGHT TO CRITICIZE SOMEONE ELSE.

Bilal Zubair:  1. Leaving childish, you’re-so-stupid-and-I’m-the-only-logical-luminary, slutty, toilet-humor kind of mumbo-jumbo aside: I had restrained myself to the period of Khulafa-e-Rashideen. And you attacked the person of Hazrat per se. I've nothing more to say here. Suffice to quote my own words: "Time for me to read up again and probably you should hear the other of the story." So the debate isn’t over here. And for other sultans coming after 4 caliphs till Hazrat Umer bin Abdal Aziz, there is certainly division of opinion amongst Traditional Muslim historians, who fully subscribe to Islamic point of view, their conquests have been questioned. One such scholar is Khalid Blankinship, who in his book “The End of Global Jihad,” mentions how Hazrat Umar bin Abdal Aziz himself stopped wars on all fronts and recalled people back, and encouraged people to engage in commerce. To assert that there’s no difference of opinion amongst Muslim scholars is being childish, over the conquests and details of which are purely a historical matter NOT A THEOLOGICAL ONE. And please spare me from the vulgar conclusion that all my opinions are crystallized. I’ve just embarked on re-reading Islamic history, but from Sacred point of view. So I’m gonna read in detail the causes, factors and consequences of these conquests, Allah willing.

2. Yes, I dare make statements about your state of mind, which is purely evident from your attacks on our right to go out Muslims all over the world, to which you objected. And a big hahahahaha! for the Euro-centric and now American-centric propaganda lines you are spouting: leave this and that. Thanks for taking the pain, it was very entertaining. One day our native-Brown-sahib-orientalists’ll conclude that we poor, worthless, ignorant Muslims – who aren’t zio-nazi bootlickers/admirers of Dajjalic armies* – should stop breathing air cause it’s being cleaned and provided by the West. In fact much of the environmental crises third world is facing are directly a consequence of indefinite economic progress in America and the West. And mind you, without the massive import of the intellect, US would not have achieved all of this, including too-massive imports of enslaved Africans (on whom the enlightened scientists performed experiments by injecting viruses of worst sorts). Perhaps reading this article would help you realize really how “Eurocentric/Americo-centric” an Amerikanos’ and Europeans’ days are: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2009/974/op5.htm

3. How did you assume that I am not troubled by the madness being done in Pakistan against my shiah brothers, or in other parts? Why is that not mentioning one thing at a time leads you to conclude that I’m totally against it? And besides, there’s no difference in principle here. Nobody suggested we should send Pak Army to Gaza. Nobody objects to Pak soldiers serving in UN. Why shouldn’t they serve in Muslim lands as contingents?

 4. And your equating westernization with TECHNOLOGY which is neither western nor eastern is way too hilarious and saddening at the same time. This is purely a philosophical, sociological, political and intellectual issue, an idea and a process. I’ll try finding articles and books and paste links here. Perhaps reading an Iranian thinker’s book may help one understand the disease: “Occidentiosis,” by Jamal Al e Ahmed. PDF book here: http://multiworldindia.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/occidentosis.pdf

Note.
* Dajjalic: evidence is corner-stone of any field of knowledge. Please leave your pre-conceived notions about the ‘way things are’ and re-read the Prophecies of Prophet about the End of Times and Dajjal. However, if you are going to label these FACTs as religious, hence unscientific: you’re plain wrong. Rather the hard evidence provided by ahadith of Prophet is termed by legal experts as Prophecies and nothing else.

Social Progress & Dissent

We argued in a class on the following topic (in affirmation and bit of negation of any excesses the dictum might invoke): 'civilized dissent leads to social progress'.

Instantly, what popped in my mind was the (on-going) war of terror on weak Islamicate by Imperial West, and internal dissent within intellectuals of West and external dissent of the Eastern writers and thinkers. On the journalistic platform, two of the most effective publications, with more online presence (perhaps), that i've encountered are: Counterpunch.org and dissidentvoice.org. However, I'd be guilty of short-sightedness to reduce the discussion of such over-arching terms coupled together as social progress and dissident to two publications and content produced therein (by established, respected thinkers, journalists and writers who're shunned from mainstream, corporate, state-control (or influenced) news outlets, print or TV). In fact, invoking history and common philosophy would only give insight into the taste and horizon of the one thinking on these topics*.

I would begin with the tragic part of the conversation that took place emanating from the very lips of the professor. He flawlessly repeated the dogma of progressivism which professes that constant revision of guiding principles should take precedence by the sword of dissent so as to keep up with the times. The argument is presented in a capsule for young minds in the backdrop of historic achievements of Western society of freedom, emancipation and enlightenment. To restore sanity, one should pause here and go through confessions and testaments of brilliant minds of West and secondary research as to how 'glorious' the 'achievements' have been: read Western Civilization Condemned by Itself, (part 2, 3, 4 & 5). 

I might have been guilty of putting words into his mouth by inserting 'guiding principles', as I don't remember him exactly saying that. What i do remember having understood clearly was that he advocated social evolutionism which is a vicious cycle of skeptical revision and dismantling of principles** so as to adjust to the changing times so as to achieve progress. If that is so, then progress (or social progress) is the most unstable, elusive and unattainable goal in the world. The only critique that came to my mind, when this dogma was infused with evangelical zeal, was the question put forward by Dr Seyyed Hossein Nasr in 1960s in India, when whole 'ummah' was urged to change the immutable shariah Personal Laws of Islam to 'keep up with the times', he asked:

If Principles have to keep up with times, what do the times keep up with?

Given my own failure to fully absorb this historic critique (which prevented a bunch of modernised, times-worshipping, sentimental minds from molesting and changing Personal Laws of Islam) I dared not put forward this question to the professor.

However, if one means dissent as keeping check on the powerful who're always prone to abuse it given their human nature, than this is a noble cause, which is termed as jihad when one dares speak before a ruthless ruler; CIA, FBI being new Pharaohs hunting down and killing tomorrow's Musas/Moses.

However, dissent against oneself should precede dissent against rest of the world, later being the unavoidable habit of moderns to critique and critique and learn nothing, because learning implies in such cases spiritual uplift or at least maintenance.

_________________________

* I did not use the word meditation (fikr in Arabic), for this has 'vertical aspect' which begins with invocation of God proceeding towards meditation and ending with blossoming of 'thousand virgin thoughts / andishahs'. See following short essay, 'Reflections on Islam & Modern Thought', by Dr Seyyed Hossein Nasr.

** By principles, may have meant man-made principles/customs/conventions, but no distinction was made b/w Sacred and profane. Fatal skip.

Tension b/w National & Islamic Identity

I'm talking about those Muslim countries which became national countries only recently and which had muslims residing there for centuries.


It is one of the tragedies that have befallen this ummah of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) that after their encounter with West and its subsequent disintegration Muslims have started to invoke same old jahili (ignorant) slogans of their nationalism - being Iranian, Pharaohic Egyptian, Ottoman Turkish, etc - as sort of replacement with their everlasting Islamic identity. So this is a new phenomenon. Seyyed Hossein Nasr in this talk talks about this tension in Iran where some modernist Iranians, most of them miles away from Iran living in San Fransisco, etc., are maligning Islam and are making these false claims that Islam was thrust upon them. He argues that how can 50k Arab Nomads convert millions of Iranians, and rest of people from China to Iraq. In fact, it is a disgrace, a slap on the face of the ancestors in these countries who although took some time to integrate completely with Islam, so no clash with their multiple identities. Talking of identities, Amartya Sen argues in his Identity and Violence, that people have multiple identities. Conflict arises when a person has an irreducible identity.


This invoking of slogans of days of ignorance is accompanied by the belief that Qur'an has nothing to offer to Muslims and their problems (better to be called diseases in Islamic context); hence we'll look towards West and progress. I do not see any other source of impetus for these attitudes in many Muslim countries than Western thought paradigm, channeled through its educational systems. Modernist people try their best to rip off any Islamic sentiment or idea that may be encompassing, or partially part of, movements, institutions, in Muslim countries, of past or present, to prove absence of Islam in the lives of people or duality in Islam between worldly and heavenly. They think they're "unreasonable folks" who can think independently but they're perhaps worst slaves of every notion or theory issuing from West, because they're destroying one identity they can possibly belong to.


(To be continued....)

Audacity of Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf

Such is the brutality of militant, fundamentalist nationalism: It can destroy careers and defame people for respecting its man-made rituals that make no sense to those who think. Rituals that truly divide people on basis of descent or merely subscribing to the notion of a nation that has no link with the heaven nor any greater purpose than recognition among diversity of other nations. In the absence of a link with the Creator and Sustainer of the world, artificial notions of belonging and binding forces are conjured up to divide people into factions. Americans do tawaf (circling) of some their historic monuments just like Muslims do tawaf of Ka'aaba, built by Hazrat Ibraheem (a.s.). To them their flag is sacred, and desecrating their national anthem or such symbols is greater a sin than desecrating God's Prophets or God himself.

Islam instructs us not to vilify gods of polytheists. Under no condition is a Muslim allowed to burn American flags or vilify its artificial sacred symbols. However, no Muslim can be forced either to surrender and pay respect to such man-made idols. When NBA star Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, out of no sudden urge or outrage, but through inner reflection modeled himself not to stand up during the national anthem, whole American nation struck back as if its idols have been destroyed or desecrated. He was instantly fired from NBA some indefinite period, until he agreed to stand-up and that 'he would be permitted to do so with hands cupped together and held prominently in front of his face; he would pray during the song'. What surprised Abdul-Rauf was the attention he got; he said he didn't even think of media noticing it. Because to him it wasn't a matter of enraging American nation, but to do what's in his mind.

"Abdul-Rauf tells me he isn't sure when or why he made the decision to join his team for the anthem, why he decided to come out of that tunnel early. He did not and does not, he says, see it as any special moment of defiance. He doesn't even mention the '93 Trade Center attack; in his mind's eye there's simply no connection. Nor does Abudul-Rauf view himself as a Cassius Clay, who changed his name to Muhammad Ali and lost his heavyweight title when he refused to enter the draft for the Vietnam War. Nor does he invoke the historic moment from the 1968 Olympics when Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised fists for black power. As far as Abdul-Rauf is concerned, he was just him being him, true to his faith."

Source.

"It was slap in the face. Do what everyone else is doing." "It's honor." The list of humiliation, condemnation, vilification, insults, etc., is endless... He has a white trash can in which he keeps the stock of hate-letters from all over the USA, it was little space for more. Nonetheless, in this public opinion, many did respect his convictions and freedom of speech (that's inspiring):



Is this ritual not like blind following? Is it not from the worst kind of mental slavery? Deification of something that has no deity? The fault of Abdul-Rauf lied in his reasoning, reflection and committment to the truth.

Islam 'and' Terrorism

A college friend - not secular or modernized at mental level - in perplex-ion (discernible from his looks) asked, "Why does Islam promote terrorism? OR, does it?" Fairly shocked by his first statement perhaps that made him to question his question. He was pointing to the atrocities of terrorist Muslims. I couldn't give a satisfactory answer to myself then. Its been few months when he asked. Now i wonder on the utter lack of luminosity and falsehood of the very question. Is there any doubt that Islam is the religion that's most civil when it comes to protecting and preserving life and environment even in Wars? When people talk about terrorism, i hope they only mean indiscriminate violence. Then by that standard if you compare European/US codes of violence ethics to Islamic, Islam would stand out as most chivalrous and just and peaceful and harmonious to life and environment. Couple of facts for the confused:

- Prophet Muhammad forbade the killing of women, children, elderly, farmers, monks, destruction of environment in war
- Homicide and suicide are two greatest sins in Islam
- Taking a life without Right (clearly defined rules which i will compile soon) is equal to killing whole of humanity - that's in Qur'an as well
- Prophet of Islam forbade use of fire to punish a human - Allah has the right to do that
- Prophet said that never desire to encounter your enemy; but you do so be steadfast and patient (or something to that effect)
- Everyone knows the level of benevolence and protection that has been shown to all kinds of minorities including Jews, who're the greatest enemies of Prophet of Islam, through centuries - would journalists ever mention that? When Pakistan came into being there were only few thousands Christians, now they're in millions (whether its good or bad that's another matter)

Now let's glance over the war ethics of great, humanistic Western world police and war mongers:

- Who invent word collateral damage and accepted it as a natural outcome of war between good (West) and evil (Non-West, these days Muslims)?
- Who use fire bombs in Afghanistan and Iraq?
- Who kill millions of Iraqis only by food sanctions?
- Who kill around 5 lac innocent civilians recently in Iraq - that's from Wikileaks?
- Who kill women and children in AFG and then in a press conference apologize over the 'loss of precious lives' and not even punish their soldiers?
- Who want to impose a mono-culture of secular fundamentalism on whole world - destroying not only natural habitat but local and primitive cultures?

The list will go on and on. Suffice to say if you really wanna know who is causing mischief on Earth and claiming that they're only doing good (Quran) read Confessions of an Economic Hitman. Its factual authenticity is far beyond doubt. IN fact on its official website, they've given parallel documented proofs confirming the statements of the author who had spent his life exploiting developing nations.

A response to objections on Quranic text's authenticity

Please watch this video in which they show a German researcher raising objections on the authenticity on the Quranic text that we read today with proper punctuation. There's a quote by someone in the end which takes no intellect to be seen as pure intellectual blindness, prejudice and lack of knowledge.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAUnh4aEgBo&feature=related

Brother Shakeeb replied to this video in detail on request. I am posting his response below:

"To be honest with you, I don't think myself to be capable of framing a scholarly response. So if you find any scholarly response, please feel free to share it with me too! But nevertheless, I do have a personal perspective on things which I will share with you. Fortunately, none of the claims made in the video are erudite enough to require detailed citations from classic text. Here it goes:



1) The genius who made this video and perhaps the researcher himself (based on how he is presented) is unaware of the fact that the books written on Uloom ul Quran by Muslim scholars already mention that the first generation of manuscripts used to be written without any dots, a'rabs and punctuations. The only thing startling here, if it must be put that way, is that his discovery (pun intended) corroborates the consistent account of Muslim historians about the development of Quranic print throughout.



2) Then he is concerned that it leads to 5 possible identities of the words. What he conveniently forgets here is the oral tradition of Quran which spread at a far greater scale in parallel with the written manuscript simply because it was an era preceding the invention of press. He seems to be under the delusion that just like our times when we simply lend over a book to someone to read, back in those days Quran also used to be handed over to people to read and figure. The fact, however, is that from the very beginning to-date there always has existed this very strong culture of having full-fledged schools and study circles for teaching Quran organized by scholars who had learned it directly from their previous generation until companions of the prophet. It is not without any reason why the second caliph Umar had sent one of his very close aides and foremost scholars of Quran Abdullah bin Masood to Kufah for institutionalizing the teaching of Quran there. Written text in the beginning could only mean to correct any lapses appearing in the memorized part and not to be used as the sole source of information on Quran. In fact, this trend has lasted even today in the sense that people rather than understanding Quran completely on their own prefer to study it at least with the help of a brief Tafseer (now that there is no more ambiguity in the rules of writing) if not directly from a teacher. This process of learning from people who learned it in their turn most likely from the close companions of the prophets ensured that the imagined possibility of five different words in one place never materialized at least to a sustainable level. Those guys who wrote the script knew about its shortcomings as well as us now and it is quite arrogant to completely ignore the aforesaid method of teaching the book and insinuate that their was no mechanism in place to guard against its weaknesses.



But for the sake of argument, let us assume that teaching Quran by the scholars in parallel with distributing the transcript was inadequate and the early generations were indeed confused into having five separate readings of Quranic verses on average (yes, not five different versions of the whole text!). As a consequence, there must have been diverse narrations of Quran at least found in geographically dislocate regions much larger in numbers than the diversity found in the narration of a particular incidence in Ahadeeth (although it is due to different reasons altogether.) And this diversity should have then remained in the versions of Quran compiled by the later generations as well. What we see here, however, is an astounding unanimity over the identity of the text accepted by Islamic scholarship as well as masses from Arabian peninsula itself to far eastern countries in the Africa to Spain in the west. Mind you, I am not denying mistakes made by lay people and possibly by individual experts which are not uncommon in our times too despite the availability of Quran in black and white. But do the community at large begin to take an individual's or even publisher's mistake for the confusion in the correct version of Quran? Or all these isolated aberrations die out in the process of mass-transmission from one generation to another?



If that is not enough, then consider two further scenarios. Just like there are various sects and schools of thoughts based on disagreements over the interpretation of Quran as well as the acceptance of different traditions of hadeeth, there must have been far major differences over the acceptance of various identities of the words in Quranic text itself. It should not take a genius to figure that a disagreement of this kind over the reading of Quran would lead to fissures in various strains of Islamic scholarship far greater in magnitude than what could ever arise due to differences in the interpretation of the text or Hadeeth literature. But where is it? If not, what does this imply? The next curious point is to remember that Quran used to serve as the fundamental basis of Islamic law from the very beginning of Islamic state in Medina until the pre-colonial era. Since we are asked to believe that in the early days there was a great deal of ambiguity in the reading of Quran, we should understand as a natural corollary an extreme chaos in the functioning of the legal system of Islamic state. To imagine what I mean, just think of Pakistan's penal code used in our courts with the same level of uncertainty in the identity of the words in addition to the interpretation which is quite natural. It is trivial to visualize the utter dysfunctional-ization of any legal infrastructure this will necessarily lead to. And so if it did happen to the practice of Islamic law, how did everything converge to just one word instead of five or even more? Again, why weren't there any disagreements? How did muslim historians manage to mention the lack of punctuations, dots and a'rabs in the early manuscripts which amusingly he is discovering in the twentieth century but wrote off the consequences? Again, why did it not lead to differences in juristic schools? Why? Why?!



As this guy is challenging a well established historical narrative, it is his responsibility to explain away existing realities by filling up all the gaping holes which appear as natural corollaries of his narrative as I pointed above. For starter, he should explain when five different identities of wrods were possible, how come only one survived? What made a society as huge as that to agree on one reading? How can an event as massive as the convergence to a single word fail to find seat in histories written by any sect in Islam whatsoever?



And nobody here can counter it by citing disagreements about the completeness of Quranic text as it is purportedly claimed by minor/major groups in shiite tradition. For one, even shia theologians both past and present almost completely, if not absolutely, abandoned this position. For another, it was about certain portions of Quran failing to find their place in the widely accepted manuscript. It was never a dispute about choosing one of the five possible words written in the text.



Before leaving, I should point out here the issue of seven "qira'at" of Quran which is a well discussed topic in the Islamic scholarship. Since he is claiming something unknown here, I believe his work does not relate to that either and hence we don't need to talk about it.



3) It yet again makes a disappointing case for a ground-breaking discovery that the newly-found text of Quran was overwritten on something else. Why is it so surprising? Why cannot the same parchment, leaves, bones or whatever form of paper in vogue at that time be reused for something else? Please, why is it so significantly surprising at all? As it can very well be a personal copy of a student, instructor or any common man for that matter, why can't it even include some personal notes scribbled in between? Why can't we get real for a while?



4) This last point takes the cream. The guy who made this video could not have been more ignorant of his own ignorance. He presumes that the differences in translations are somehow explainable by this so-called discovery. It is amusing how he digs out from oblivion an unknown researcher in Germany (?) but didn't bother to check out with someone familiar with Quran's translations to inquire about the apparent diversity. Ignoring all the general liguistic issues in translating a literary work from one language to another, Arabic language itself allows for multiple meanings (not identities) of the words placed in one sentence. On occasions, some of these meanings are all plausible simulataneously while at others only one or two can be valid given the overall context of the discourse. This leads to differences in understanding which sometimes find its way into the translations too. It has got nothing to do with any ambiguity about the identity of words themselves."

In the end, i just like to say what Quran says: they want to destroy the noor (light) of Allah with their breaths, uttering only falsehood...

A Blasphemious Statement by Tea Ad

My blood is furious and restless after what i heard in an ad about tea and family women. Ad of Tea Max (by Haleeb) proclaims: "Even Khan's wife couldn't add taste to his tea..." Now you can presume that all the world of taste was in darkness and misery until our dear Tea Max Knight came to rescue Khan Sahib from the negativities of tasteless tea.

By now you'd have pin-pointed the blasphemy, better than Pak Army pinpointing firing choppers near its war academy. Its the women of home that add taste to anything! I heard Shaykh Hamza complain about the hasteness with which professional cooks cook meals and tea in hotels, comparing it with the sweetness and taste added to food and tea by her wife!

The statement in that ad is anti-social, wide off mark and a typical lie perpetrated by mindless advertisers who detach themselves from factual truths.

Liberation for what?

"Proof that girls/women of today are better than yesterday's is that only today girls (who are sitting in the hall) are free to hear what we've said (read: totally vulgar and third-rate slang, dirty jokes, and explicit words); had it been 70s, it won't have been possible for them to listen (=enjoy) to all this and yet not go out of the room."

That was a worthy student who walks proudly on the earth reasoning that he is getting an undergrad degree, although he may devoid of any skill other than speaking on stage. It means that this liberation of women is totally wrong from the Islamic ethical standpoint. If our education has developed an instinct of acceptance of what is out rightly vulgar, and even girls, symbol of bashfulness and chastity, have come to copy men in this regard - shame on it!

Everyone - including opposition or in the audience - had assumed certain premises, like, progress is the epitome of man/woman, that if someone is not progressing, s/he's evil; that all that all education that is being given in Pakistan is good; that goodness lies in awareness, literacy rates, with the number of cars, cemented buildings, hygienic environment, etc. I'm not saying all of this is totally bad, at least many of these things can be wrong to a large extent. However, the government (team which was in favor of the topic) declared that all values are relative! What can most erroneous than that! To say the least, it seems to me that they're contradicting themselves. As it was pointed out that they need to talk about the word better... Wrong assumptions and notions too prevalent in modern world to a fatal degree...

This is what Prof Hassan Askari wrote about in his, Maghrib ya Jadeediyat ki Gumrahiyoon Ka Naqsha ("An Outline of the Fallacies of West/Modernity" - loose trans.).

Dear Rushdie... (A Guest Post)

Copyright. Uni: Sniggers and Sniffles of a moron

(What follows is a response to Salman Rushdie's letter denigrating religious traditions answered by a Pakistani blogger, link to whose blog is given in start of the post. Italics text is Rushdie's words, green is by the Pakistani blogger, "Uni".)

***

Rushdie: Dear little Six - Billionth Living Person: As one of the newest members of a notoriously inquisitive species, it probably won't be too long before you start asking the two $64,000 questions with which the other 5,999,999,999 of us have been wrestling for some time.
How did we get here? And, now that we are here, how shall we live?

Uni: Dear Rushdi. As one of the newest member of the notoriously sneering species, it is a pleasure to note that you at least admit that the whatever dollar questions remain unanswered - still being wrestled with.

Oddly - as if six billion of us weren't enough to be going on with - it will almost certainly be suggested to you that the answer to the question of origins requires you to believe in the existence of a further, invisible, innefable Being "somewhere up there", an omnipotent creature whom we poor limited creatures are unable even to perceive, much less to understand. That is, you will be strongly encouraged to imagine a heaven, with at least one god in residence.

Oddly, it has occured to you that we the inquisitive EXIST and all on our own... function and procreate, all on our own... the entire universe runs smoothly all on its own - down to the whole factory running within a single cell - all on its own. The fact that you're unable to percieve THIS little piece of clear logic, is what's beyond us poor creatures.

This sky god, it's said, made the universe by churning its matter in a giant pot. Or, he danced. Or, he vomited creation out of himself. Or, he simply called it into being, and lo, it Was. In some of the more interesting creation stories, the singly mighty sky god is subdivided into many lesser forces - junior dieties, avatars, gigantic metamorphic "ancestors" whose adventures create the landscape, or the whimsical, wanton, meddling, cruel pantheons of the great polytheisms, whose wild doings will convince you that the real engine of creation was lust; for infinite power, for too easily broken human bodies, for clouds of glory. But it's only fair to add that there are also stories which offer the message that the primary creative impulse was, and is, love.

Creation stories might be many - yes, but the truth is only one. If you're not convinced by it, cool. But this gives you no right to ridicule all the versions with a singlemindedness worthy of an award, really. You can't prove your theory, even if you're unconvinced by the opposing theory. There are far too many out there who (despite, not having seen it)... believe in God. And you don't find them ridiculing the opinions you hold.

Many of these stories will strike you extremely beautiful, and therefore seductive.

No. That's not the reason why we believe in them. Sorry. Wrong guess.

It is possible that they may at some point come to feel inescapable, not in the way that the truth is inescapable, but in the way that a jail is. They may at some point cease to feel like the texts in which human beings have tried to solve a great mystery, and feel, instead, like the pretexts for other properly anointed human beings to order you around. And it's true that human history is full of the public oppression wrought by the charioteers of the gods.
In the opinion of religious people, however, the private comfort that religion brings more than compensates for the evil done in its name.

Firstly, for people who do believe in God (with their hearts and minds) do not feel the truth to be like a jail, confining them. So wrong guess here again. And secondly, the teaching of human beings that led to this truth, wasn't forced upon us. Nobody pointed a gun at us to believe in God. And thus, the argument that they only did it to order us around, stands totally invalid. The fact is, that evil can take any excuse for committing evil. If religion is one such excuse, then the blame on religion itself is foolish. Go blame those particular people.

As human knowledge has grown, it has also become plain that every religious story ever told about how we got here is quite simply wrong. This, finally, is what all religions have in common. They didn't get it right. There was no celestial churning, no maker's dance, no vomiting of galaxies, no snake or kangaroo ancestors, no Valhalla, no Olympus, no six-day conjuring trick followed by a day of rest. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Your opinion, your opinion, your opinion. We don't consider the creation process as wrong.

But here's something genuinly odd. The wrongness of the sacred tales hasn't lessened the zeal of the devout in the least. If anything, the sheer out-of-step zaniness of religion leads the religious to insist ever more stridently on the importance of blind faith.

It's not blind. As I said (and I'm a believer so I know what I'm saying), the decision is a sound one, made by the heart and mind. If you don't believe that, your problem.

As a result of this faith, by the way, lt has proved impossible, in many parts of the world, to prevent the human race's numbers from swelling alarmingly. Blame the overcrowded planet at least partly on the misguidedness of the races spiritual guides. In your own lifetime, you may witness the arrival of the nine billionth world citizen. (If too many people are being born as a result, in part, of religious strictures against birth control, then too many people are also dying because religious culture, by refusing to face the facts of human sexuality, also refuses to fight against sexually transmitted diseases.)

Weird it is, that you, not having had control of when to enter this world (did you decide your birthday hmm?), and not in control of when you'll leave this world... think it's prudent to think that we all have control over the population size of this planet?

There are those who say that the great wars of the new century will once again be wars of religion, jihads and crusades, as they were in the Middle Ages. I don't believe them, or not in the way they mean it. Take a look at the Muslim world, or rather the Islamist world, to use the word coined to describe Islam's present day "political arm". The divisions between its great powers (Afghanistan against Iran against Iraq against Saudi Arabia against Syria against Egypt) are what strike you most forcefully. There's very little resembling a common purpose. Even after the non-Islamic NATO fought a war for the Muslim Kosovan Albanians, the Muslim world was slow in coming forward with much needed humanitarian aid.

Oh you don't need to remind us about the ''efforts'' of the Muslim nations right now. They are deplorable. But we also know that it's the leaders of these states that are quite oblivious to events around them. Not the common man. If the common man were like this, there would be no flotilla towards Gaza .. knowing that Israeli forces aren't going to give them a red carpet welcome. And btw, the war b/w religions is already going on. And yes, ideology remains the key war instigator even now.

The real wars of religion are the wars religions unleash against ordinary citizens within their "sphere of influence." They are wars of the godly against the largely defenceless - American fundamentalists against pro-choice doctors, Iranian mullahs against their country's Jewish minority, Hindu fundamentalists in Bombay against that city's increasingly fearful Muslims.

If you're calling state laws as wars... then even more weird is that you didn't mention in this list of yours one very very important one... the policies of the state of Israel, the policies of India on Kashmiri Muslims... it's not only the godly who impose their laws. Secular governments do the same thing. If one opinion is unacceptable to you, doesn't mean you go about calling it war and then select a subset of state policies as examples. Puny indeed.

The victors in that war must not be the closed-minded, marching into battle with, as ever, God on their side. To choose unbelief is to choose mind over dogma, to trust in our humanity instead of all these dangerous divinities. So, how did we get here? Don't look for the answer in story books. Imperfect human knowledge may be a bumpy, pot-holed street, but it's the only road to wisdom worth taking. Virgil, who believed that the apiarist Aristaeus could spontaneously generate new bees from the rotting carcess of a cow, was closer to a truth about origins than all the revered old books.

To choose unbelief is your choice, we're open to believing in God, despite you thinking of it as being closed minded. Trusting in humanity can't go side by side with belief in God? Apparently, you haven't read much into history. Imperfect human knowledge was enlightened with scriptures, and this knowledge was the source of illumination for a great number of minds. And then you ask, how did we get here? Didn't you, in the beginning talk about this as a notoriously inquisitive display to ask these questions? Consistent, aren't you?

The ancient wisdoms are modern non-senses.

Live in your own time, use what we know and, as you grow up, perhaps the human race will finally grow up with you and put aside childish things. As the song says, "It's easy if you try."

As for mortality, the second great question - how to live? What is right action, and what wrong?- it comes down to your willingness to think for yourself. Only you can decide if you want to be handed down the law by priests, and accept that good and evil are somehow external to ourselves.

The blind wanderings and backtrackings of modern sciences is also a lot of claptrap, no worries. And sure, go ahead with this logical mode. Hand over the morality reigns to each and everybody's own individual self. So if a thief thinks its moral to steal (because he/she felt it inside that its okay!), then don't blame him. Sure.

To my mind, religion - even at its most sophisticated - essentially infantalizes our ethical selves by setting infallible moral Arbiters and irredeemably immoral Tempters above us; the eternal parents, good and bad, light and dark, of the supernatural realm.

To each, his or her own. We don't (and won't) mock your ideas. Follow what you will, but at least you shouldn't mock the things you don't agree with.

How, then, are we to make ethical choices without a divine rulebook or judge?

You're not supposed to. That's the thing, see.

Intellectual freedom, in European history, has mostly meant freedom from the restraints of the Church and not the state.

The Church men had made the laws that were suffocating mankind. Christianity had nothing to do with it. Even now, the lobbying for doing away with celibacy laws prove that the original teaching did NOT contain celibacy - nothing unnatural is ever promulgated in the main religions.

This is the battle Voltaire was fighting, and it's also what all six billion of us could do for ourselves, the revolution in which each of us could play our small, six-billionth part; once and for all we could refuse to allow priests, and the fictions on whose behalf they claim to speak, to be the policemen of our liberties and behavior. Once and for all we could put the stories back into the books, put the books back on the shelves, and see the world undogmatized and plain.

You mean, see the world in chaos and disorder. Even right now, the world's in disorder because of lack of belief in accountability (yes, even by those who CLAIM they're following religion and do heinous crimes - all acts of people who don't believe in God, Hereafter and Judgement).

Imagine there's no heaven, my dear Six-Billionth, and at once the sky's the limit.

Imagine a Just God, and imagine trying to follow His Teachings, being good to fellow humans and doing good in all spheres of life. The sky is certainly the limit.

Alpha and Omega: Why Muslims must excel in Scientific Research

Copyright/write - Dr. M. Zaman Khan,
Tranlsated (& notes) by, Yours Truly.

Many Pakistani professors, with the exception of few noble souls, follow this line of pattern: They come, they teach Western science, glorify it, make pupils memorize it, and then criticize their students of their impotence, as concluding remarks. However, rarely they are self-critical of the fact that they do very little research at their own, locally. If they do so, only then they can have the moral authority of criticizing young students about their lack of interest in scientific research. This matter of doing research locally is first and the last thing Pakistani and Muslim teachers and students should be aware of.

Why it is so? According to a Prophetic tradition of Prophet Muhammad (may peace be upon him), a non-believing man once came to him and challenged him a match of wrestling. He said he could beat ten persons at a time. Prophet accepted the challenge and beat him three times in a row. Impressed by his physical strength, the non-believer could not resist believing his religious message. Therefore, he accepted Islam.

The example illustrates that if you are impressed by one aspect or part of a person or a thing, you are also prone to be impressed by its whole. One reason for studying science and doing independent research lies in this psychological aspect of human being to preserve one’s own identity, world-view and civilization. If we go back it time and explore Muslim history, there was a time when Greek philosophy and sciences were encountered by Muslims. When Muslim youth experienced the brilliance of Greek science (mathematics, physics, etc.) they could not avoid taking Greek metaphysics and religious knowledge as sound as its physical sciences. It was a grave mistake from Islamic point of view. They could not decide what to take, and what to reject.

The very same problem is being encountered by contemporary Muslim youth getting education based on Western models and content. Today, as then, they study Western science and research, which is of top quality, and they cannot remain unimpressed by its vitality. But, they mistakenly consider that Western social sciences and their views on religion would be as accurate and sound as their physical sciences. Truth is that the results of their social sciences and views on religion have been disastrous for humanity, completely opposite to their success in physical sciences*. Their religious world-views need to be studied at all as a source of guidance by Muslim youth blessed with the gift of Islam.

Our future needs in science are not being met due a lack of interest in research. Due to this gap and inferiority complex generated by this very reason vis-à-vis Western science, we also observe that contemporary Muslim universities teaching non-religious sciences don’t value much their religious educational institutions. Having seen the importance of ‘innovation’, ‘change’ and ‘evolution’ in scientific theories and experimentation, they come to fancy that religion (i.e., of Islam) would be something similar to a laboratory experiment or a science text-book which needs to be updated regularly. Nothing can be farther from truth than this, due to the ‘eclipse of intellect and soul’, in words of Seyyed Hossein Nasr**.

To avoid this clash and to bridge this gap, it is indispensable to meet the need of scientific research in Muslim world. If this cannot be done, then it is safe to fear that our future generations cannot overcome the inferiority complex vis-à-vis west; and they may end up depriving themselves, and humanity, of treasures of religious knowledge of Islam and also a sense of Sacred, to which we owe our existence, which is supreme science.

________________________
* Prof. Dr. Asad Zaman, International Islamic University, has written a research paper discussing this very fact. He compares the tragic consequences of Western social sciences for humanity. See, The Origins of Western Social Science, Dr Asad Zaman available on his personal website: http://sites.google.com/site/asaduzaman. Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Ph.D. Harvard in history and philosophy of science, has also shown the tragic consequence of Western humanism for environment, see his book, Religion and the Order of the Nature, Suhail Academy, Lahore.

** For a refutation of this and similar modern mental fashions and erratic views on religion, see The Reign of Quantity; The Crisis of Modern World; East and West, by Rene Guenon, Islam and the Plight of Modern Man; Knowledge and Sacred; Islamic Life and Thought; Science, Civilization and Islam, by Dr. Seyyed Hossein Nasr.

Islamic Perspective on Fundamentalism: Historical Analyses I

In this interview of Seyyed Hossein Nasr by an American TV channel, he gives an analysis of modern history [starting at 15:00 on "what went wrong with Islam recently"] (18-20th century) of Muslims concentrating on colonial, post-colonial situation, essentially from Islamic point-of-view, or at least his independent analysis as Muslim, who is opposed to secular-modernist scholars, which is very imperative. Dr Asad Zaman, professor at IIIU, has repeatedly stated the need of re-writing entire history of past 300 years and its all major developments & aspects from Islamic point of view, especially in this research paper, Developing an Islamic World-View.

Now, we've popular writers like Karen Armstrong taking lead, writing 'interesting' books on the development of so-called fundamentalism in Christianity, Judaism and Islam, interpreting the past 300-year history essentially from a modern, "secular-fundamentalist" * perspective. She and her likes are committed moderns calling all religious people fundamentalists, without distinguishing them from those who commit indiscriminate violence against innocent people, who resist the onslaught of modernity that threatens their religion. Hence again, we see a deep-rooted Euro-centrism in the works of such scholars who are many in number and dominate the scene.

In such a condition of intellectual bankruptcy in Muslim world, such lectures, presentations, interpretations from an Islamic point-of-view are blessings from on high to those who want freedom from the fetters of this world and coercive modernity that robes people of freedom to choose their own destiny.

________________________
* This latter term, "secular-fundamentalist," has been coined by Nasr, I came across in The Heart of Islam of the author, which perfectly fits with the mentality and acts of moderns who profess secularism imposing on others, and curtailing the freedom of 'other civilizations to be themselves'. This fundamentalism is most brutal and harsh 'than the most extreme of religious fundamentalism'.

How to tackle Literary Elephants?

We Ants of literature (i.e., students) are intimidated by Historical Towering Pillars of Literature who Dazzle us with their Magic. Their skill at giving cross-references to so many other works weigh heavily down on our shoulders, when we think of achieving the same level of rigor, depth, breadth and mastery over the subject, no matter how ordinary may the subject-topic be. But, their reign of terror is over. I've been introduced to a weapon of criticism that tells us: The author is giving inter-textual references for what purpose? I think s/he is using it to prove his greatness, show off and impress his/her readers.

Considering this possibility, which we Ants often tread to conceive, is quite liberating :) And as a writer a dose to remain on the Straight Path of humility and courtesy towards mankind.

Facebook Mania: 'Romancing ourselves to death'?

Answer: No. Thanks God, no.

Sura Mo'minoon: Wa hum un-il-laghvi mo'ridhoon: And they keep away from all futile/fruitless activities. [Al-Qur'an]

I wrote some time ago about my 'encounter' with facebook, which was just a little critique of it, despite its relative advantages; no matter much artificial happiness we may get from it, and it may seem too stupendous and overwhelming, but is nonetheless no more than Illusion, for a civilization which is ignorant about true source of peace and happiness tries out anything. However, Indian industry is also suffering from this short-term, as it is destined to be, facebook mania, causing them a 12.5% loss in productivity; this is in those offices where internet is available, and employees are allowed to use social networking sites. Even their own analysts are saying this is dangerous. Here are a few excerpt paras from the news report:

"Indian firms are losing productivity because office staff spend too long on social networking sites, a survey says.

The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Assocham) says workers use Orkut, Facebook, Myspace and Linkedin for "romancing" and other purposes.

"Close to 12.5% of productivity of human resource in corporate sector is misappropriated each day since a vast majority of them while away their time accessing social networking sites during the office hours," according to the findings of Assocham's Social Development Foundation survey.

"As a matter of fact, [the] growing use of browsing sites can be dangerous for overall productivity and IT companies have already installed software to restrict its use," Assocham secretary general DS Rawat said."

Something from the statistical results now:

The survey found that 77% of workers who had Orkut accounts used them during work hours.

Nearly half of office employees accessed Facebook during work time.

Moreover, four in every 10 workers built their entire Orkut or Facebook profile at work, the survey found."

Read complete article here.

Threat is widespread, for instance, "Hampshire County Council is threatening to block staff from using the social networking site Facebook." Saying, "There is no way they should be spending this time when they are supposed to be doing their jobs on a social networking site." [Source.]

But another place its totally banned, "Staff at a Nottinghamshire hospital have been banned from using the social networking website Facebook at work." [Source.]

Though I like this icon...

Rene Guenon on "Tolerance And Freedom Of Thought"

"Let our meaning be quite clear; we have no intention of blaming practical tolerance as applied to individuals, but only theoretic tolerance, which claims to be applied to ideas as well and to recognise the same rights for them all, which if taken logically can only imply a rooted scepticism. Moreover we cannot help noticing that, like all propagandists, the apostles of tolerance, truth to tell, are very often the most intolerant of men. This is what has in fact happened, and it is strangely ironical : those who wished to overthrow all dogma have created for their own use, we will not say a new dogma, but a caricature of dogma, which they have succeeded in imposing on the western world in general; in this way there have been established, under the pretext of "freedom of thought," the most chimerical beliefs that have ever been seen at any time, under the form of these different idols, of which we have just singled out some of the more important.

Of all the superstitions preached by those very people who profess that they never stop inveighing against "superstition," that of "science " and "reason", is the only one which does not seem, at first sight, to be based on sentiment; but there is a kind of rationalism which is nothing more than sentimentalism disguised, as is shown only too well by the passion with which its champions uphold it, and by the hatred which they evince for whatever goes against their inclinations or passes their comprehension, Besides, since rationalism, in any case, corresponds to a lessening of intellectuality, it is natural that its development should go hand in hand with that of sentimentalism..."

- East and West, p.48

What thoughts do you have?

The Harm Principle: 'Mein nay kisi ka nuqsan tou nahi kia'

'Mein nay kisi ka nuqsan tou nahi kia (I haven't harmed anyone) is a classical Urdu expression' that is often used to legitimize one's wrong doing, especially if it is a sin in the eyes of Islamic law.

What is interesting to note that the same thing is at the heart of secular moral paradigms, what we know as John Stuart Mill's invention of the harm principle. Harm principle was invented so as to replace God and religion from a being's life. That a being no more needs any religion to guide himself; the only guiding principle s/he needs is the harm principle, i.e., if his/her actions harm anyone, s/he must avoid doing it, but if s/he does something, e.g., watch a nude picture, that doesn't harm anyone else in the society, then it is perfectly moral and permissible to be done. He has not commited sin by seeing nudity, or such other acts which are condemned strongly by his/her religion. If a secular, God-less mentality follows this principle, it doesn't matter to me, but when I see a lot many believers following the same principle with such a conviction unimaginable, it treads my heart. But it should not.

Yet I have to ask: Whom do you harm as Muslim for those sins Mills would've perceived as perfectly ethical? I can tell you: You harm yourself, you harm your Prophet, saw. Does anyone else need to be harmed? But. As if to add the plight of human beings of modern age, such absurd principles are taught in an enchanting manner in our universities by professors whom we deem and welcome as great saviors, "He just did a Ph.D from (wherever)." Satan is most widespread than ever, it seems to be. May Allah save us from the ideologies and philosophies that legitimize sins. Aameen!

Latest innovation of moderns: Man marries video game character

I am a bit depressed at this news, not because "the modern", central character of this incident, is my brother, but what can possibly happen to my own brothers (people), b'cause of the gaming culture? Let's mask ourselves with morbid expressions so as to repel any illusions that may arise by this incident: "[Whoever] reports on the marriage in Japan between a man known as "Sal9000" and [whatever videogame character] in the Nintendo DS simulating game love plus"? Simple, a man has married a video game character, or at least he wishfully thinks, proving how ignorant he is of the soul of marriage!

Who could have done this in whole human history than those human creatures forgetful (ghafil) of the very purpose of life? This incident is a product of a particular civilization, a mind-set, of a different category of human psyche, of an age Rene Guenon termed as the Dark Age. There's nothing but darkness in it, opposite to the light of Ruh Allah, Jesus, pbuh, the symbol of pure spirit. Yet we, people of my society, wish to go there, visit their lands and buildings and structures; yet they're enchanted by the outward charms of a hollow, deeply disturbing civilization.

From childhood, we are here fed with the images of a paradise that is West, or Westernized societies. It is considered to be a big achievement to be one of them, to be there. How foolish! I've been a victim of this misunderstanding too, I only wish to unlearn it. This incident is a nice reminder, and a little helpful too in this process of knowing the nature of things, and living according to it. Allah hu Akbar!

A sufficient argument for the elimination of t.v.

A gadget named t.v. was introduced some decades back in Pakistan, and like Muslim countries, with the view that, okay, if we can't bomb them directly, let's feed them tom and jerry, star moives, HBO, and above all, I Love Lucy. When a muslim walks down the road, he lowers his gaze, whether literally, or, at the least, he suppresses his lust. We could have kept our children and youth safe from the "grossness" of t.v., but the problem was that within a flash of second, the time taken to jump from a hardly "safe" channel to an "unsafe", no one was able to lower their gaze or control their lust. We gradually, along with the whole civilization, except a select few, sank into the miseries of immodesty, and hence utter misery. Their is only one argument that suffices for our position of elimination of the of t.v. (take it as an augmented product in present context, and its basic nature as well): "Verily, the gaze is a poisonous arrow from the arrow of Satan." TV should then be considered as an atom bomb.

God, Man and Choice

Frithjof Schuon says in the Light on the Ancient Worlds, "Man does not choose; he follows his nature and his vocation, and it is God who chooses." Yet there are people on earth suffocated enough, blind in their vision that makes them to take such statements lightly because they find their defenses against the devil so down, so to say them being dominated by him, that they are unable to free themselves of the hatred of wisdom he induces in us. Revolt against Islam is revolt against oneself, against Man. And even Derrida believed that Islam is not Islamism...