"Boys will be Boys"

Theory of liberation of women and equality of sexes really needs to be revised today. i become more and more convinced of its fallibility the more i study and analyze the nature of the sexes in the light of scientific and anthropological data, and the aftermaths of the so-called liberation movement of women in West. It seems quite clear to me, the result has been more of another kind of enslavement of the female sex with catastrophic consequences for the society at large, a crisis which humanity may never have witnessed before. Shaykh Abdul-Hakim provides a candid, objective analysis of these issues, while also providing Ummah with the critique of Islam on gender-based issues, which if misunderstood at the hands of Western education/prophets of modern education who are storming the lecture rooms iof our "up-to-date," "INTERNATIONAL STANDARD" universities and colleges, can have severe consequences for Muslim community. Shaykh Abdul-Hakim Murad writes:

"I have been asked to offer some comments on gender identity issues as these impact on Muslims living in post-traditional contexts in the West, and particularly as they affect people who have traded up to the Great Covenant of Islam after an upbringing in Judaism or Christianity. The usual way of doing this is by examining issues in the classical fiqh, and explaining how Islam’s discourse of equality functions globally, not on the micro-level of each fiqh ruling. That method is legitimate enough (although as we shall see the concept of ‘equality’ may raise considerable problems), but in general my experience of Muslim talk on gender is that there is too much apologetic abroad, apologetic, that is, in the sense not only of polemical defence, but also of pleas entered in mitigation. What I want to do today is to bypass this recurrent and often tiresome approach, which reveals so much about the low serotonin levels of its advocates, and suggest how as Western Muslims we can construct a language of gender which offers not a defence or mitigation of current Muslim attitudes and establishments, but a credible strategy for resolving dilemmas which the Western thinkers and commentators around us are now meticulously examining.

Let me begin, then, by trying to capture in a few words the current crisis in Western gender discourse. As good a place as any to do this is Germaine Greer’s book The Whole Woman, released in 1999 to an interesting mix of befuddled anger and encomia from the press."

Read the rest of the article here. Its really interesting and eye-opening.

Daily Reflections

Learning from the life of Prophet Muhammad

Since Prophet Muhammad is the best model for whole of humanity, his words and actions are for us to follow. Recently, after a little study of a book mentioning the times and ways of Prophet Muhammad, I noticed that two things must be made a part of character:

1. Pacts should be written down so as to make them binding.

2. Decision of majority of the concerned person of a party precede the opinion of the leader. Many-a-time did Prophet (may peace be upon him) acted upon this principle. He surrendered before the will of his people in worldly matters.
Economic philosophy of Islam

There are some principles on which the economic life of a Muslims revolve markedly different from the principles of other systems, say capitalism - a Muslim is unique in his identity as this is just a manifestation of the very principle of Tawhid (that God is one and that there is nothing like Him, see surah Ikhlas):

Firstly, wealth/money is not the purpose or end-goal of life, but it can be used to succeed in the life after death.

Secondly, "The life of this world is but comfort of illusion." (Quran) And that the real life is the life of hereafter, which is eternal. What matter are good deeds in the way of Allah.

(Adopted from a booklet by Dr. M. Islam, "Ghulami say Nijat ka Wahid Zariya".)

Is secularism compatible with Islam (at all)?

This is a very simple question. According to Wikipedia, "Secularism is the assertion that governmental practices or institutions should exist separately from religion and/or religious beliefs." Therefore, God and His voice/message no more are seen to be commanding on earth, only human spirits reign. This is done even by some of those (who while hiding truth) accept Him as the Lord of heavens, but deny Him access to their matters on earth. Whereas a Muslim is bound to accept God not only as the Lord of heavens but that of earth as well. He, being a slave of Him, must give Him the authority to rule, as Quran states:

O ye who believe! Obey Allah, and obey the Messenger, and those charged with authority among you. If ye differ in anything among yourselves, refer it to Allah and His Messenger, if ye do believe in Allah and the Last Day: That is best, and most suitable for final determination. (Surah An-Nisa, verse # 59)

Since Islamic shari'ah covers every aspect of human life, it becomes compulsory for a Muslim to obey the commands of His Creator and Sustainer in all aspects of his life. Only then will he may be able to answer rightly in grave as to "what is your religion?" which is only possible if he has tried to implement completely his religion in his life.

God knows best!

‘You cannot be fighting against God while trying to have peace on earth’

Today's Zaman: Recently there has been a trend in Europe and America among certain writers, such as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens, of very direct criticism -- and even hostility -- toward religion. What do you see as the significance of this trend?

Seyyed Hossein Nasr: Many think this is the swan song of Western atheism. That is, now with religion becoming stronger, these secularists never imagined that. Everyone was taught at school that the flow of history is away from religion and toward secularism, and the secularists believed that they had already won the day. But then you have this tremendous revival of interest in religion in the second half of the 20th century. … So these people come along, who are usually very haughty people and they're not really that intelligent, but what they're attacking is the simple faith of people that is coming back, what they call fundamentalism. Therefore, they posit their own intelligence against a sort of "simpleton faith," considering their opponents to be stupid -- with themselves being the "brights," which is what Dawkins calls himself. I think it's an unfortunate phenomenon. I don't think that it's going to be very long lasting, but it will have a role in polarizing more and more the landscape of Western thought.

Today's Zaman: One of the common objections that these authors voice is the idea that religion is the prime, if not only, cause of violence in the world. All conflict, they argue, can be reduced to some matter of religious disagreement. Similarly, others have argued that the main conflict in the world is being fought by the West against Islam, which is perceived as a fundamentally violent religion. What is the connection or relationship between religion and violence?

Seyyed Hossein Nasr: To be human is to be placed in a world of violence. Every time you inject your child with an injection against the flu, you are committing violence against the germs, if you look at it from their point of view. Let's not talk about sentimentality. Violence in that sense is part and parcel of life. Life, in order to grow, has to face violence. It's remarkable that, amidst this violence, there's so much beauty and peace and harmony in the world. That's what's really remarkable. Now, whatever distinguishes a human being from other human beings is a source of violence. First of all, two human beings: If there is only a certain amount of food, one will become violent against the other. There needs to be a higher principle to bring peace to them. …

Now, throughout history, what has defined the identity of the human being, from the individual to larger aggregates of societies, has been religion, with no exception. ... In every case, therefore, those religious identifications have, in a sense, been both the cause of what would have been there anyway -- that is, violence within the various groups -- and the force that tried to overcome that. That's why you have both. …However, there is something deeper involved. Religion can be destroyed, but man cannot live in a vacuum. So what took the place of religion for these people was an ideology that played the role of religion. That is, communism on the one hand and Nazism and fascism on the other. And so we are already witness to what happens -- that is, tremendous violence -- without religion in the traditional sense, but with pseudo-religion that takes the place of religion.

As for Islam, the calling of Islam the religion of violence by a civilization that has killed hundreds of times more Muslims than Muslims have killed Christians is really hypocrisy of the worst kind. … This is very obvious. … No society wants to be in prison. No society wants to be colonized. When the movement against the colonial powers began in the Islamic world, different things were tried, such as nationalism and liberalism, and none of them really fully succeeded. … What instrument was left with which to fight against Western domination, including that of the so-called elites in society who had the same Arabic names but were also Western in the deeper sense of the term? What was left? It was religion. And so, from the early 20th century … movements began that tried to make use of Islam in order to face the situation.

Obviously, having done that, Islam becomes identified by those who do not want to leave the Islamic world, those who do not want to be defeated, with violence. And this is a very powerful form of propaganda to use against Islam and people use it all the time. Look, for example, at the tremendous amount of violence done in Gaza. You never hear people talk about Jewish violence, or Judaism as a source of violence. I have respect for Judaism as a religion of God -- or Christianity -- so I'm not happy that people should call it that, but Islam has the privilege of being the only religion in the world about which you can say anything negative you want and nobody says anything.

Read complete interview here.

Biography of Fakhr Al-Din Razi by S. Hossein Nasr

Who's 'Razi' thought to be, and how does he find his place in the mainstream traditional intellectual life of Islam? A little introduction goes as:

"The intellectual life of Islam after the attacks of Ash'ari and Ghazali upon rationalistic philosophy can be largely described as the gradual transition from the rationalism of Aristotelian philosophy toward the intuitive and illuminative wisdom of the Ishraqis and Sufis. Although Islam began to weaken politically and culturally during the later part of the 'Abbasid Caliphate, Muslim thought especially in the Shi'ah world continued the process of divorcing itself from the categories of Peripatetic philosophy. One of the most influential and colourful figures in this movement, who played a major role in the attack against the rationalists, was Fakhr al-Din Razi, who is considered to be the reviver of Islam in the sixth/twelfth century as Ghazali was in the fifth/eleventh. Razi is in many ways a second Ghazali; in fact, he may without exaggeration be considered to be one of the greatest Muslim theologians."

Complete biography of Farkr Al-Din Razi by Seyyed Hossein Nasr.

For whole of Muslim Philosophy check out the electronic version of the book History of Muslim Philosophy here. (I also saw this book in 2 vol in the office/study of famous Pakistani lawyer Ch. Aitzaz Ahsan.)