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.

"Extremism is not the Problem"

Image source.

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

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

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

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

Miracles: To be or not to be?

Why should miracles be important to prove, or to serve as an evidence for the truthfulness of a Prophet?

Miracles did take place in the time of Last Prophet, as per sound narrations and consensus of ulema. Miracles did take in the times of Prophet Moses and Isa. It's very curious to know how the magicians/illusionists of Firoun's responded to Prophet Moses' miracle that was granted to him by Allah: they accepted Prophet Moses as Messenger of Allah and recongized his miracle to out of this world! That was nothing short of an experimental testimony.

However, i was puzzled by this statement of Imam Ghazzali in his autobiography: if a person was come to me and say 2+1 = 10; and he'll prove the truth of this statement by turning a stick into a snake - i should never lose certitude in my knowledge that 2 + 1 = 3 and not 10.

Hence, can a rational person [not rationalist per se] demand miracles? The miracle we need to believe in today is: "... Islamic view of a universe created by God, where the trees and the stars worship their Creator, and the sun and the moon follow exquisitely designed laws." And the only time when veils were removed from the people, as public, was the time of Prophets, when trees and stone would talk to Prophet.

We should also know that the nations which self-abdicated themselves, like that of Saleh, requested miracles of their choice. When those miracles were performed, even then they didn't accept Islam. This is true for the scientists of today. Dr Asad Zaman in his brief essay Big Bang writes:

"Sometimes, the evidence is so strong that it breaks through the barriers of unbelief. For example, one of the discoverers of the genetic basis of human life, Crick was quoted as saying, ‘An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going.” Very unwillingly, against his atheistic beliefs, Crick gave testimony to what the Quran (Surah Al-Waqi’ah 57-58) asserts as challenge: In the creation of man and the seed from which man is created are signs which cannot be denied by those who reflect. Just like many nations mentioned in the Quran, Crick continued to deny God even after witnessing the miracles of creation."

Apart from the so-called supernatural miracles, the evidences regarding the coming of the last Prophet is of utmost importance. Please read the chapter on Bahira the Monk in Martin Lings Muhammad. 

For me, miracles are an important testimony and evidence. They happen today with the righteous ones. Moreover, it is hard evidence for a very strong alternative view of physical world. It is anti-dote to a mechanistic view of things, which 'cuts the hand of God his creation'. However, with the very miracle of life, my own being and the tree that grows out of the earth naturally, is enough a proof for me. One should also know that Dajjal will use real life CG effects to show miracles to people and claim to be Divine.

Disclaimer: Allah knows best. These thoughts are still very pre-mature and at least some parts are doubtful to me too.

Fear & Hope

I was standing before water pot put on fire - it was boiling. I saw the bubbles develop slowly but at a fast pace, and i shrank into meditation. I recalled category A industries our professor was telling us about, which operate at temperatures above 5000 degree Celsius. I shrugged at very thought of boiling tea water touching human skin, too painful to imagine, let alone of 5000 degree Celsius. Again i was reminded of what our scholars and pious men and women tell us about when they recite Qur'an and narrate Prophetic hadith - about the destiny of man. There are three different destinies that all of us would share: heaven (inshaAllah), hell, and a neutral place between the two. I thought, looking at boiling water reaching its climax, how to better to fear hell. Fear of one object is better than all fears of this world, which in fact is the fear of one Rabb... Make your deal...

It is very urgently important to mention a fallacy many good Muslims sometimes fall into: they are told not to fear hell, portraying it as human weakness, in fact the perpetrators of such fallacies make fun of those who fear hell and hope for paradise. Some Muslims, unfortunately, are moved by such profane arguments, which are in fact sentimental in nature, and have you reality attached to it.

SMS Conversation: History and Relgion, 'Policy Lessons' for Each Ego

Umer: One must have a basement in a house especially if he wants t0 launch a business. Shams and Nirwani, founders of Telezoo.com, invested $1 million in this start-up of theirs. To keep it low-cost in the beginning, the office of Telezoo was located in the basement of their home.

Bahawal: As far as the basement idea is concerned, I'd rather prefer to have an underground air-conditioned gym or a cozy library/study then 'waste' it for entrepreneurial purposes :-) :P

... We scholars usually don't like to talk much this money making business. Just give us a little respect, a bit of fame and acknowledgement and a few fat books to analyze. That's all you want. Lols...

Umer: (After critizing on fame part with a Urdu couplet, asks) And what books and articles are you reading these days?

Bahawal: Hmmm... I'm reading but haven't fully understood a book by Dr. Sayed Abdul Latif, The Mind that Al-Quran Builds. (Also) I'm reading a book History of the Saracens by Syed Ameer Ali. Then I'm also reading, History of the Arab Peoples. Apart from that, I've been reading some articles on internet on Babylonia, its culture, the city of Ur, etc. And, the major points of conflicts b/w the three Abrahamic religions, and the list goes on.

Umer: Please keep telling as long as you can comfortably. Its so informative foe me.

B: (Smiles, through a gesture) ... To sum up its been all history and religion (that I am studying). And, I realize that we need badly to turn back to Allah, repent asap, understand the balanced path, and start hating in ourselves what we hate in others. We stupid and idotic people have already cost ourselves a lot through petty egos and pathetically limited reserves of knowledge, which we assume to be too much but which actually is too little. What do you say?

U: Yar! Excellent analysis! That's what many top pious scholars (more or less) are saying! SubhanAllah! May Allah guide us to the right path and give us taufiq (power) to realize and act upon these useful insights.

B: May it be so! I wish we all see the right path.

Inspired

Still an athiest/agnostic, having given up his pure Roman-Catholic background, Nuh Keller here reveals what the unjust hides:

On a vacation home from school, I was walking upon a dirt road between some fields of wheat, and it happened that the sun went down. By some inspiration, I realized that it was a time of worship, a time to bow and pray to the one God. But it was not something one could rely on oneself to provide the details of, but rather a passing fancy, or perhaps the beginning of an awareness that atheism was an inauthentic way of being.

These words keep resonating in my mind. Its a kind of a testament. Hence as inspiration. Therefore beautiful.

Seyyed Hossein Nasr on Rushdie Affair

Going through karen armstrong's books these days for 'special purpose', i encountered the representation of moderns' point of view on Rushdie affair. West was in uproar on that issue. They all were ablaze with sentimentalism on an issue that concerned life of one person, declaring that (hopelessly) it was attack on freedom of speech. And Mr. Rushdie emerged as a hero, on whom later were showered endless distinguished honors. And many Muslims, especially those living in west or affected by modernity, failed to sympathize with people of strong faith. Nonetheless, following short audio clip by Seyyed Hossein Nasr explains the Muslim reaction to Rushdie affair philosophically. I recommend it as very important for it'd also clarify many other issues raised by moderns now and then - the core idea/concept-as-a-living-force is SACREDNESS, right of God is the highest value & non-compartmentalization of religion from various vistas of life::

http://mac.abc.se/home/onesr/af/_audio/A065e_SH.Nasr_Sh.Tantawi_19.mp3

Religious situation in Islamic scholarship

(Click to enlarge. Developed by yours truly.)

Digram: Based on a class discussion of sociology of religion, later phrase is full of many inherent negativities, just to make a point. It needs refinement as well.

These are the three classes of scholars within the landscape of Islam, so we had to naturally ignore those who argument against religion, many of them bearing Islamic names. Let's classify them again (but classification and characteristics are not exhaustive at all, they do need much modification, and that's why i am giving its "beta" version here :):

1. Traditional ulema (In diagram: Left-most):

- They do not fully comprehend what has happened to the modern world. They can refute Aristotle, but they have little or no deep understanding of modernity.

- They triumph in preserving whole of Islamic tradition to be transmitted to the next generation, and they seek no earthly carrier, their carrier, as Mufti taqi Usmani says, is akhirah or after-life.

- They reject modernity on the basis of their strong faith. They're perhaps most pious of all in Islamic societies.

- It is said they're to be found in traditional seminaries or madrissas.

God knows best.

2. Modernist-religious scholars (middle):

- They appreciate some facets of modernity. Yet they can said to be religious, at least they're faithful to Islam for it is still a part of them.

- They try to reconcile Islam with modernity, different philosophies. So they talk in terms of the metaphors of modernity (philosophies, paradigms, ideologies, etc.), to defend religion.

- They've little command over tradition, or even over its languages, in some cases.

- Examples that come to our mind are Iqbal, Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, Ali Shariti, Jamal ud Din Afghani; many reformists, and modernists may also be included in this category, but then their faith has to be scaled down. Most of the English Islamic books are produced by them. They dominate the landscape of Islamic scholarship.

3. The Elites (Right most):

I've not yet come up with a label for them, but to call them elites, it is thought, says enough.

- They fully understand modernity (read this article); they fully understand and have deep roots in tradition.

- They do not try to impure religion with impurities of modernity. Rather they try to produce genuine, mainstream/traditional understanding of Islam, as something which is more than religion, the latter term as understood by Westernized mind.

- They perform dual-roles: not only of understanding modernity and tradition, but also giving strong responses, if not devastating, to the challenges posed by modernity.

- They reject modernity, as far as it is anti-traditional in spirit, with clear understanding.

- They are very low in number. And their responses determine the intellectual life-span of Muslims.

- Examples: Rene Guenon, Muhammad Asad, Abdal-Hakim Murad, Dr. Rafi-ud-Din (very few may know him), Dr. Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Hamza Yusuf, etc.

Please provide us with your insightful feedback.

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!

Bashing religion with Marxism

Today we made an advancement in our search of truth, which in reality is anything but truth :) :: We bashed religion through the Marxists, only to prove its (i.e., Marxism's) true worth on which we are still working in our Sociology of Religion course. here i want to distract from the theme of the post as religion has distracted humanity from the achievement of a Communist society it has been eternally destined to achieve - i don't know if there is any merit for a seeker of truth to approach Religion from sociological perspective other than to equip oneself with the weapon to defend religion from Satan (for its de-merit, although we are not the one to propose it, however, it is enough to point out the lack of beauty in its angle of vision). Nonetheless, let's allow a few quotations to battle with each other and we would deserve a leave:

Karl Marx:

"Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature. Heart of heartless; just as it is a spirit of the spiritless situation. It is the opium of the masses." (Perhaps you can appreciate why I have left the last part un-bold for the whole quote is least mentioned but the last part only. And there are certain minds among the ranks of Marxism who say that Marx did not say that we should discard religion. It may be, but there are many who say religion should be discarded. We have to know the difference between what Marx said and what Marxism says.)

Shaykh Abdul-Hakim Murad:

"Opium is the religion of masses."

(Wait a second! What on earth does opium look like, i was wondering?)

What I believe?

What follows below: This is what I believe. This is the center of my life about which all my efforts are directed, around which my days revolve. This is my world-view.

"TAHAWI'S STATEMENT OF ISLAMIC DOCTRINE (AL-`AQIDA AL-TAHAWIYYA)

In the Name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate Praise be to Allah, Lord of all the worlds.

The great scholar Hujjat al-lslam Abu Ja'far al-Warraq al-Tahawi al-Misri, may Allah have mercy on him, said: This is a presentation of the beliefs of Ahl al-Sunna wa al-Jama`a, according to the school of the jurists of this religion, Abu Hanifa al-Nu`man ibn Thabit al-Kufi, Abu Yusuf Ya`qub ibn Ibrahim al-Ansari and Abu `Abdullah Muhammad ibn al-Hasan al-Shaybani, may Allah be pleased with them all, and what they believe regarding the fundamentals of the religion and their faith in the Lord of the worlds.

We say about Allah's unity, believing by Allah's help that:

1. Allah is One, without any partners.

2. There is nothing like Him.

3. There is nothing that can overwhelm Him.

4. There is no god other than Him.

5. He is the Eternal without a beginning and enduring without end.

6. He will never perish or come to an end.

7. Nothing happens except what He wills.

8. No imagination can conceive of Him and no understanding can comprehend Him.

9. He is different from any created being.

10. He is living and never dies and is eternally active and never sleeps.

11. He creates without His being in need to do so and provides for His creation without any effort.

12. He causes death with no fear and restores to life without difficulty."

Read the rest of the article here.

Why talk of creed? Hamza Yusuf answers the question:

Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6

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...

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!

Faith with Certitude

Our attitude towards certain hadith (sayings of Prophet Mohammad, the last prophet) should be that of an experimental scientist who tests the hypothesis or hitherto unproven statement(s) by experiencing it and not just talking about it. So far so, there isn't one hadith that I found against the intellect and reason, although it may go well beyond the both; none that is empty of wisdom, yet there are certainly of whose wisdom I'm ignorant of, and I don't need to know about it. Whatever there is in it, can be testified through practical application on ourselves; the truth of it will be manifested on that person. Al-Ghazali in his "Deliverance from Error" has said what I have been trying to put in hollow words in this way:

"[In order] to deal with doubts relative to the inspiration of a particular prophet ... we shall not arrive at certitude on this point except by ascertaining, either by ocular evidence or by reliable tradition the facts relating to that prophet. When we have ascertained the real nature of inspiration and proceed to the serious study of the Qur'an and the traditions, we shall then know certainly that Mohammed is the greatest of prophets. After that we should fortify our conviction by verifying the truth of his preaching and the salutary effect which it has upon the soul. We should verify in experience the truth of sentences such as the following: "He who makes his conduct accord with his knowledge receives from God more knowledge"; or this, "God delivers to the oppressor him who favors injustice"; or again, "Whosoever when rising in the morning has only one anxiety (to please God), God will preserve him from all anxiety in this world and the next." [Emphasis added]

Divine vs. Worldly

Scene: Last moments at an airport departure longue.

Dr. Agha to Umer: Remember. Divine thought/knowledge/Light is inversely propotional to your indulgence in this world.

The former, i.e., the religious enlightenment, is never in direct relation with the absorption in this world, or, in other words, with worldly progress.

So let this formula be your yardstick to judge who has Light and who doesn't have. You can easily discern with it between True and False Spiritual Master. But above all live and apply this formula.


I don't think that material progress is in conflict with spiritual, although both are diametrically opposed to each other in quality (see "Islam at the Crossroad," ch. The Spirit of West). And that spiritual progress may take place with the material progress simultaneously, although it need not be necessary, as M. Asad remarks in the suggested book. What supports the advice of my teacher is the evident reality that when our roots are strong in this world the contemplation of the divine becomes very difficult. It was only possible for Prophet Muhammad (SAW) to balance between this world and the one beyond. I cannot go to "Mirage"; he did. I can't bear the immense pain he had to bear. He nonetheless remained absorbed in the thought of divine through both contemplation and practice. I wish to assimilate at least one world that which is higher. What else can I desire than that which is eternal!

‘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.