'Adam al-wujdaan la yadallu 'ala 'adam al-wujud'

That is, 'the non-existence of knowledge of something is not proof of its non-existence' - the famous principle of Islamic philosophy.

(Quoted from, Traditional Islam in the Modern World, by Seyyed H. Nasr.)

'Terrified, Mortified, Petrified and Stupified'

I have always been terrorized by mathematics. I ain't any simpleton, though. i like beauty. Yes I can even talk about it. I stretch matters to no-useful extent everyone may not be capable of doing. I fought wars in my backyard. Build sedentary morchas (bunkers) of mud and brick, bombed them through distant catapults - *boom*. I did calligraphy; compiled huge registers filled with extracts on various subjects, as a sort of a haphazard, passionate encyclopedias; I even led many a times a hard-ball cricket team when I was not even about 14 (a feat my physical manifestations definitely contradict, this shows how many brains I have)!

But mathematics. I had no clue if I could ever relate it to the norms and mentalities of a certain species known as "humans" the way I knew, saw and sensed them. How could a person commit the mistake of initiating into mathematical madness? Where did it come from, in the first place? i had no clue, I still lack a point. To talk about its practitioners: Mathematicians to me have always been like those mythical creatures who are willing to suffer so many dilemmas of their own systems. That's why I revere them, even if they are of the worst sort of characters. I'm in an inferiority complex, generated by maths, to plainly tell you the 'sordid state of affairs'. But I don't want to get into a superiority complex either, the worst form of the former.

To settle the dust and to lift myself above it. i have made my plans. Want to listen to them? I'll stick to it, I'll stick to it, until everything sticks to my mind. Good-bye. 'Where has gone that God Created the Integers?'

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Please email your kind suggestions as to how to handle this demon safely without my major causalities at: final.human.battle.against.complexnumbers@extremesurvivalseries.com. Pray for my safe journey, as well. Thank you.

The true intellectuality: Why 'The Way'?

Within our deepest center dwells the Self;
And so they say: you ought to realize
Your own divinity. But they forget
Without God's help we never can be wise
Ignoring this, too many astray.

With Heaven's Grace alone we find the Way.

-Frithjof Schuon

I wrote this poem by Frithjof Schuon on an entry page of a book Traditional Islam in the Modern World (by Seyyed H. Nasr), which I especially picked up from the dusty shelf to re-learn about the legacy of 14 century of Islamic education and its systems, seemingly forgotten by young Muslims. The poem much plainer, but not any more direct and penetrating as an Eagle, than Schuon's absolutist prose writings, made many doubts of mine vanish into the air! So to act. The strength-to-act is a quality many of my young fellows and modern day Muslims lack 'when it comes to point'. Nonetheless, it is a beautiful poem which you cannot commodify but burn and melt many iced up candles! As my master says, "Life like candle is burning and melting."

Islam

Islam is a great web! You can never divide it into little, discrete pieces. And it's a strange kind of web as well.

"You Belong to One Community": The Call of Swati Refugees

I ain't any good writer, nor do I wish to "paint the pictures" of the unbearable pain our brothers and sisters of Swat - forced to flee as being torn out between the mortars and air-shelling of Pakistan Army and bullets and killings of Taliban from their homes - are subjected to. I simply don't have any imagination or quality to do so. But. I was moved to feel about, think about and do something, anything, about the Swati Refugees after I read the following two plain stories told by the victims themselves in plain language. I hope it affects and moves your hearts as well. I see hope.

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"Here are the stories of two internally displaced people who were forced to leave everything behind and start a new life full of uncertainties.

FARHAN, 23, STUDENT, NOW IN ISLAMABAD

"We left Mingora three days ago. The situation had become very dangerous. We were caught up in the brutalities between the Pakistani army and the Taleban.

We were trapped inside our homes for a week, while there was constant shelling. A mortar demolished a house just a few yards from our home.

There was no water, no power, everything was destroyed.

Swat is empty now and we don't want to go back ever

To add to that, the Taleban threatened to kill young people if they didn't join them in their so-called 'jihad'. There have been personal threats to our family too, as my father is an outspoken critic of the Taleban.

We had to leave. We left everything we had and went on foot to Malakand. There was no transport available. We were walking with thousands of people.

It was a difficult journey. There was no food or water, but most importantly we were going through a war zone and we were scared that we'd encounter Taleban militants.

Once in Malakand we hired a truck and drove to Islamabad. We are relatively safe here but I don't know for how long.

We left everything and now we are with empty hands trying to start our lives again.

We are trying to leave the country. Swat is empty now and we don't want to go back ever.

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MAJID, 24, STUDENT, NOW IN PESHAWAR

"We fled Mingora last Friday, together with much of the population of the city. Our life had become very difficult: we were trapped in curfews, electricity was cut, there was no water or food.

A makeshift school for girls in a refugee camp in Swabi
School lessons have resumed for these girls at a refugee camp in Swabi
In the early hours on Friday morning we were under attack from gunship helicopters. Later the army told us we had to leave Mingora.

We got up, put clothes on and rushed out of the door. We didn't have time to pack anything. We didn't even prepare food for the journey. We just shut the door and left.

People were running, everyone was so scared. We didn't know what was going to happen next.

I feel depressed. Swat has been brought back to the Stone Age. There's no life there any more

We decided to go to Peshawar. The first part of our journey was on foot, until we reached Malakand. The road was packed with people, thousands of them. My grandfather is old, he couldn't walk for long and needed regular breaks. And it was a hot day.

Then we hired a truck and drove to Peshawar. Many people stayed behind, as not everyone could afford to hire a vehicle.

I am staying at a university hostel with friends. My family is at some relatives' house. Many joined refugee camps, but those must be full, because I see lots of people lying on the roads, people for whom there's no accommodation or help.

The nearby park is full of people from Swat. There are Swat people all over the city, everyone with their own story.

Everyone is deeply disturbed by this experience. We left everything and our life here is uncertain.

I am thinking of leaving the country to study abroad. My dad says that he'll try to set up his own business and open a shop in Peshawar.

I feel depressed. Swat has been brought back to the Stone Age. Each and every individual has left. There's no life there any more. I am not hopeful that things will get better any time soon - they can't clear this mess up in a hundred years. "

Source.

The Love of Woman

If you rule your wife outwardly, yet inwardly you are ruled by her whom you desire,

This is characteristic of Man: in other animals love is lacking, and that shows their inferiority. [1]

The Prophet said that woman prevails over the wise, while ignorant men prevail over her; for in them the fierceness of the animal is immanent.

Love and tenderness are human qualities, anger and lust are animal qualities. Woman is a ray of God: she is not the earthly beloved. She is creative: you might say she is not created. [2]

Rumi, Mathnavi. I, 2431.

To this beautiful and intelligent poem must be added a few notes by R.A. Nicholson, the translator.

[1]. Although animals relatively to man are deficient in love, they "know what love is" and "he that is blind to love is inferior to a dog" (Math. V, 2008).

[2]. Sweeping aside the veil of form, the poet beholds in woman the eternal Beauty, the inspirer and object of all love, and regards her, in her essential nature, as the medium through which that Beauty reveals itself and excercises creative activity. Ibun'l-'Arabi went so far as to say that the most perfect vision of God is enjoyed by those who contemplate Him in woman.

We can be unconscious of the existence of things when they actually do to our faculties of intelligence, why and how?

Sometimes, we turn blind to some things that actually exist, and have a cause for living or being there, manifesting themselves. It mostly happens when we avoid experiencing or, in simple terms, do not allow ourselves to know the causality of those things.

I, for instance, since my childhood, had been hearing, as though in a dream, voice of perhaps an insect - a voice very sharp, pinching and loud. How can I believe now that I denied any existence of that voice and its source then, as today, when I came out of the dream, really identified it, without doing, or conceptualizing, anything? How come can I believe myself?

The answer, partial maybe, is: Only because I avoided it, and didn't even try to identify and know it completely and objectively. I thought that I couldn't know it that easily. Therefore, with the passage of time it became my habit to deny the source of that voice and to avoid any contact with it through observation or meditation. Or, perhaps, it isn't that easy to know some things completely and objectively.

What do you think?

What is Perennial Philosophy?

According to Aldous Huxley Perennial Philosophy stands for:

"the metaphysic that recognizes a divine Reality substantial to the world of things and lives and minds; the psychology that finds in the soul something similar to, or even identical with, divine Reality; the ethic that places man's final end in the knowledge of the immanent and transcendent Ground of all being; the thing is immemorial and universal. Rudiments of the perennial philosophy may be found among the traditional lore of primitive peoples in every region of the world, and in its fully developed forms it has a place in every one of the higher religions
The Perennial Philosophy, p. vii)."

That Truth is Truth and Transcends Space-and-Time; And that Truth is not Systematic

Ibn Ata Illah in his Kitab al-Hikam says:

"He who is illuminated at the beginning is illuminated at the end."

And this is Truth. Yes, it exists.

Experience the Transformation of Sound into Visual-Patterns

Magnetosphere revisited (audio by Tosca) from flight404 on Vimeo.

I don't know what's the phenomena is called and how to create it, but people learning interactive media study it and create such things - wonderful things. You can read all about it here.

‘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.)