Foundations of Secular Educational System

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

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


Read full article here.

The Grand Task of Modern Homo Islamicus

As a scholar of Islamic and modern sciences, what is the task a writer, researcher and academic face in spreading the message of islam, without any tinge of self-imposed reformation, rather with complete conformity to the Tradition as passed down and developed throughout generations? Seyyed Hossein Nasr eloquently explains what the Guardians of pen should be up to:

"Today in the West, as well as in the Islamic world itself, there is an ever greater need to study both the principles and manifestations of Islam from its own authentic point of view and a manner comprehensible to sufficient intelligence and good intentions. Moreover, this needs to be achieved by using methods of analysis and description which are at once logical and in conformity with the Islamic perspective; for this later places the highest value upon intelligence (al-'aql) and logic, which is inseparable from it, although of course the transcendent realities cannot be reduced to logical categories. This type of writing which can 'translate' Islamic teachings into a contemporary idiom without betraying it is very important not only for non-Muslims who wish to learn about Islam but most of all for your Muslims, who are now mainly products of modern educational systems." [Italics mine; although each phrase of these 3 sentences is important and comprehensive]

Introduction to Islamic Life and Thought.

Occidentiosis: A Summary of Introduction of Hamid Algar (I)

This is part one of two blog posts I'm writing to introduced an old book of post-mid 20th century, produced right before Islamic revolution of Iran. The link between the two is a reality hard to deny, in fact, too important to be mentioned. In this first part I will introduce the writer of the biographical introduction to the book and its themes by Hamid Algar, a renowned, majestic scholar of Islamic studies, history and languages. In the second part I will try to summarize the introduction which is not a piece of reflection, but a piece of historical information and a lucid narrative of author's (Jalal Al-i Ahmed) unstable intellectual, literary and political life. The book might have created many doubts as to exact summation of author's views that were amended after author penned the books. But more of that in part 2.

******

One of the few Muslim scholars of Islam that i'm fascinated these days is Hamid Algar. I should mention that my fascination with him is not newly born. It is only that he falls into that category of few luminaries who have the immense capacity to critique Western modernism from Islamic point of view, and write with no apologetic tinges on Islamic subjects that can be well understood by a modern reader and someone trained in classic thought, I believe.

More on Hamid Algar is necessary before , as the deliberate mentioning of his name in the title necessitates (with premediatation) a personal introduction to him. It is going to be personal, as you can look up his credentials online.

First time I ever saw the name of Hamid Algar and his books in a bookstore was 3-4 years backs. Two books I encountered were two printed lectures: Sufism and Al-Fatiha. In those days i every somewhat aware of the disease of Occidentiosis, secular fundamentalism and reformist literature by the books of Seyyed Hossein Nasr, most important being Nasr's collection of essays Islmaic Life & Thought. However, i wasn't able to critically discern an authentic one from the rest - although i doubt i can critically evaluate even now.

Hence, the very first reading of his books conveyed a hidden message that here is a scholar with high level of objectivity, understanding and depth that i hardly encountered in DAWN's book reviews or few books by westernized muslims or non-muslims on Islam. For instance, in Al-Fatiha he advocated the transcendent roots of word Allah, challenging the scholarship of Orientalists. I didn't understand much of the high-level semantic discussions; although most of the discussion in Al-Fatiha can't be termed semantic, it was on another plane altogether. Here I must apologize that this recollection is 3-4 years old, and new after reading fully the book is due.

Another example of author's independent, non-apologetic and scholarly attitude, stemming from an Islamic worldview from within: in the book Sufism, he rejected the modernistic/western notions of Sufism, and even refused to discuss subject further with this very Sufism, and preferred traditional term of tasawwuf, as it lacked the secularized connotations attached by westerners and modernized muslims with this traditional, integral part of a religion who principles are Immutable and which always resisted Reformist kind of change.

The most clear and sharpest critique on modern western intellectual thought to come in the form of an essay in a monographic book, The Challenge of Islam. His essay was about intellectual challenges that modernism presents to Islam. He was conscious to mention that in reality modernism cannot present a challenge to Divinely Revealed religion of Islam as such; in fact, it is Islam that presents a challenge to idols of western ideologies. I will inshaAllah write a summary of arguments presented in the essay.

Please do look forward to introduction to Occidentiosis by Jamal Al-i Ahmed.

Universality & Internal Diversity of Islamic Jurisprudence

Islamophobic politicians, intellectuals and all sort of people in Europe/West think that Islam needs to pass through the same phase Christianity did in medieval period with its enlightenment and reformation to really 'inhabit the West'. Well, it only proves, as an initial note, the reality revealed by Qur'an that these kuffar would never like Muslims until we become like them. Nonetheless, Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad in his speech in islamabad talks about these 'absent-minded claims' as simply being products of lack of knowledge of Islam and their own history. Westerns, generally, have always tried to view islam and its ideals from the eyes of their philosophies and mindset, unfortunately modernized muslims are committing the same error. Shaykh Murad talks about a Dutch politician's onslaught on Islam in West who thinks that Islam must be reformed or marginalized:

Fortuyn’s error was to impose a Christian squint on Islam. As a practising Catholic, he imported assumptions about the nature of religious authority that ignore the multi-centred reality of Islam. On doctrine, we try to be united - but he is not interested in our doctrine. On fiqh, we are substantially diverse. Even in the medieval period, one of the great moral and methodological triumphs of the Muslim mind was the confidence that a variety of madhhabs could conflict formally, but could all be acceptable to God. In fact, we could propose as the key distinction between a great religion and a sect the ability of the former to accommodate and respect substantial diversity. Fortuyn, and other European politicians, seek to build a new Iron Curtain between Islam and Christendom, on the assumption that Islam is an ideology functionally akin to communism, or to the traditional churches of Europe.

Faith in the Future,

A talk by Shaykh in islambad, 2002. 

'Recreate, Don't watch people recreating'

People spend hours watching sports, even missing their prayers during live matches. This is totally absurd. Experience recreation, not watch people experiencing it. Playing outdoor games is a serious business. If you're playing football or cricket, there's much more than playing the game. You've to organize people, develop strategies, deal with emotions, conflicts, disagreements and what not. You've keep yourself fit. I've improved my diet playing daily. Major obvious benefit is the health bonus one gets.

But, for a Muslim, he has to purify his intentions even when it comes to recreation. We do not recreate for no good, but are conscious that its a useful activity for human life and can even uplift our eemaan if we follow the morals of Prophets, such as not cheating, not loosing one's control over his emotions, as we often witness huge conflicts resulting from games.

Halal search engine

Telegraph wrote a technology news back in September 2009 about a search engine for Muslims, www.imhalal.com. I used it once and liked it. It filters those websites having explicit content which is not allowed for a Muslim to see. In fact i believe this search engine is useful for whole humanity. Everyone in a society is a victim of pornography - from children to married husbands. When i think of my own kids, i fear about having free access to internet, cause school children are introduced to these things in an early tender age of 10, or may be below.

The article explains how it works, but the problem is that i tried to open it, and i cannot... Nonetheless, i'll try it later in some other browser. Back in 2009 it Muslim founders hoped that this will become homepage of every Muslim. i remember getting smses about this. i was excited. i read some posts online by modernized muslims "condemning" this blasphemy of having halal search engine - another case study of inferiority complexes we've developed or to put in other words, completely blind intellects. The search engine may need lots of improvements - they're in contact with Islamic scholars to decide about what to show, what not to, but that's the case with all businesses. Whenever Google launches some product, they launch beta version. I remember Marissa, one of its elite employees, recalling having received around 500 feedback comments the very next day they launched one of their products!

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.

Facebook: Consumer or Consumed?

Recently I made a dubious act of creating my friend's facebook account. I deactivated my own facebook account a year ago or so, out of utter frustation. I was frustrated with how much it consumed me, when i was supposed to consumer it. It was no good. I had to write two posts to debunk the myth of usefulness of it. But I failed it in a single phrase:: I consumes you...

This I experienced when i used a bit of his account to set it up. Soon an urge was sweeply mildly to get into this mass culture of verbosity, futility, empty socializing which is deviod of pure human-interaction, all of which backfires what facebook is for: connecting people. Surely, it helps one to find anyone. But that is only the beginning point beyond which it can never go. And 90% or more people are involved in absolute things even beyond non-essential, bordering on insanity (shooting people by pressing a button without even seeing him, clicking mouse 74 times in a minutes, and list never ends).

As far as the recent attack on FB from Islamic quarters and the counter-attack from modernized Pakistani media writing sentimental poetry about it, writing editorials (showing their ideological slavery to profane Western ideologies), etc., though mild - I wish to say only this: Priorities determine how you view this. Those whose live revolve around a person, their Prophet, whom they love above everything else, their priority is to defend their freedom to free their Beloved, their Supreme Asset from any insult. It went counter to the right of a (disturbing) civilization, and its perpeterators in East, to insult.

When I entered his account, I felt an urge, as I said, to come back to FB. To join the mass culture, in culture. And do away with my identity and my immediate enviornment. To shameless ads on left, right, top and bottom . . . I did not feel at home. This proves the point Shaykh Hamza Yusuf made about TV which fits 100% for FB: Those who leave it, ifthey find themselves wasting their time on it, their quality of life improves. And. They don't wish to use it again.

Chemistry Quiz, Kafka's Diaries & the Need for Islamic Worldview

Even in this blooming mosam (weather) my Chemistry quiz has gone sour... Part of the blame goes to my brain cells usurped while understanding mysterious, highly subjective, 'psychotic' and at times shameless diaries of someone known as Kafka, full of despair, dissolution, hopelessness, blame games, arrogance, but also full of deep reflection, inner investigation and mystery.

After learning the lessons from the 'chemical' battle, I was not satiated, and hence opened up a dictionary on Post-Colonial studies terms.

We should not accept any world-view, whether it is plain medicine or any other physical sciences, let alone humanities, without investigating its world-view. Things are tied with the method of 'discourse' and world-views. This book on colonial studies taught me a revealation which we seldom invoke. The Western medicine is incompitable with Chinese medicine, it said, because in discourse of Western medicine the 'positivistic' view of the body rules. We can also add that modern science is cut off from notions of sacred and Divine (see Seyyed hossein Nasr's Need for a Sacred Science). Hence, it can't accept any part of Chinese medicine until the latter fully is streamlined with the former*.

The book also taught me the (often inseparable) relation between knowledge and power. Those who have brutal power today define which world-view operates in the world, and which view be rejected. Only the offical world-view is the 'truth'; rest are garbage. A person coming from alien system, needless to say, today don't really bother to check and weigh the assertive claims of Western world-views, the dominant power in today's world-view, or whether its claim to 'objective truth' is justified. Such is the dilemma of many, many Muslims today who study science, economics, language, literautre, and other sciences in West and do a very poor diagnosis and propose really irrelevant, and often wrong medicines to their native lands, producing catastrophic results. This at least has been the case in economic policies implemented in Pakistan borrowed from West (read, The War Against the Poor for evidence).
__________________________

* This is what Nasr has been saying for decades that modern science has its own world-view which is anti-thetical to Islamic world-view. Hence, we cannot accpet its assertive claims and absorb its world-view into our system, else we lose potentiality of our system.

"Tragedy of Morals and Birth of Science in the West"

Dr Asad Zaman, Islamic International University, Islamabad, is writing a research paper on the topic quoted in this post's title. Below, I'd produce the abstract and sources, and link to the page from where I got this open information. you may like to comment or write Dr. Zaman about it (at asadzaman@alum.mit.edu).

Tragedy of Morals and Birth of Science in the West

(under preparation) (by Asad Zaman)

Abstract: How Birth of Science in conflict with religion gave strong methodological bias to the way science was viewed in the West. In particular, the exaggeration of the potential of science of settling ethical, moral and human problems led to a very distorted foundation for social sciences. The social sciences have been ideologically constituted in the sense that they were based on false beliefs about what the physical sciences are. The upshot is that there is room for a thoroughgoing revolution in the received ideas of science natural and social (quote from Manicas).

It is only after such re-organization that room for a reasonable foundation for Islamic Economics would emerge. In this paper, we hope to provide such foundations.

Sources:

Peter Manicas: A History and Philosophy of the Social Sciences

Part I: details historical circumstances that led to an easy victory for empiricism/positivism even though realist alternatives were available

Part II: Details special circumstances leading to emergence of modern social sciences in USA.

Hans Kung: Does God Exist?

Himmelfarb: De-Moralization of the West.

Tawney: Religion and the Rise of Capitalism

Reuben, Julie: The Making of the Modern University: Intellectual transformation and the marginalization of morality. 1996 University of Chicago Press.

Read his paper On Improving Social Science Education in Pakistan and The Origins of Western Social Science to get insight into the thought of Dr. Zaman.

To Dr. Asad Zaman: On Social Sciences

I wrote following mail to Dr Asad Zaman, alumni MIT (BS Mathematics) & Standford (MS Stats; PhD Economics), professor at IIIU. Visit his website for all of his works and data: http://sites.google.com/site/asaduzaman/home. He is a leading Islamic scholar on Islamic economics, critic of western social scientist, an educationist, Islamic political theorist, and a sea of knowledge and TAQWA

Assalamualaekum!

I am Umer Toor, BSc Business, FC College, Lahore. I've been reading your papers and writings on your website; at first I read your interview in Intellect mag which led me to discover you and your thought.

I'm particularly interested in critique of yours on Western Social Science. One of my professors at F.C. is thinking of introducing Islamic Sociology course there. Your paper on Origins of Western Social Sciences [also see Nature of Social Science page] enumerates some foundational works, which we would be reading.

We seek your guidance on this matter. Do you have ideas on Islamic social science courses that may serve to be an inspiration and yardstick for our us?

Moreover, I've a bunch of students learning in elite universities who have launched amongst themselves the Revival of Islamic Intelligentsia Program [they work as members of ESEF] - can you groom us by giving some lectures, or best, can we visit you personally in Islamabad, which is our dream?

JazakAallh!

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'.