SSRN & My First Paper Submission

I have recently uploaded an industry-cum-firm note on SSRN (Social Science Research Network): click here to go to the page and download for free. I just wanted to share it to encourage you to submit your papers to this most popular research paper database where barriers to publishing are almost zero. This site was created by Harvard professors who wanted to create a parallel medium for people to publish their papers free of any ideological bias and entry requirement. Most of the papers you find here are of top quality and free.

Abstract to my paper: The New York Times: Newspaper Industry Analysis, Crises & Reforms

Newspaper industry is the fastest shrinking industry in America, according to a research by LinkedIn. What are the implications for society and journalism? Why did the fall come about? How did a very profitable industry become so precarious that even the giant newspapers face the threat of going out of business, perhaps forever? In this paper, we do not seek to provide a strategic, bailout plan that if implemented can save a newspaper; however, it give clues about what went wrong by introducing to the industry structure of newspapers and its crises.
    At the helm of this affair is the leading ‘general-interest’ newspaper, The New York Times, which is our protagonist. The story of New York Times also applies and explains how majority of conventional newspapers work or worked (as many have ceased producing print, reduced days of productions, or filed for bankruptcy). This study is about an industry facing a creative disruption, about which it had little clue. We will give a diagnosis of the crises of newspapers and possible reforms, focusing on it market leader: The Times.
    This paper is divided into three sections: introduction to the New York Times as an institution; analysis of the news industry in the USA, print and online; recommendations for New York Times.

NATO Supply Stoppage costing US Millions of $$

Pain in the side! Surely. America had been in denial of the critical importance of Pakistan trade routes of death, destruction and expansion of Dajjalic mission of conquering the world, and becoming a false messiah and a god. Pakistan, understandably pragmatically, sold out for pennies and paved way for food and weapons of mass destruction into a country where humans are being slaughtered in the name of collateral damage, for its own happy demise in creation (God forbid).

However, things are not too bleak. In the short-run, at least for few months, America has been losing millions of dollars due to the closure of Nato supply route, reports The News (Pakistan). This may be too short a trouble, as Pakistan would be expected fall to its knees.; or, maybe its a drama staged by government and army to fool around with public opinion.

Two Breathtaking Residential Courtyards

When I looked at these, oxygen circulation reduced in my lungs and i was awestruck by the beauty of these truly exotic, Islamic residential courtyard, which i'd construct one day inshaAllah...

Source: Taken from a thesis entitled: Building a Muslim-American Identity: An Islamic College, by Zaman Ahmad. Download it from here.

Why I support Imran Khan?

That's a question i have to answer myself only. For following reasons i believe Imran Khan should lead  Pakistan:

1. He understands troubled Tribal Areas more than any other mainstream politician (apart from ANP or JUI may be) - her mother belonged to Waziristan and he travelled each and every village to record about these fascinating people in a book in 1990s

2. Wikileaks leaked his meeting with US ambassadors and this is the bottomline: War of terror in Pak is wrong, Pak should get out of here and he (IK) 'would shoot down drones if come in power'

3. Most importantly, he doesn't need politics for "self-fulfillment" (although self-fulfillment is a more positive word).

A Grand Wish of 21-yr old

Apart for million other personal, social, religious, intellectual and above all academic wishes, I wish to have a large number of children of various elements, of various colors, "circuit boards," temperaments - differing on various kinds of continuum... Sounds really funny...

A Day of Celebration

Allah says in Quran to proclaim His favors. It should be our discourse to tell about blessings he has bestowed on us. Today i feel inner happiness; the same old boring environment looks fresh, lively and joyous. How could it not be: today, it is reported, Prophet Muhammad came into this world.

Previous many days have only produced compound sadness. Main source of it has been writings of modernized Muslims who are completely ignorant of their own religious Tradition*. They are mocking their religion, final Divine Guidance from on high, and culture... They suffer from deep inferiority complex about their sacred history, culture and are hopeless of Qur'an, latter is also a state of many religious-minded people. They are borrowing failed Western models, especially in Social Sciences. Their minds are suffering from the blight of modernism and rationalism 'for which their hearts and minds have been eclipsed'.
_________
* Please see this article (click on it) to know what we mean by Tradition.

A Taliban Commander: Insan Al-Kamil (Universal Man)

I will not back down, I am victorious in the battle as well as in the propaganda (media)

- A Taliban soldier singing on radio while attacking US convoys

Paul Refsdal, a Norwegian journalist, went into Taliban when they were fighting against Russian invading forces back in 1980s. He visited them again in 2010-11, only because he was not allowed to do that for ten years since the war began. (That shows how tight the control of media has bee in the hands of Western powers.) The difference today is that in 1980s Western media backed Taliban hugely, for they were freedom fighters. But now, when they defend their country against US and western imperial forces, they are demonized below human beings, and become terrorists and absolute fanatics.

For Refsdal, this overnight change in the media propaganda was intriguing. Being a journalist, he could bet there must be another version of current affairs. The difference between him and westernized creatures in areas like Pakistan is that he decided to put his life to risk and find out the truth for himself. He was able to know more deeply at least one important Taliban commander, whom he met in 1980s: Qari Darwan, who owned a lot of property before joining Taliban. Dawran, may Allah protect him if he still has not achieved martyrdom, to me has led an archetype just war or jihad. Mentoring his warriors, he said to them:

Be just. God appreciates justice ... We are fighting for freedom, for Islam and for our holy land. What are their [intruders, US et al.] goals? Are they oppressed? Have they been treated unfairly? Do they have dictatorships [in their countries]?

 When Refsdal was kidnapped by 'a wild card' of Dawran after his group disbanded the area, it was Dawran who, even in his physical absence, used all means to free Paul without having anyone to pay ransom for him.

Refsdal mentions at the end of film that Dawran's two little children, below 3 years to me, were killed by US Special Forces in an attempt to kill the commander! During Paul's last night with Dawran, a commander working under D was attacked, leaving him and his whole family, women and children martaryed by US forces... I leave it up to the viewers of documentary made, embedded below, for what kind of military commander he is/was; and what kind of war Americans are fighting there.

Imran Khan's Economic Team Leader & Neo-Classical Economics

i'm so excited! i heard Imran Khan, Chairman of Justice Movement Pakistan, in an interview said they have an economic expert in their party, a professor in Cambridge University, who has critiqued neoclassical economic theory. Neoclassical economics or capitalism is anti-poor, it professes theories with sophisticated mathematical foundations which ultimately argue against welfare economics in which "people are means and ends of development", where growth and progress is not pursued with promotion of selfishness. I cannot explain neoclassical economics and its flaws, i'd recommend exploring this site by another Pakistani economist Dr Asad Zaman: Critiques of Economic Theory.

[update coming]

Commons Land Case: Western vs Islamic Perspective

Dr Asad Zaman in his lectures discussed privatization by comparing an Islamic and Western judgement on an historical issue of commons land. I'm going to describe it in my words:

In England there was commons' land, and as the word common modifies the land it means land for the common people. Common people depended on this land for their livelihood and shelter. They were mostly people with no luxuries or even modest income levels, who're only surviving on what they could find in the forests, lakes, etc., for themselves and/or for their cattle. Similarly, it provided them housing and stuff. They were poor people but the land made life liveable and gave a sense of security against economic upheavals and complete bankruptcy of basic necessities.

The rich people had their eyes on it for long. In 1066, after the Normans Conquest, things changed drastically. Rich and powerful lords approached for 'privatization' of the land, in a sense. All the poor people were banished from the commons land, which became not so common by then. Their houses were destroyed and what not. Survival became difficult, if not impossible. Previously, they could graze their sheep and drink its milk or eat fresh fish from flowing lakes or rivers and survive, but now the conditions became worse.

The same situation took place back in the times of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). Their was a commons land under his rule on which poor people used to graze their cattle. Rich and powerful people approached him (PBUH) to allow their cattle to enter it for grazing. Prophet (PBUH) forbade their entrance and instructed them to find some other pasture or land for their big flocks, lest they might overgraze the rightful share of poor people's pasture.

The judgement given by Prophet (PBUH) is totally opposite to the one given by the kuffar and shows the basis of Islamic economics to be welfare of the people and especially the poor.

Tanzil.net - Quran Navigator

Tanzil.net is Quran navigator that i use on daily bases. It has over 100 translation texts. It has multiple Arabic typefonts, if you will. The main thing which other Quran projects - like Online Quran Project, etc - lack, despite their brilliance, is recitation along with translation text with Arabic, but also English translation. I hope they expand and include other voice translations. Moreover, i find it very user friendly in terms of finding ayahs, etc.

The project teams introduces Tanzil.net as following:

"Tanzil is a Quranic project launched in early 2007 to produce a highly verified Unicode Quran text to be used in Quranic websites and applications." [Italics mine.]

The fact that it can be incorporated into other apps and sites is very useful. The developer of the project is Mr Hamid Zarrabi-Zadeh, who also teaches computer science in Iran, may Allah preserve him and his team.

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, Family & Muslim Feminists

The following excerpt is perhaps one the most authentic critiques on feminism from islamic point of view from Dr Seyyed Hossein Nasr's book Ideals and Realities of Islam:

From the point of view of social structure, the teachings of the Shariah emphasize the role of the family as the unit of society - the family in the extended sense and not in its atomized, nuclear modem form. The greatest social achievement of the Prophet in Medina was precisely in breaking the existing tribal bonds and substituting religious ones which were connected on the one hand with the totality of the Muslim community and on the other hand with the family. The Muslim family is the miniature of the whole of Muslim society and its firm basis. In it, the man or father functions as the Imam in accordance with the patriarchal nature of Islam. The religious responsibility of the family rests upon his shoulders. In the family, the father upholds the tenets of the faith and his authority symbolizes that of God in the world. The man is in fact respected in the family precisely because of the sacerdotal function that he fulfils. The rebellion of Muslim women in certain quarters of Islamic society came when men themselves ceased to fulfil their religious function and lost their virile and patriarchal character. By becoming themselves effemi­nate, they caused the reaction of revolt among certain women who no longer felt the authority of religion upon themselves.

The traditional family is also the unit of stability of society and the four wives that a Muslim can marry, like the four-sided Ka’aba, symbolize this stability. Many have not understood why such a family structure is permitted in Islam and attack Islam for it as if polygamy belongs to Islam alone. Here and again Muslim modernism carries with it the prejudice of Christianity against polygamy to the extent that some have gone even so far as to call it immoral and prefer promiscuity to a social pattern which minimizes all illicit relations to the extent possible. The problem of the attitude of the Western observer is not as important as that segment of modernized Muslim society which itself cannot understand the teachings of the Shariah on this point simply because it uses as criteria categories borrowed from the modern West.

There is no doubt that in a small but significant segment of Muslim society today, there is a revolt of women against traditional Islamic society. In every civilisation a reaction always comes against an existing force or action. In Islam, the very patriarchal and masculine nature of the tradition makes the revolt of those women who have become aggressively modernised more violent and virulent than, let us say, in Hinduism, where the maternal element has always been strong. What many modernised Muslim women are doing in rebelling against the traditional Muslim family structure is to rebel against fourteen centuries of Islam itself although many may not be aware of the inner forces that drive them on. It is the patriarchal nature of Islam that makes the reaction of some modernised women today so vehement. Although very limited in number, they are, in fact, more than Muslim men, thirsting for all things Western. They seek to become modernised in their dress and habits with impetuosity, which would be difficult to understand unless one considers the deep psychological factors involved.

From the Islamic point of view, the question of the equality of men and women is meaningless. It is like discussing the equality of a rose and a jasmine. Each has its own perfume, colour, shape and beauty. Men and women are not the same. Each has particular features and characteristics. Women are not equal to men. But neither are men equal to women. Islam envisages their roles in society not as competing but as complimentary. Each has certain duties and functions in accordance with his or her nature and constitution.

Man possesses certain privileges such as social authority and mobility against which he has to perform many heavy duties. First of all, he bears all economic responsibility. It is his duty to support his family completely even if his wife is rich and despite the fact that she is economically independent. A woman in a traditional Islamic society does not have to worry about earning a living. There is always the larger family structure in which she can find a place and take refuge from social and economic pressures even if she has no husband or father. In the extended family system, a man often supports not only his wife and children but also his mother, sister, aunts, in-laws and sometimes even cousins and more distant relatives. Therefore in city life, the necessity of having to find a job at all costs and having to bear the economic pressure of life is lifted from the shoulders of women. As for the countryside, the family is itself the economic unit and the work is achieved by the larger family or tribal unit together.

Secondly, a woman does not have to find a husband for herself. Site does not have to display her charms and make the thousand and one plans through which she hopes to attract a future mate. The terrible anxiety of having to find a husband and of missing the opportunity if one does not try hard enough at the right moment is spared the Muslim woman. Being able to remain true to her nature, she can afford to sit at home and wait for her parents or guardian to choose a suitable match. This usually leads to a marriage which, being based on the sense of religious duty and enduring family and social bonds between the two sides, is more lasting arid ends much more rarely in divorce than the marriages which are based on the sentiments of the moment that often do not develop into more permanent relationships.

Thirdly the Muslim woman is spared direct military and political responsibility although in rare cases there have been women warriors. This point may appear as a deprivation to some but in the light of the real needs of feminine nature, it is easy to see that for most women, such duties weigh heavily upon them. Even in modern societies, which through the equalitarian process have tried to equate men and women as if there were no difference in the two sexes, Women are usually spared the military draft except in extreme circumstances.

In return for these privileges which the woman receives, she has also certain responsibilities of which the most important is to provide a home for her family and to bring up her children properly. In the home the woman rules as queen and a Muslim man is in a sense the guest of his wife at home. The home and the larger family structure in which she lives are for the Muslim woman her world. To be cut off from it would be like being cut off from the world or like dying. She finds the meaning of her existence in this extended family structure which is constructed so as to give her the maximum possibility of realizing her basic needs and fulfilling herself.

The Shariah therefore envisages the role of men and women according to their nature, which is complimentary. It gives the man the privilege of social and political authority and movement for which he has to pay by bearing heavy responsibilities, by protecting his family from all the forces and pressures of society, economic and otherwise. Although a master in the world at large and the head of his own family, the man acts in his home as one who recognize the rule of his wife, in this domain and respects it. Through mutual understanding and the realization of the responsibilities that God has placed on each other’s shoulders, the Muslim man and woman are able to fulfill their personalities and create a firm family unit which is the basic struc­ture of Muslim society.

Reference: Ideals and Realities of Islam,  George AIIen &; Unwin, London, 1966, pp. 110-113.


Found the piece at: http://www.islam101.com/women/jameelah.htm

Crossroads

My situation is very much like what this video had when he was finished with his 1st degree program in Music. He did a music degree because he failed at math and had always been a C grade student of math; highest grade he ever got till high school was B+. But he longed for doing electrical engineering (EE) and/or electronics. He had a romance for it. And, he is doing  his romance these days by pursuing EE degree at Temple University (which I've heard or mentioned a lot in religious books/texts). He just finished his 1st year there when he made this video and scored what GPA? Remember he scored ~2 GPA in high school. What's your guess, what he might have scored in 1st year of EE program? --------- 4.0 GPA! He studied calculus, physics, comp programming, discrete maths & what not! What brought that transformation in a C grade science student in just a more than 1 year... He answers that in the video.

I too failed at understanding electrical physics and calculus in 2nd year of my high school (or FSc). And i decided not to go for a science degree, but i've always wanted a romance with it. And, now i've the same resource available to him that helped enter and succeed in (at least the 1st year of) EE, i'm interested in industrial, communications, avionics and computer science. I must give it a shot...

Life these days

My life nowadays is dedicated to fragmentation, self-indulgence, boasting, overeating, pursuit of enjoyment of illusionary things... 

New Horizons I

* i've discovered one of purposes in my life: importance of belonging to family. The idea and ideal of having a family forever - extended family, to be precise. It includes a sense a belongingness; an aspiration to build a small community of life, and become something more in the process. Its no less than a life-long mission.

* You can be poor and still be happy, authentic and lead a life full of dignity - unless of course one judges oneself from the eyes of a materialistic world.

* We're either worldly or heavenly. Only the latter state offers true inclusion and integration of the worldly and what has to come next.

* Money is our servant, neither our master nor our end objective.

* I will try to finish everything I start.

* Our mind can never focus on two things at a time.

Anonymity: A Way of Life

Qairouan (about 800AD)

One of the characteristics of this age is that people no more want to live a secluded and anonymous life. Social networking sites have dissolved this spirit completely even for those who lack the 'genius' to engage in relationship with others in the real world. If you read the Sufis of Anduslia by Shaykh Ibn e Arabi, r.a., you'd come across many stories of men and women who're very successful, because Allah noticed them, and disdained worldly pomp, caprice and self-projections.

i've been on holidays for a while and been cut off from distant friends after deactivating my Facebook account during ramadan. Some of my closest friends complained where had i been for so long?! Why am i leading a gumnaam (anonymous or secluded) life? May be i wanted them to say so, thanks to the whisperings of my carnal soul. I confess i had not been on a spiritual quest seeking the company of Allah that i've confined myself to the home, but such a lifestyle is very enjoyable to say the least... i've not really practised khalwa (seclusion) at all - i've spent lot of time on internet, watching videos and playing an online strategy game while ending up spending negligible time on reading books...

Nonetheless, like all others i want to have a certain way of life when i start earning inshaAllah. i wish to be economically independent. i like to be like one of my neighbors, a reporter - (about whose house i'd talk about in the next post inshaAllah) - who's living a seemingly comfortable yet a simple life with beautiful and intelligent kids... A life dedicated to travelling to gain knowledge for the sake of Allah and to quench the thirst of curiosity, may it never die. A life of seclusion with least mixing with people. A life of least activity and most reflection, study, chores, and routine cyclical daily activities that keep adding more and more spiritual light to my home and its dwellers in a mosque-like environment... A life not dedicated to competition with people in riches but in knowledge; not dedicated to piling gold and worldly things, but spreading excessive wealth to those in need... A life of labour and hardship yet peace and serenity in close proximity with natural things, like mud. A life of least acceleration yet tiresome...

Imperial Hubris

"We cannot leave wild beasts [Haqqani Network / Afghan freedom fighter] in the backyard of a the neighbour [Pakistan]."

- Hilary Clinton

How vile... Jon Stewart makes a fine point about US establishment that they're not really imperial colonists but imperial puppeteers: they don't like to rule people, but rule them through people who are like them. That's exactly what Britishers left as intermediaries or brown colonists amidst their independent colonies who carried forward their agenda to this day.

my biggest problem

i live in the world of fantasies not realities.

Now according to psychologists, fantasies that can't just happen are notthe same as positive high expectations. The latter fuel success; former failure.

But they don't know or don't mention that this is a symptom of spiritual illness. What's my cure?

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.