Q: What is your aim, objective, mission, do you want to be a Mujaddid, reformer or something like that.
A: A student.
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Quote:
Q: Why then do you indulge in distorsion and innovation and giving a different turn to the issues and creation of new Usools?
A: I am not creating new Usools but only applying natural ones. If you want to understand Shakespeare then you have to adopt the natural Usools. My background has been literature.[/quote]
This looks like an inocuous stand but it is problematic.
He does not admit that he is following the Usool of traditional Ulama.
Natural Usool can not be a technical term because this kind of phrase is used when you can not pin point a Usool precisely.
Also Usool of literary appreciation will be pathetically inappropriate for theology.
Thirdly he simply shifted his stance - now he wants to use literary background as his primary background.
If your primary interest is literature, if you claim to be a student then you must accept the implications.
Our experience is to the contrary.
He indulges in propagating his version and his interpretation of Islam.
This is very problematic.
All the education he has divulged till now is simply not sufficient to elevate him to the level of a preacher of Islam.
At the most he could have been a Dawah worker but he operates at the level of a Mujaddid.
This simplicity is irritating because it is damaging to the very cause that he desires to serve.
[quote]When I study literature, history or science then I one looks at various views already present and compare these and look at the things from a balanced vantage point. It is difficult to understand it from the point of view that is prevalent in Madaris where things are looked from theological authority and leadership.
Here he is erring at several levels. Firstly he wants to apply the methodology of secular sciences to theology. This simply is not applicable. Next he accuses Madaris of theological authoritarianism. Thirdly he insinuates that Madarsa people and hence by implication all religiously oriented people are in someway inferior and incapable of understanding the methodology he is employing. There is a fourth possibility of an implication, that of his methodology being his original contribution, but we shall simply ignore that here.
Now scientific methiodology or the secular social science methodology has become a handy stick with which modernist Muslims think they can beat the traditional conservative Ulama. I, for one, am not part of it and I do not approve it and I am not permitting it and I shall do everything within my capabilities to stop it and thwart any attempt at this sacrilege. here are my arguments.
Q: Should we apply the methodology of secular social sciences or even proper science to Islamic Theology?
A: No.
Q: Do Madaris employ theological authoritarianism (Madhabi Peshwayiyat)?
A: Mr Ghamdi is confused. He simply can not reach to the crux of the matter. He is petrified of the authority and power that he thinks oozes from theological gentry.
The reality is quite different from his perception. The theological leadership thinks, believes and acts from a vantage point where their power is zero. All power belongs to Allah SWT.
A theological figure operates from the level of an Abd - that is even lower than a slave. That a theological figure looks authoritative to Mr Ghamdi is a comment on his own limited capability to understand and perceive the things. More one annihilates oneself before God better he becomes before God and for the world he looks more and more authoritative.
Mita de apni hasti ko gar kuchh martaba chahe
Ki dana khak mein milkar gul-e-gulzar hota hai
Annihilate your self if you desire some status
For by mixing with earth a seed achieves bloom
It is clear that people like Mr Ghamdi have come to, to them, an unpleasant realization that they simply can not match the authority of traditional religious scholars and hence they resort to this silly accusation of authoritarianism.
Any one arguing, discussing, talking to modernists should keep this subtle issue in mind and sort it out thoroughly before moving onto any other issue, point or matter that has to be decided between you and a modernist.
Q: Madarsa people can not understand the methodology of science or the secular social sciences.
A: (1) May be or may be not. (2) If a chemist can not be called better than a botanist then how come a theologian is being insinuated to be inferior? (3) Muslims did science for as many centuries as the modern west has been doing at the moment.
Let us take the worst case scenario where some of the Madarsa people can not understand the methodology of science or secular sciences. In this case too there will be many who can understand the scientific method as well as the methodology of secular social sciences.
In this case it is perfidy to suggest that there is some material of theological importance that will be missed by the traditional conservative Ulama.
Then there are modern educated Muslims who understand scientific method as well as the methodology of modern secular social sciences. amongst these there are enough number who can see through Mr Ghamdi's pathetic ruse.
Finally I indulge in pursuit of string theory as my bread and butter. The mathematics employed by this topic of physics is sophisticated enough to give most mathematicians shivering. Interested people might Google for what Mathematician Field Medalist Michael Atiyah says about Physicist Field Medalist Edward Witten. In spite of this physics people never put themselves before mathematicians. Methodology of physics is hardly observed in chemistry. Methodology of chemistry has to be significantly modified in botany. A botanist will make for a miserable zoologist. A zoologist will be scared of entering into a medical lab. You can hardly appoint a physician directly to control the mobs that IAS officers and IPS officers constantly deal with.
Only a naive person will stick the methodology of secular sciences on tehology. Mr Ghamdi please back out.
[quote]This is the method that is popular the world over.