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I've found that by and large, intellectuals such as Professor Aseemanand and Professor Ram Punyani, who have extensively researched contemporary and historical Muslim issues have a very balanced view on these topics, barring the occasional aberration.
Agree.
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On the topic of the Taliban, we are sorely in need of someone of the caliber of Dr Israr RA who can engage with intellectuals and give well reasoned arguments in support of the Taliban.
True again. In fact the second advent of Taliban had put me in that mode only.
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I recall a discussion Dr Israr RA had with Western intellectuals about separating religion from politics. A panel member tried to corner Dr Sahab RA by saying that rule based on Islam would be just as oppressive as rule based on Christianity in the medieval period. Dr Sahab RA replied (barjasta) that you give us an opportunity to rule by Shariah and we will show you the benefits of rule based on Islam. I remember the panel member was taken aback by Dr Sahab's RA reply and he had no comeback. He meekly agreed and moved on to the next topic.
Thanks for the story, I had missed it in spite of the fact that I have watched countless videos of late Dr Israr Ahmed RA.
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Orya Sahab resonates only with people who have hamiyat for Islam. I very much doubt any liberal would find Orya Sahab's views palatable. In that sense, the Pakistani tweet is reasonable. Orya Sahab does not speak the language of the liberal thinkers such as Chomsky, Roy, and Pappe.
Again agree.
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There are people in the West such as Prof Jonathan Brown, Prof Timothy Winter (Abdul Hakim Murad), and Prof Mark Hanson (Hamza Yusuf) who can effectively communicate with liberals.
I agree again. Plus we should be aware of the fact that Oriya Maqbool Jan Sahab is not trying to communicate with the non-Muslims. He is simply trying to motivate Muslims.
Late Dr Israr Ahmed, on the other hand, was simply educating the Muslims.
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We also have Mehdi Hasan who does a good job battling Islamophobia using the language of the liberals. These are people who come from liberal backgrounds, so perhaps we should leave the liberal engagements to them. We need similar people here in India as well, because we are in an era where the various efforts of deen are highly compartmentalized. No one person can be an embodiment of all aspects of deen.
In fact Mehdi Hasan had posted himself at the ideal location. Sadly he is a Shia and hence in the latest phase of Advent of Taliban he is no more helpful for us.
My concern was this -- in these difficult times, would it not be an advantage to have as many allies as we can gather around us? We would continue to only engage with our allies (lib-dem hindus, barelwis, shia, salafi, christians, dalits) on common shared issues against the neo-fascists in power? We can set our differences aside for now, seeing that we share a common political adversary in the manuwadis.
Barelwis are mostly concerned with there share of pie. Of course there motto is that they will neither accept our Imamat nor leadership. Personally I do not have the capacity to engage their arrogance.
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"It is astonishing that in the history that has been written in India, the role of the Barelvi Ulema is never talked about, except for mentioning that they are agents of the British. In one sentence, they do away with the Barelvi Ulema. Why? Because the Barelvis were against the Congress. They were always against the Congress, and they remained so till independence. They were not against Muslims. They did a lot for the community, they also held demonstrations, staged protests, distributed pamphlets, went to police stations and hospitals. When Muslims were attacked in 1946, they went door to door helping people. They were also doing what other movements and parties were doing. But because they are against the Congress, they are being told that they are British agents."
~Sharjeel Imam
BJP's Babul Supriyo has joined TMC and Mahua Moita gave him a warm welcome on Twitter. She's the same one that gave a fiery speech in the Parliament in razor-sharp English on how to fight fascism that went viral.
This is why I can't take so called liberals seriously and as an ally.
Opportunists such as Babul have no ideological basis for their politics. They will toe their party line. They are only in it for their self interests. Just like that ex AAP guy whose sloganeering sparked off a pogrom against Muslims in NE Delhi.
When someone joins a party, they will be given a warm welcome, irrespective of their history. Joining the party is seen as a form of "taubah." That is what all the celebration is about. When the tide changes, these turncoats will fall at the feet of the next ideology that dominates the corridors of power.
We are in a situation where we have to deal with the "now and present." We had 70 years to think about forming strategic alliances, and we missed the bus on that. We are now left to scramble to form tactical alliances, and this is why it is important to engage with anyone who is feeling threatened by the manuwadis.
Barelwi groups are also beginning to realize the need to assert themselves. A group of barelwi ulama protesting the recent public displays of blasphemy are feeling the heat of the sanghi establishment, and they cannot back down now because they have always projected themselves as the guardians of the Honor of the Prophet PBUH. I'm sure they will be amenable to any support they can get from any quarter. They have historically never clashed with the ruling dispensation, and the sanghis know this and will try to manipulate them, but the blasphemy issue is something the barelwis cannot compromise on because it threatens their very raison d'etre.
The Prophet PBUH formed a pact with even the Jews of Madinah, whose hypocrisy and machinations are second to none. This was obviously a tactical move given the serious conditions of the time. At the battle of Badr, the Prophet PBUH even beseeched Allah SWT that if these 313 are vanquished today, there will be no one left to carry the mantle of Islam.
So when the situation demands, then allying with even the openly treacherous seems to be from the wisdom of nubuwwah. The Jews were only punished because even after the Muslims of Madinah had established themselves politically and martially, the Jews persisted in their scheming and enmity.
So, this was in memoriam? I only finally got down to reading through this very lengthy post. Mr. Weinberg brings up the philosophical "explain" vs "describe" debate. As I understand it, "explain" can only be suitably tackled if humans accept the validity of divine revelation. Atheism can only "describe." It cannot "explain" because it leaves out the primary "Cause."
Thank you for this article, Professor Sahab. You post many gems. Sadly, few jewelers fare through these threads.
I'd have never known about the 1979 Nobel prize in physics if it weren't for this post.
So, this was in memorium? I only finally got down to reading through this very lengthy post. Mr. Weinberg brings up the philosophical "explain" vs "describe" debate. As I understand it, "explain" can only be suitably tackled if humans accept the validity of divine revelation. Atheism can only "describe." It cannot "explain" because it leaves out the primary "Cause."
Thank you for this article, Professor Sahab. You post many gems. Sadly, few jewelers fare through these threads.
I'd have never known about the 1979 Nobel prize in physics if it weren't for this post.
Indeed it was in memorium.
Now that you have read it I suppose I can write a few words explaining the relevance of this piece to this thread.
I am in Physics where I study, teach and research the type of things that Professor Steven Weinberg and Professor Abdus Salam did.
Physics has the nasty side effect of turning a person into an idealist.
And then the person is doomed forever to confront the reality. Idealism is cut-off from reality.
One route to get in touch with reality is to get in touch with the purpose of life.
Thus this thread is my attempt to get myself connected to reality. And hence get in touch with life and Islam.
Thus in this thread I post the things that I encounter in real life so as to get in touch with Islam.
In the beginning of this thread many brothers and sisters were puzzled by the lack of focus in this thread.
For me that was never the issue because of the explanation I have given above.
So how do I connect above piece by Steven Weinberg with reality, life and Islam?
Professor Weinberg was Jewish but atheistic.
Jewish people drive the research field that I work in today. These are incredible people in their pursuance of the research.
And we Muslims have Jewish people as part of our reality. Because of what the Zionists are doing to the Palestinian people.
The Zionists are completely protected by the US. That is because of the political influence the Jewish people have over the US.
Country wise it is the US that dominates all research fields of science (as well as humanities and social sciences.)
Remember Iqbal's observation, long before Jewish influence over the world politics became well known, that Jewish people control the European thought - Europe ki rag-e-jaan panja-e-Yahood mein hai.
Europe, read UK and France, has been replaced today by the US as the sole dominant super power.
And it is firmly under Jewish control.
Jewish people in my field of research are mostly very nice people. Of course many in the US privately complain that Jewish people have the attitude that they are the only ones doing real research work. Yet Jewish community does not come across as antagonistic.
Indeed a few decades ago there was a Palestinian professor in Birzeit university in the West Bank who had serious problems due to the Zionist authorities but a physicist from my discipline defended him successfully.
This physicist is the super star of our field and his name is Edward Witten.
About a decade before above episode late Professor Abdus Salam introduced Ashoke Sen and Edward Witten as the new stars.
Ashoke Sen is Indian super star in the same field.
Professor Abdus Salam loved my department a lot.
I teach a course on the theory behind the 1979 Nobel Prize every year.
So Salam and Weinberg are in my life in a big way.
Weinberg was not politically very savvy but he did have political views like being dead against Imam Ghazali.
Professor Salam on the other hand was religious and his views about Islam and Science are the most robust ones that I know of.
And he considered himself to be a Muslim. In fact in a talk he said that I am a Muslim and I invite you to Islam.
But he was an Ahmadi and Muslim world is unanimous that Ahmadis are not Muslims.
And my dear boy I have a problem at hand - to absorb this reality in my thought.
I am in science and I would like a smooth relationship of science with Islam.
Late Professor Salam already sorted out many of the serious issues in this context and I take full advantage of that.
Yet I still find it difficult to assimilate the conflicting inputs of his Ahmadism and Muslim decision on that.
Among Muslims I can very glibly assert that Ahmadis are not Muslims but this creates a problem for me among my Physics community about the status of Professor Abdus Salam.
It is because of such issues that above piece was posted in this thread.
Thank you for reading this and giving me the opportunity to explain above things.
Of course those who read my posts are in small numbers but most of the active members must be browsing through these because the moment I write a regular kind of post I do get reactions from brothers and sisters.
Of course the type of academic analysis I do is too heavy for most of the regular members. And I suppose I should give up modesty for a moment and opine that these are the type of things that are done at Harvard and Princeton.
But we Muslims too have to do these things because whatever is flowing out of great US universities has implications for us Muslims all over the world.
You've touched upon many important things in your post, Professor Sahab.
I'd like to comment on only one point presently. I hope to getting round to writing about the other points when time permits.
Dr. Abdus Salam was a Qadiyani, but he was a man of reason and logic and idealism, as you've explained that this is what being a physicist is all about.
I'm sure Dr. Abdus Salam did not get into the nitty gritty of Qadiyanism. He likely only approached Qadiyanism from the Qadiyani dawah that targets professionals and intellectuals. Here, at this stage, the dawah focuses only on the core teachings of Islam regarding monotheism, prophethood in its classical understanding, the miracle of the Quran, the day of Judgment, the Afterlife, promoting peace and harmony, and upholding humanity.
So, if anyone is impressed by these aspects of Qadiyani dawah, they are impressed only by the truth of Islam. Anyone affected by this dawah displays zeal to propagate these truths, which explains Dr Abdus Salam's enthusiasm of calling towards Islam.
It is only when a convert to Qadiyanism is viewed as a cash cow that they are pushed down the rabbit hole of adulation and deification of Mirza. I'm sure Dr Abdus Salam was not exposed to the literature of Mirza, or he would have spotted the imposter quite easily.
However, if Dr Abdus Salam did indeed view Mirza as a prophet, then we should resign ourselves to the fact that Allah Taala alone guides who He wills and leads astray who He wills, and He made Dr Abdus Salam a sign of ibrat for us, telling us that extraordinary intelligence is also not a sure guarantee to guidance, as Allah Taala demands devotion of hearts (qalbun saleem).
There will be many people who will pass away on apparent kufr, but the hadith tells us that Allah Taala alone knows what is in their hearts, and many people will ultimately be saved from the eternal fire because they have goodness in their hearts to the extent that only Allah Taala is aware of their goodness.
Muslim world faced in western colonialism the biggest tragedy after the tragedy of Mongol invasion about eight centuries ago.
Someone had remarked that Muslim world has not still come out of the trauma of Mongol devastation. I agree with this assessment.
And then there is the mighty tragedy of colonialism that we Muslims still have to extricate ourselves from.
And for us the Muslims of India there is this calamity of the Saffron onslaught that we have to deal with.
But what about Uzbekistan?
Central Asian Muslim republics that their own mighty tragedy of being gobbled up by the Czarist Russia and then passing into worse - the communist rule that tried all it could to stamp all traces of Islam out.
And then by the Grace of Allah SWT our brothers, the Mujahideen, beat the shit out of the USSR and it disintegrated it and the Muslim republics, and others, became independent.
From Indian perspective it looks like the things moved from nothingness of Czarist Russia to the nothingness of USSR and now to the nothingness of independent republic.
What is the ground reality?
It is teaming, bustling and frantically moving society as vibrant as any western democracy.
I got little bit of info on it from Pir Zulfiqar Ahmed Naqshbandi's travelogue called Lahore Se Ta Khak-e-Samarqand-o-Bukhara.
Some very committed Muslims managed to protect their Islam by extra ordinary sacrifices and thus by the Grace of Allah SWT at least in parts the society remains not only Muslim but even Islamic in parts.
Some of that is visible and can be experienced in this video of a western foodie.
Then we have some glimpses of some Uzbek fighters in Afghanistan.
I would like to know about the Uzbek attitude about the future of Muslim Ummah. How can that be found? Who can analyse that?
In above post I have linked a foodie's video to give a glimpse into Muslim society in Uzbekistan.
In fact food ranging can serve to give us an idea about the unity of Muslims Ummah.
There is a foodie by the name of Trevor James who has sampled food from all over the world including a large number of Muslim countries from Morocco to Malaysia.
His enthusiasm is infectious and he does not burden us with inane talk about recipes.
His videos give us a good sampling of cultural side of Islam.
So Muslims are eating good food from Morocco to Malaysia.
Is their weight falling on the side of Islam?
Are their entities inviting them to make their weight fall on the side of Islam?
Countries like India, Pakistan and Bangladesh came out of British imperialism and colonialism.
Pakistan was caught by the neck by the US to be a partner in their so called war on terror.
Only now Imran Khan is saying that Pakistan will not be a part of any war but peace only.
Indian Muslims are under brutal onslaught by the Saffron elements.
Bangladesh was born in resentment towards Pakistan and remains pathetically subservient to India.
The west as well as India, both Lib-Dems and the Saffronite, hate Taliban, terming them terrorists, because they call themselves Amarat-e-Shariah Afghanistan.
A brother had earlier pointed out that we should work out working relationship of co-operation with diverse groups like Lib-Dem Hindus, Barelwis, Shias, Salafis, Christians and Dalits.
This what has to be done. We live in an era where social groups have become politically active and their power and clout can neither be ignored nor wished away.
Indeed we realize that Taliban, after waiting for twenty years for the US to wear down, are not insisting for any compensation from the US for all the damage done to Afghanistan.
That is reality of life.
To make alliance and compromise with non-Muslim groups (including Shias) one has to make sacrifices too. Such sacrifices are usually of huge proportions.
In my limited capacity I lack the capability to make such huge sacrifices.
Basically I am at the end of my capabilities and capacity. And I mean intellectually and academically.
This does not mean that the problem is impossible to solve. No, not at all. Not in the least bit. In fact the problem is rather easy one but I simply am not the catalyst or the agent to do that. Even academically you need different people to do that.
Sadly the people who are in the field to do these compromises and to make these sacrifices are the wrong ones.
I'll give you an example.
Our university is politically very touchy one. There is social, cultural and academic burden of the motivation behind setting up of this university. As a result every professor thinks of himself as nothing sort of Salahuddin Ayyubi and the Vice Chancellor is usually the Amir-ul-Mumineen.
Our last Vice Chancellor, Gen Zamiruddin Shah, was a retired army General and a powerful one. He retired at the deputy chief of Indian army. But five of our students were killed during his tenure. Clearly the forces operating in the campus must be very strong to do such things.
Then comes the solution implemented by the present head. He made compromise with two most powerful groups operating in the campus delegating near complete powers to them.
That is not compromise, though sacrifice it is. This is surrender. I do not find this very wise.
I shall end this post by discussing the example of Barelwis.
I want to explain why a person like me is incapable of working out a collaboration with them.
Let us take their Buzurgs - the trouble began there, for example, enmity of Imam Ahmed Raza Khan Sahab with our Elders.
Let us take their Ulama - Imam Ahmed Raza Khan Sahab was an Alim and he gave such strong Fatawah that if you do not believe the Takfir done by him you were a Kafir. This creates problems for his followers. They can have no truck with us. That is why they refuse our Qayadat (leadership) and our Imamat.
Come to their Naatkhwan. They use most insulting words against us.
Come to their common man - they are most uneducated and arrogant.
They try to capture our Mosques. Even in my home town Dadri Barelwis captured a Mosque that was build by us.
I have not experienced it but I hear that in Gujrat a Barelwi auto driver will not take passengers if the trousers are above the ankle.
In Ghaziabad the then government built a Haj House and the Barelwis successfully campaigned to get it named after their Aala Hazrat.
I can go on and on but I suppose I have made my point. Barelwis are closest to us in formulation of Islam and unity of Ummah will benefit from having a collaboration with them but I am simply not the person with capabilities to do that.
The Salafis are even more nasty than the Barelwis when it comes to their behavior.
In their rejection of Sufism they have lost all traces of spirituality.
Many, many years ago I had a short, about twenty minutes, with a Salafi, who later on became Dean of Faculty of Theology of our university, on whether it valid to offer sacrifice of a buffalo on Eid-ul-Azha. His argument was against it but that is not my issue. He may believe what he wants. The problem was the sheer darkness of the vibes that emanated.
These are not the people with whom I would like to spend time. To collaborate you need to spend time together and thus I am incapable of forging an alliance not only with the Salafis and Ahl-e-Hadith but even the Jama-at-e-Islami people.
The trouble with the Jama-at-e-Islami people is their bloated importance to logic and reasoning.
Mashallah, Professor Sahab, these posts sum up our challenges very well.
I'm reminded of the malfoozat of Maulana Ilyas RA, a deeply spiritual man. He was required to interact with Muslims of all persuasions in his travels, and on his return, he would spend time in etikaf in the company of Hazrat Raipuri RA to wash away the effects of the "dark vibes" he experienced in his travel interactions.
Perhaps in this there is a lesson for us. We need to engage with these other groups, but also have a spiritual retreat where we can go to recharge our spirituality, and wash away the effects of the darkness we experience.
Also, in an article about Maulana Hussain Ahmad Madni RA, the writer told us that when in the company of Hazrat Madni RA, one could feel the power of his spirituality, and the writer says that this feeling was missing when he interacted with many other Muslim elders engaged in the freedom struggle. He specifically singled out Maulana Azad RA, and said that he did not feel the same spirituality from him that he felt when he was with Maulana Madni RA.
This cannot be undone and I am sure it will be greatly appreciated.
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