An Alternate Academia

I believe in hierarchies. This I mean in two ways, one, that hierarchies are part of existence, that is to say I believe in hierarchies in the same way as I believe in Sun, Moon, Pacific Ocean, and other things that exist, without ascribing the value of good or bad to them. This also means that I believe that some or the other forms of hierarchies will always exist. Two, that some hierarchies are good and need to be protected. In fact, the protection of such hierarchy is in itself justice. Justice is placing a thing at its right place, doing a thing as it should be done. Justice is placing above what should be placed above and below what should be placed below. God says in the Quran, “Will the ones that know be equal to the ones that don’t?”

In a recent discussion on engaging with academia, I presented a case for what something else we should do. The details of the discussion are beyond the scope of this writeup, I would disclose whatever needs to be from the discussion. The fact that I believe in hierarchies means that I believe an elite would always exist, and academia is one such elite. An elite divorced from the realities of life and society, but an elite nonetheless. Scholastic, philosophizing everything to the extent that the original problem is lost, but an elite nonetheless. Where we try to find our needle in the haystack, the academia builds a haystack to find its needle. Arguing how many angels can dance on the tip of a needle, but an elite nonetheless. Solving problems that it creates itself and often times unsuccessfully, elite nonetheless. The solution to every problem is complicated to the extent that in the face of the enormity of the task, one gives up on the solution. There would be to and fros in the newspapers, an endless barrage of jargon, the absolute futility of which is glaring. The only purpose it serves is giving a purpose to the lives of the most from among the academia; having convinced the masses of their absolute worthlessness and abject ignorance, they feed on masses both literally and metaphysically.

We can’t get rid of academia, for certain hierarchies will always exist. Moreover, we shouldn’t get rid of academia, for it is an elite that should exist. God says in the Quran, “Let there be a group amongst you that calls people to what is good, (which means calling to) what is customary* against what is an aberration.” What then is the solution we propose? One way is to reform academia from within. This is a solution that was proposed in the discussion. This is a fine and an acceptable way, but is it workable? I don’t think it is workable for two reasons. One, academia is a rigid, endogamous body that builds itself through exclusion of the non-members. When the very entry into its discourse is impossible for an outsider how can it be reformed from within? One might argue that even if it excludes non-members from its discussions and discourse, yet it is fluid enough to allow membership to anyone who is willing to undergo the process and fulfilling the criteria for membership is open to all. On a superficial analysis, this appears to be true, but a deeper analysis shows that it can not be any farther from truth. What are the criteria that one needs to fulfill to be part of academia? One may think that it is this or that degree, receiving proper education from your childhood to adulthood, writing papers following a particular method, being trained in a particular way, etc. Even if this is the case, it is not a good news at all. If such is the case we may well see the training as a process in indoctrination taking place from childhood to adulthood and when a person is “trained” in the ways of the master, the master takes him in, a tamed monkey to copy his masters, a speaking parrot repeating after his masters what they repeat from their erstwhile masters. While mere repetition in itself is not a problem in itself but who is being repeated and in what and what is being presented to masses. The bigger issue I see is that it is not just these few seemingly just criteria that are the membership criteria. The criteria go much beyond these. It is subscribing to the entire paradigm, and academia works within paradigms, leaving no space for any free thought or any improvement or any disagreement on fundamental issues. One can understand the importance of paradigms and one might further argue that academia, within it, has procedures and that paradigms do change, and indeed they have in the past. Once again, on a superficial analysis, one would see nothing wrong in this. This would be fine if the paradigm changes were random and the possibility of any paradigm was equally likely, provided a case was made for it. I believe this is not the case. While the paradigms change, they change according to a pattern, the metaparadigm stays the same and if we call the metaparadigm the actual paradigm, we may well say that change of paradigm has never taken place, we may well say that it is just not possible. Elsewhere, I write, “Any explanation that nullifies the need for a supernatural explanation is to be hailed as a discovery for having raised us above the medieval vulgarity of submission to the supernatural. It is to be hailed, for it liberates us from immaterial.” Paradigm shifts occur from one position of lesser separation from tradition to the place of more separation from it. Entire academia works on the principle of separation of church and state. It betrays trust in the possibility of inherent goodness of masses. It discards them as bagasse. Once it rejects them, it rejects all that they stand for. It turns them into a canvas to be painted, shaped by the imagination of the artist. It assumes that masses, their customs, their culture, their beliefs, all are inherently wrong. It rejects their God, it places itself in God’s place, asking people to worship it while worshiping it itself. Like a glutton, it devours knowledge, having no respect for it while it consumes it. Poisoned with this knowledge, it poisons everything.

This philosophical standpoint has huge repercussions how education and knowledge and study is done within academia, it is completely devoid of the supernatural. While we believe it is God that gives life, what is devoid of God is devoid of life, it is dead. Academia in this sense is dead. Even if one enters its gates with good intentions, it makes sure that he is convinced that he is wrong, his intentions bad, or his actions futile, his goals not worthwhile. The Godlessness of the entire space turns him into one of them, if he somehow sustains and if in the rarest of rare they can’t deal with him, they murder him. They name this intellectual murder “canceling” to downplay its enormity. If they can’t cancel you, they keep you at the fringes, where you neither live nor die. A fringe scholar to be thrown out, one who no one would remember once he is dead, his books not recommended, his works not read, his thesis not discussed and anyone who dares to do so met with the same hate. The academia convinces itself that it is a force for good, its actions just and its goals noble. Elsewhere, I write, “God only lets them increase in their sickness. It is only because of this that when they are told “don’t spread fitnah, don’t spread fasaad, don’t bring chaos to order, don’t bring down civilization, don’t destroy medina“, they reply “we are only reformers, peace makers, we are followers of Allah, Rasoolullah, Ali and Hussain”, while the truth is that they recognize none of them and know not that none of them stood for anything these people call to.” Indeed, they abhor Yazeed, but do they, they fail to perceive it, for their sight is veiled.

We might argue that even if such were the condition of the academia it is still reformable. Though it may take time but it will happen nonetheless. I personally subscribe to such line of thinking that good things take time, and I prefer evolutions in place of revolutions for fasaad fil ardh is a bigger problem than the one we have at hand. But if an alternate way exists, which solves the same problems without causing strife, we need to explore the possibility. The second reason I reject the reformation from within proposal is because of the existence of this second proposal. It solves the same problems, it solves them faster, it creates no fuss and turmoil, its chances of success much higher and it failure still profitable, it is democratic, market driven and good for all. It is within our hands to create an alternative to the academia, a parallel academia, thoroughly educated, properly trained, well built, healthy physically and spiritually that can hold the bull by its horns. An academia that refuses to use the institutions and services of the current academia creating, with time, its own institutions and services. This parallel academia becomes the new elite, replacing the one that exists. Like I said, the choice is not between elite and no elite, it is between good elite and bad elite. This solution is more pragmatic and workable for another reason. Most of all, who are discussing the reform of academia and proposing alternative solutions are from outside academia. For such outsiders it is difficult to restart from the beginning so that they make a place in the academia; and those that are inside are very difficult to motivate for change, and of course why would they listen to someone from outside academia? Such outsiders who want reform, the academia cancels them, the newspapers don’t publish them, if they are called to an interview or a panel it is only to ridicule them by pointing out that they know little or nothing. This is done through the use of jargons, “do you know this”, “do you know that”, “do you have any clue about hermeneutics”, …metaphysics….ontology….sub-concious. They are asked the meanings of the jargons which the academia use to trick people into believing they understand while they themselves understand them not. Ask the physicists what “time” is, which is so fundamental to understanding most of mechanics and by extension Physics, and you would see them stutter. Bob Marley explains this condition beautifully, “Scholars teach in Universities and claim that they’re smart and cunning. Tell them to find a cure when we sneeze, and that’s when their nose start running………..The Earth was flat if you went too far, you would fall off. Now the Earth is round, if the shape change again, everybody woulda start laugh”. Ask them about this “subconscious” and “unconscious” they talk about and that is when their nose starts running, and see to the fact that they wont allow you to speak about rooh.

Can an alternate academia be created at all? It is already there! Academia has monopolized knowledge and taken it away from its rightful owners, sidelining it into non-existence. The ownership needs to be restored. How dare the Urdu professor tell me that I don’t understand Ghalib! He has spent his life, burnt midnight oil, and delved deep into the intricacies of Ghalib’s language for all his life and he is therefore “eligible” while I am not. Let us refuse this premise. It is entirely possible that seeing he see not, hearing he hears not and never will he understand, he sees the trees, he ignores the forest, he gives a tenth of his spices–mint, dill and cumin but neglects the more important matters of justice, mercy, faithfulness, love, companionship and self. He knows all the intricacies of grammar and rhetoric but can’t speak a word of truth. He speaks of Ghalib and has never fallen in love. He would strain out a gnat but swallow a camel. He cleans the outside of the cup and dish, but inside he is full of greed and self-indulgence. He is like the whitewashed tomb, beautiful outside but on the inside is a dead man’s bones and everything unclean. Midnights oil for understanding alliteration and onomatopoeia is in no way equal to understanding Ghalib! What about the one who burnt his heart out, spent his life crying all nights in longing for his bellowed. While your candle was burning, his was extinguished by the tears that fell. They know the ism, the fail, the alankar and the metaphor in “qaid e hayat o bandhe gham“, the separated lover is in “qaid e hayat” and “bandhe gham”. How dare the psychologist and the neurologist tell Ranjha that he understands love not! How dare the feminist tell Meera she understands love not! Who understands love better the one who says “rāñjhā rāñjhā kar dī nī maiñ aape rāñjhā hoī, saddo nī mainūñ dhīdo rāñjhā hiir nā aakho koī” or the one who sees few milliliters of change in oxytocin, dopamine, serotonin, vasopressin etc.? To such experts of Quran our Alamdar tells “Quran paraan konu moodukh, Quran paraan konu goi soor. Quran paraan zinda kati roodukh, Quran paran dodh manzoor”. If his is not the state of Mansoor, he doesn’t understand yet, period!

The academia gives out an aura of knowledge and expertise. When you quote Alamdar to it, he brings his Alamdar expert, you respond with an idiom in Kashmiri language, he brings in his linguistics expert, you quote the Quran, he brings hermeneutics expert, you explain your experience, he brings a neurology and psychology expert. Expert! Expert! Expert! Expert! Expert! His insistence is that none should speak, for none is all of these! So high are the supposed credentials of the ones that should speak that none at all is ever able to reach it, while he himself continues to speak. The one that is already expert of it all, Allah, has no space in their academia. By denying us the right to speak, the academia reserves the right for itself. This usurping has repercussions on knowledge in itself, the character it will hold, and the character it will build. When kids are made averse to every knowledge outside academia they listen to none, challenge legitimate authority, disrespect collective wisdom, generational values and everything else that the non-academia stands for. The purpose of knowledge is affecting one’s being, it isn’t about knowing the exoskeleton, metaphysics has to keep pace with epistemology, and indeed it does. Bad epistemic roots create bad people and bad academia. Bad being creates bad epistemology and bad people and bad academia. The majority of them don’t possess the intellectual, spiritual and linguistic prerequisites for knowledge to take place. In this way their knowledge is actually at a bare minimum.

This is grave injustice, the existing academia doesn’t have the tools to understand what it claims to teach. This extends to all the sciences within the scope of modern academic institution but its presence is very clear in social sciences and humanities departments. Take the example of poetry teaching, we can all understand that Alamdar wasn’t reciting his poetry in vacuum. He and his disciples must have had a common vocabulary, phrases and sentences which would mean something special to them than their apparent meaning to us. For example, I use “Eat my noodles” in a particular way which those of you who listen to my longer live sessions regularly would understand to mean something entirely different from eating my noodles, they would understand it means serving a person my thoughts. You call her “pumpkin” she understands, language means whatever it means in the game it is part of. Hazrat Aisha would ask the Prophet (saw) how the knot was and he would respond that it was strong as ever, who could have understood what it meant but the two. Meanings, real intended meanings, often go beyond the literal or surface meaning. Acquiring such meaning requires a deeper level of spiritual insight, symbolism that the speakers and his addressees were aware of, and the metaphors which they had framed. Knowing language can’t open the doors to such intended meanings. Knowing the intended meaning is only possible within the tradition of the school. The people who have acquired direct knowledge from the teacher can confirm. What this means is that the real meaning remains hidden , remaining with those that have the access to knowledge face to face, seena ba seena, who are well learnt in the tradition and it is often common masses. Well learnt in understanding Alamdar’s poetry would not mean knowledge of Kashmiri but knowledge of what Alamdar possessed and shared with us. Knowledge here means to be to some extent what Alamdar wars, it means to have the gifts he had to some degree., understanding what he had understood. In that case you may understand that Ghalib may better be taught by a lover than by an Urdu expert, Iqbal by a Sufi revolutionary than by an Urdu expert, Keats by a romantic than by an English expert and Kalam e Sheikhul Alam by a Rishi Sufi Buzurg than by a Kashmiri expert, even an average spiritually sound traditional living Kashmiri would do a better job. This we say to bring home the point that the academia is no academia and the alternate academia already exists.

At the highest levels, words are incapable of carrying meaning, instead they limit meaning, so do all the rules the academia have developed. How are we to know what, for example, Alamdar meant and what he was feeling himself? What his state of being was, he put in words, this state of being is his alone, only he knows what it felt like to be Alamdar at that particular moment. Thus the ultimately real meanings remains hidden from all of us. The Kashmiri expert can’t know it. When I say I love you or I am hungry, that exact feeling, that exact state of being is my alone, I alone feel that feeling from among all the creation of the world, is there no way for you to know then? To know what I feel, you have to become me! To know what Alamdar says become one with Alamdar. How do you become one when you are distinct? What makes you distinct annhilate that! You destroy your distinctness, your “self”, self gives you identity, self makes you distinct, destroy your “self”. Only Alamdar’s “self” knows the meaning, your self merges with his. Man tu shudam tu man shudi, man tan shudam tu jaan shudi, Taakas na guyad baad azeen, man deegaram tu deegari, No one should now say that you are one and he is another. I have become you, and you me, I am the body, you soul; So that no one can say hereafter, that you are someone, and me someone else.” These are matters of being, not just of knowledge. Understanding itself depends upon one’s state. The academia neither believes in anything called “being” it doesn’t work on it, it doesn’t have tools to deal with it, even if it were willing to. There is the first mundane level the translation and the literal meaning derived by using poetic devices, which the best of the academia know, then there is the inner meaning, the wisdom derived from its meaning as a whole, some academicians might know this and then the inner of the inner which the students within the tradition can know and finally the most hidden and the real which the speaker himself knows. With every stage of knowledge is a state of being, the level of one’s wisdom. The training of being is outside the purview of modern academia. We may say that no learning takes place within the academia. In fact, academia denies self, it denies any such “being”. It hides behind Kant, rides analytical and positivist waves and ignores the very basic experience which all of us collectively share. What is a being without a “soul”? Dead! This academia is spiritually dead, its classrooms spiritually dead, its halls and curricula spiritually dead and it produces what is dead! Someone had to say it, I said it! What will academia respond with? Indifference! And its indifference is a sign of the death of its heart. But we are alive, and we believe we know a thing or two and there are among us people who are well learnt, not the way the modern academia thinks, we have an alternate live academia. They serve the purpose academia should actually serve and also force it to engage with real knowledge and real knowledgeable people whose beings live what the words say, who become one with Alamdar when they read his Shrukh without the academic jargon associated with it.

On this indifference of academia one may say that academia can’t engage with everything and everyone. The criteria for engagement that the academia use, one may say, are good and necessary or else anyone would end up saying anything and that the academia would have to engage with everyone which is practically impossible. This line of thinking rests on the premise that only an expert of the field should or can speak on the field. This principle once again on the very face of it appears to be simple and straightforward and worthy of following, but is the academia true to it? Are people within academia really endowed with the tools that make a solid academician? To start with academia doesn’t have tools that can make a solid student of knowledge. This, once again, has to do with the idea of “being” and the levelling of all knowledge to one. I paraphrase what Naquib al Attas talks about in his “Islam and Secularism”. The modern academia derive their inspiration from the West, the categories of thought they apply on whatever they wish to understands are derived from the same flawed epistemic principles upon which the entire western cannon rests. The best among them is then the most flawed in his understanding. Modern scholars no longer understand the meaning of the great words of wisdom, they therefore refuse to listen and pay attention to traditional wisdom, they hang out with their Western Masters, both literally and figuratively, in all of the branches of knowledge of the sciences, particularly in human sciences. They level all knowledge to one creating confusion between the knowledge that is necessary (fardu’ayn), upon which rests the other, and what isn’t necessary (fardu kifayah). Without the knowledge of what is necessary, all other knowledge seizes to be knowledge proper, for the very interpretation of the later one must have the former. For ripple to be interpreted as sound a concsious human has to exist similarly for knowledge proper to take place certain prerequisites have to be met. This shows knowledge, like being is hierarchical. This is the reason why modern academia isn’t holder of knowledge proper at all.

If we pause for a moment and analyze further whether the rule of expertise is actually followed, we find great trespasses happening. Any discourse that runs cannot run in an absolute vacuum. Whatever is said has, for example, a social angle, how many of our academics are endowed with thorough knowledge of social sciences in general and sociology in particular? Speaking of sociology, since positivism creeped in it, it has been at loggerheads with Islamic interpretations, how many of our academics have a thorough understanding of Islam? Speaking of Islam, Imam Ghazali argues in his Mustasfa that for thorough understanding of jurisprudence one needs to have knowledge of philosophy (I am generalizing logic to mean entire Philosophy) and first principles, how many of our academics possess that? Most academicians behave like lab rats groomed for a particular purpose, the era of generalists is gone, the era of polymaths is gone. If such is the case that the academicians are specialists, and they proudly acknowledge that, and that the fact is that whatever one speaks of has repercussions everywhere else, is it not true then that the academician isn’t an expert as well of what he chooses to speak of? Should not the academicians limit their discourse to academic papers and conferences? Should not all education then be purely vocational, because the interface between academicians and students is too big to be ignored, for what our kids learn in Quantum Mechanics has an effect on how they view reality, how they are taught sociology or political science, that has an effect on how they view the structure of their family and how they stand in it. Are not the students, returning from these labs called universities, often inimical to almost everything in the society precisely because of this reason? And to raise the argument to its highest level, who is academia? Most of what is academia is filled with people with absolutely no clue about what is happening and that too in their own fields. How many of our academicians fill in the description of the buzurgi which we expect from a man of knowledge? Where does academia stand relative to the moral character of what is expected from a man of knowledge? I don’t claim a greater moral pedestal for myself either, I am surely lacking, but I am not claiming for myself the knowledge that I don’t possess, and I am not proud of it either.

There surely are good people within academia that many of us have met and engaged with. The good ones have stopped being modern academia at all in the real sense of the term. We can look at these individuals from two angles, or should we say that such academicians can be grouped in two groups. One of these is just going on with their job aware of the futility of it all, trying to make a living, helping their family and students and societies in whatever ways they can. These are people who are asleep, they need to be awakened. Their intentions are noble and their hearts alive and when truth is spoked to them they recognize it like a child recognizes his mother, they embrace it like a baby embraces his mother’s breast with both hands and works on it sustaining himself with whatever comes out of it. They become the alternate academia. Then there is those who are aware of the truth as well. These are the alternate academia who choose the first solution – the solution we discussed earlier, the solution that we acknowledge as well. They work within the academia trying their best to change its character from a factory that produces labor force to a warm place like that of a mother’s womb that creates life. We wish them success and we wish they are successful so that we see the futility of creating an alternate academia sooner than later and on their good intentions we trust and may be they see the futility of what they are doing. Their purpose and the alternate academia’s purpose is the same, the betterment of human condition, both here and hereafter, to uplift the downtrodden, to fortify faith, to alleviate suffering, to calm nerves, to cure hearts and they both are seeking knowledge from God, they both have left home in the search of knowledge, and the Prophet (saw) said that the ones who leave their home in the search of knowledge, walk in the path of Allah. That being said, we must acknowledge that the overwhelming majority of academicians is such as we have described earlier and the term “academia” as used in this paper is reserved for them.

This also brings us to another aspect of the alternate academia, how do they work, where do they exist etc. It is to be understood that alternate academia isn’t a breakaway academia. It is more of a psychological state than a physical being. These are same people as the current academia but rooted in tradition, rooted in true being, standing on a different metaphysical and epistemic ground. Their senses in service of their inner being. Their knowledge deployed according to priorities of human soul, state and society, well trained in the knowledge of the necessary – the fard ayn. The entire edifice of their knowledge is constructed on this knowledge of the necessary. They possess thorough knowledge of the prerequisites of all knowledge – logic, grammar, rhetoric. They understand the purpose of knowledge, the very reason why one involves in education i.e. deen. They understand the scope of knowledge which is man himself – insan. They understand the content and construction of knowledge itself – ilm and marifah. They understand the relation of man and the content of knowledge so as to derive its application – hikmah. They understand the deployment of knowledge in relation to hikmah, arriving at the state of justice – adl. They understand the method of all of this – adab. And finally the form of implementation in relation to all of these, the university – kulliyyah-jamiah.** It is in this way they construct themselves, their university is a place where individuals through proper etiquette learn to do justice through knowledge employed with wisdom so that a complete individual emerges out of the system fulfilling the purpose for which his creator has made him. In such a harmonious system, their economics is not in contradiction with societal ethics, their anthropology not at loggerheads with religion, their sociology not opposed to their culture, they possess the knowledge of the universal. They trust human capacities, acknowledge its limits as well, they seek knowledge from the people who actually possess it, their external in sync with their internal. Their knowledge of what is apparent in sync with what is hidden. They don’t devour knowledge as if it were lying there just to possess it having no respect for it, the way a criminal has no respect for his victim who he uses as a means for his own sake. They solve human problems, uphold human life, they enliven hearts, they enjoin what is right and forbid what is wrong. They don’t destroy, they construct. They love and are loved.

Oh! The Academia of today! You have no clue what would hit you, or should I say, what has hit you already – the men of real knowledge and thorough being – Ghalib has met the Urdu professor. It is a hot coal that can’t be thrown out or taken in, it is stuck in the esophagus, choking and burning, how is he going to explain to Ghalib what Ghalib meant! They explain, they lose, they don’t, they lose. With masses is the space that they have given up, and it is there the alternate academia makes its palace. The alternate academia serves the purpose of the inner being of a human, his self, his society, his state. What does the current academia do now? They have to enter the masses, and that is how they lose their character, and in their doing so is our victory. Even if the alternate academia loses, in getting beaten on its own turf is its victory, for it would not be about winning and losing but about embracing as its own the prodigal son that once had left home. However, don’t you dare think that the modern academia would beat the alternate academia. They wont engage it! It is below their self to do so. In fact they would have nothing but rage for it. They hate it! If Ghalib were living, they would have hated him and called his character petty, and then once he is dead, they take his diwan, denying its rightful owners their ownership, and teach it. They would have hated Friedrich Nietzche and Soren Keirkegaard in the eras when they spoke, and now they latch on to them and keep them home and allow no one access to them. They are Kierkegaard experts but afraid of skating across the thin ice to lift the diamond stranded in the middle of the frozen sea. They make it a spectacle, a spectacle of words, while daring not acquire and rescue it, they put it in tightly knit prose that they call art, but art it is not, it is a fart, it creates loud sound and nauseates everyone if in closed spaces while vanishing in thin air in open spaces with nothing but shame to remain and a relief in his core which is his intestine, he posses no heart to give relief to. All of their work is such art, all of their art is nothing but a fart! Loud, smelly, and no one willing to own it!

* Customary here means what are the established practices of a Muslim society. Maroof comes from the word “urf” which means custom and things are recognized (taaruf) by what custom recognizes them as and such recognition directs our actions and behavior with respect to them.
** This has been taken from Muhammad Al Naquib al Attas’s work published as Islam and Secularism.