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Holding Pride in Ancient Science
More than anyone else, I am fairly certain in my personal assessment that Muslims and Hindus hold huge pride in their ancient achievements. Each one claims to be the genesis of modern civilization and root of all modern knowledge. Irony dies a million deaths when we see the state of affairs in both the Muslim and Hindu nation, holding pride in Camel Urine and Cow Urine respectively and discovering medicinal benefits in Zam Zam Water and Ganges Water respectively, yet not able to sort out public health issues in their respctive nations. Understand the fact that everything that we know today and study in science is not a product of…
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Culture, Religion and the Modern Muslim Man
The rising influence of the Western ways, visible through minuscule injections in our society of foreign conceptions like materialism, skepticism, modernism, feminism, agnosticism, invariably ending in atheism, hedonism and nihilism, has to be seen as a common Muslim’s revenge on the conception of religion and culture amongst us which has, in many ways, moved away from the realities of life. When hurdles are placed in the path of the natural conception of life, a conception of the life in line with fitrah, life rebels, seeks revenge. When the natural desires and legitimate endeavors of man are suppressed, his nature puts up a resistance that invariably ends up in defiance. This…
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Building a Progressive Society
The world today stands at that vulnerable point where Fascism and its parallel ideologies are being appreciated. Politicians, political parties, reformers, modernists, conservatives, traditionalists are all equally riding waves of propaganda and are winning elections or public support. Humanity is being manipulated to accept as reality what may be poles apart from actually being so. Myths are taken as truths, fake news and propaganda make rounds on social media networks like Facebook and Whatsapp every day. What is more worrying is that people with “understanding” having undergone proper modern education from schools and colleges and Universities are being part of it. What then is wrong with the society, or the…
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Instruction of the Student – Imam Zarnuji
Burhan al-Din al-Zarnuji (d. 620 AH/1223 CE), a Muslim scholar, is the author of the celebrated pedagogical work Ta’līm al-Muta’allim-Ṭarīq at-Ta’-allum (Instruction of the Student: The Method of Learning). We took the book for our reading sessions. The following summary would be helpful for the ones who have read the text or joined us in the sessions. These bullets can help in reminding what is already learned, this cannot replace a teacher or the text. Foreword by Hamza Yusuf: Islamic Community is Rooted in Adab. Adab is knowing ones place in hierarchy. Argument for hierarchy “Are they the same – those who know and those who do not” (39:9). “I…
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Enlightenment or Unenlightenment of our Nature – Plato
Following is taken from Plato’s Republic Book VII (translated by C. D. C. Reeve) SOCRATES: Next, then, compare the effect of education and that of the lack of it on our nature to an experience like this. Imagine human beings living in an underground, cavelike dwelling, with an entrance a long way up that is open to the light and as wide as the cave itself. They have been there since childhood, with their necks and legs fettered, so that they are fixed in the same place, able to see only in front of them because their fetter prevents them from turning their heads around. Light is provided by a…
Renaissance, Reformation, Enlightenment
