Islamic Education, Madrassah Reform, Rationality and Dawkins

Naqsh (#39),

Tariq Ramadan is anther goon trying to repackage the same age-old crap in a different box when by demanding a moratorium on killing apostates and adulterers.

Tariq Sahib is playing up to the ullema by validating such barbarism, while trying to appease modernists by a providing a lame argument … that such punishments are no longer needed and are almost never carried out. He is basically an academic transvestite who lacks galls and is merely dancing around the issue. He is another moron who deserves to be flogged in public, if anything.

You yourself prove to be a fanatic … when you insist that you “don’t support such punishments (killing a person for apostasy, adultery etc.) in current age”.

You may as well argue that Islam is aging out of relevance. That view I can respect. But you too are dancing around the issue ... while pushing the same crap that has led ummah to social decay all across the globe.

kulharee (#36):

I don’t think it is a matter of ‘likelihood’ or ‘probability’. That is, shoving more Muslims through formal education will not necessarily produce enlightened Muslims. A monkey can learn all the tricks, but it is a monkey after all.

It is a ’garbage in, garbage out’ scenario … since ’garbage’ is what gets injected into their minds from the very start. All formal education that follows simply serves to divorce a madrassah-educated goon from reason, sense, and civility. Unable to reconcile faith with reason, he starts to box them into different compartments.

It all goes downhill from that point on. Appealing to his senses is futile. He simply fails to see the absurdity of stoning an adulteress … and sheer silliness of believing in a prophet residing above clouds. What follows is a culture of blind faith and violent ideology that ledads to social decay at all levels.

masadi mian it dont matter. religion is dead. all this talk is crap. dump the middle mumbo-jumbo its a dead end.

the west has moved years ahead and you will never catch up with this attitude.

#44 by masadi on November 30, 2006 9:50am PT


with no empirical evidence that such ``different life`` is even possible.


A believer in the infallibility of the koran asking for empirical evidence?

do you have any empirical evidence that allah exists?

In addition to #45, let me also remind you that when you hold the existence of Allah dependent upon a human being, i.e. the prophet, you are outside the realm of Islam, that is why your faith is doubly worthless, you are a plain simple idolator like the rat god worshippers here.

Naqshbandi writes <<< `Tell the accursed one (i.e. Satan), that I believe in God without proof!`` At this Satan vanished. >>>>

Nice meaningless, worthless tale. Tell me how is belief in Allah without proof any more valid than believing that a rat god created the world? And before you begin telling me how, might I remind you that you are using reason and logic, because there is no other way humans can communicate meaningfully, to prove that ``reason and logic`` are worthless. Your ``faith`` is worthless because it is based on , ``I believe in x because y said so``. Might I suggest that with such worthless reasoning abilities you keep your recommendations to yourself because we have enough of such bs going around the Muslim world already.

Arjun writes <<< the conditions on earth are perfect to sustain life as we know it..if the conditions were different, the life would be different... >>>

That wasn`t me speaking but a world renowned physicist and when he talks about ``balance`` he is talking about the constants necessary for the universe to evolve in the way it did in order to permit life. By the way, you talk about ``different life`` with no empirical evidence that such ``different life`` is even possible. You give a brand new meaning to the term ``macaca mentality``. Keep it up.

Re: # 42
[...Pakistan should be a secular country just like India....]

uh-hh... this is not gonna to go down well with YLH... the freak is going to freak out...

Where is YLH anyway?...

Please, spare Pakistan. Enough of Islam, Islam, Islam saga. Pakistan doesn`t need any Islamic education. All this country needs to be freed from clutches of dirty and mad Islamic mullahs with NO Islamic teachings in school at all.

If, you repeat this Islamic mantra, it should be at your homes Not in public. Pakistan should be a secular country just like India.

``It is better to be irrational and happy than rational and unhappy`` -- A C Clarke :-)

Re: # 34

please see my reply to 38. As for Malaysia, I think it is a good model for other
Muslim nations to follow. I do not support complete materialisation, rather it is a balance I seek.

I`m sure this Haji was a much better person than I.

Re: # 27

I don`t support such punishments in the current age. I think, like Dr. Tariq Ramadan, that there should be a moratarium on all hudood laws.

http://www.tariqramadan.com/call.php3?id_article=264&lang=en

I also disagree with those Muslims like Zakir Naik who try to `find` scientific facts in the Koran!

First of all the aim of this article was not really to prove whether or not one can know the existence of God using methods of rationality--and interesting though such a discussion is for intellectual purposes, it is not really the reason why I wrote this article. It was ways to make Islamic education more relevant to the modern age so as to help the problems of the Muslim world. It was aimed at the middle ground between complete rejection of religion for all practical purposes (or watering it down so much that it amounts to the same thing) as has happened in Europe and parts of the US, which has led to social problems, to the other extreme of Wahabism or the Christian fundos where religion controls every aspect of life--even to the point of being ridiculous. I`m saying, don`t throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Masadi: you are ignorant of Imam Ghazali if you believe he Christianised Islam. He struck a balance between the complete rationalisation of the Mutazilites and the extreme literalism of the Zahirites and he reconciled for ever orthodoxy with sufism. And he showed the logical errors in his opponents arguments using their own philosophical methods. A part of this he came to the conclusion that one cannot prove beyond any doubt, God`s existence or non-existence via purely rational arguments. He then had a nervous breakdown as a result and left his professorial post to become a wandering dervish, finally finding the certainty he saught in the sufi path.
after this ten year period of wandering he then returned to teaching, writing his masterpiece Ihya Ulum al Din as a result.

As for the question of whether I believe ulama should play a role in politics then it is no. In that sense I am for secularisation of Islamic countries. The aim of the ulama should be the moral and spiritual guidance of people.

I think the Muslim countries need to invest heavily in scientific education en masse but this article is about the madrassahs.

Personally, I believe in Allah simply because the Beloved Prophet told me He exists. It`s that simple. One of the reasons I read Dawkins book was to test my Faith! If the words of an atheist scientist could shake it, it wouldn`t be much of a faith! I`ll tell a little story to illustrate.

When the great scholar, philosopher, scientist and sufi Fakhr al Din al-Razi was dying, Satan came to him and asked him why he believed in God. Razi gave Satan a logical argument for God`s existence. Satan refuted his argument. Razi gave 100 such arguments and Satan refuted them all. Then Razi heard the voice of his spiritual guide who said to him, `Tell the accursed one (i.e. Satan), that I believe in God without proof!`` At this Satan vanished.

***
My aim is to seek a balm for the ills of the Muslims in this world. So my metaphysical beliefs etc. are immaterial.

Re: # 27
I agree with you Sattar Sahib, but I believe that the likelihood of someone with college education of believing in cock and bull stories such as a man taking a pony to skies and back, or a dead man descending down from skies and landing atop a white minaret in Damascus, will be minimal. Other than that, you have valid points. I wholeheartedly agree that education does not always make a man.

i have a low-faluting question. how much do madrasa teachers get paid? do they have any pension? a regular pereson with a BA-B.Ed etc who is qualified to teach ``normal`` courses arpires for a regular salary (no, halwa is not a proper substitute) and hopefully a pension, and perhaps might not want to teach in a madrasa. is there a social double-standard aka hypocrisy perhaps at play? meethinks if ``normal`` schools were available, masses would flock to them and madrassas will become sunday schools...no complicated Ijtehad etc is needed. once a populance (esp the women who will coach the next gen) is educated in some worldly languages, and tools of math and science, they are FREE to figure things out without any elite defining it out for them. i mean the proudest affluent members of islam would not hesitate to go to St. Patrick or Bacon House (if such a school existed).