A Critique of Philosophical Thought in Pakistan

The mind-body dualism of the Enlightenment in Europe has produced many errors in the way we conceive of what we ordinarily understand ``the realm of thoughts and ideas`` to consist in. The first most important error was the assimilation of the Intellect with the Soul, broadly speaking, or the tacit replacement of the classic ternary of spiritus, animus and corpus, as clarified by the Scholastics, with a vulgarised dualism between the rational faculty and the body. Muslim intellectuals have become a hardened lot in the last few centuries upon more frequent contact with European civilisation. Some have ridiculed it while others have opened their arms to all of its terrestrial productions. Muslim intellectuals, forever torn between impish imitation and fundamentalist self-conceit, have largely failed to elucidate the way in which genuine Islamic firasa (discernment) is learned through the experience of life itself. The sin of ``intellectualism`` does not therefore consist in the flagrant display of narcissitic self-concerns but in the inability to perceive objects as they stand in relation to the perceiving subject. The Islamic world cannot learn from ``muslim intellectuals`` and vice versa. The Islamic World is in no need of justification or defence in circumstances where the insight of the one-eyed is given unparalled authority to speak in the name of truth or justice. The visceral identity of home-grown professional Muslims is self-contradictory on account of its myopia.

Unless we have freedom of speech, freedom of political thought, law and order, freedom of practising religion, we will continue doing what we are ordered to do. So there is no real point of discussing the development of philosophical thought in Pakistan because all disciplines relating to social sciences have been manipulated and abused by the power brokers and ``Islamic saviors``. We need to realize that religion and philosophies cannot be imposed on an individual. Until that principle is implemented, there is no real point of discussing this topic.

razijaffery:

It`s good that you at least realized that I did not write the article frivolously. You say I missed your point completely. I don`t believe that I missed any of your points. You wanted to see if science or some kind of science can emerge from Islamic spirit or essence. I said the hard science (physics, chemistry, etc.) is independent of religion. Social sciences, yes. They are a fertile field for Islamization.

Whether I see your other points or not, I think Islamization of science is a wholly unproductive exercise. You want to do it, I don`t have any problem but I cannot appreciate it. When you or others have accomplished Islamization of any science, I will love to see it for the sake of my own curiousity. I might learn something new. Wishing you well,

Mohammad Gill

Dear Mohammad,

Honestly, you have completely missed the point. I repeat again, I never challenged your background in philosophy and what we are doing here, insofar as I understand it, is healthy discussion on issues that we all think about. I am sorry but you did not respond to a single question that I raised and I don`t know what to say now. I made my questions quite specific. Perhaps you chose not to. Wallahu `alam. It does not matter whether we are eastern, western or Islamic. What I was pointing out were ideas, assumptions and all you have dealt with in your response in cliches, labels and euphesims.

At the least please do not think I was attacking you or questioning your knowledge. We all have limitations to what we know, I might have more than you and perhaps I do. I wanted to contribute to this important question that you have raised but perhaps ended up upsetting you. Astaghfurullah.

Mr. razijaffery:

I’ll try to comment on both of your posts (Islamization and Philosophy in Pakistan) hereunder although the response is not very systematic. A systematic response, I had posted earlier.

You have given me an inkling that you have taken courses in philosophy so I assume that you are a philosopher. I do not know whether it’s your main calling (you may be a scientist for all that I know) or not but that doesn’t matter at all.

As far as I am concerned, I am a civil engineer. I did my Ph.D. in Hydraulics at Imperial College of Science and Technology, London, UK. I never constrained myself to only engineering although that’s what I mainly did between 1968 and 1990. When you’re involved in research work you’ve to devote most of your time to the problems on which you’re working. That is my excuse for devoting almost all of my time to Hydraulics in the twenty two years from 1968 to 1990.

I have delved in many other things in my life and philosophy is one of them. I am not a professional philosopher and I did not criticize Pakistani philosophers because I pathologically hated them or hated Islamic metaphysics. To me it is a field of knowledge not the whole entire substance of knowledge. My point was that if you are a professional philosopher, why restrict your scope only to Islamic philosophy?

To you and many others, ‘west’ and ‘western’ are bug words, which they should not be. One of the Prophet’s hadiths enjoined upon the Muslims to go even to China in pursuit of knowledge. You need not go to China in pursuit of Islamic knowledge because logically the Islamic world should be its fountainhead. It was “other” knowledge that the prophet was alluding to.

When some of the readers comment on my works, they start criticizing me personally and my western knowledge. I have carefully read your posts; all the names that you have quoted therein are western excepting Nasr and Ibn Rushd (Averroes). In the bottom line in one of your posts, you asked me if I had read the works of Wolfgang Smith? I suppose, he is from the west. I do not know which school you were in at the time of your philosophy seminar when Iraq was invaded. Was it in the west? The greatest philosopher and the intellectual founder of Pakistan, Allama Iqbal, got his Ph.D. from Germany. One of the Islamic passionate preachers whom I knew from Nigeria, and who is quite renowned in the Islamic circles for his preaching, received his Ph.D. from Professor Arberry of Cambridge University, UK, and he was proud of it. Consider our plight; the western universities are offering Ph.D.’s in Islamic Studies and those Muslims who receive them are proud of the fact. We should be teaching Islam to these Oriental scholars although I don’t mean to demean them. They are quite knowledgeable in our religion.

I live in the west (U.S.) and I am a westerner for that very reason, if nothing else. I was born in India, had Pakistani nationality for 30 years and was (am) proud of it. I have Islamic sub-stratum in my intellectual make up and I am proud of it.

I have read quite a bit in Islamic philosophy although I do not have any academic degree in it. I have in my personal library ‘A History of Muslim Philosophy’, ed. by Professor M.M. Sharif (Prof. Nasr contributed several chapters in it), “A History of Islamic Philosophy” by Majid Fakhry,
al-Ghazali’s ‘Tahafut-al-Falsfah’ (Incoherence of the Philosophers), Ibn Rushd’s rebuttal of al-Ghazali, “The Incoherence of the Incoherence of the Philosophers”, Iqbal’s “The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam”, “al- Beiruni’s India” (although I haven’t read much of it), Iqbal on “The Development of Metaphysics in Persia“ and several other works. I have several books by Ghulam Ahmed Pervaiz on liberalizing Islam also. I have read most of them; some of them selectively.

On western philosophy, I own Russell’s “A History of Western Philosophy”, and many of his other works, I have a few books written by Karl Popper, Hume, Mills, Kant (although I find it very difficult to really understand some of his philosophy without getting help from other sources), “An Essay Concerning Human Understanding” by John Locke (I have read it only selectively), books by Thomas Kuhn, Paul Feyerabend and many others. I have several books on philosophy of science. I have Iqbal’s “Kulliyat, both Urdu and Persian”, “Diwan-e- Hafiz”, etc. etc.

I am not writing all this to present my resume’ here. In case, there is any doubt anywhere that I wrote these articles superficially, I want to assure you that that is not the case. I am not Islamo-phobic either. I am concerned about our backwardness. I want to confront the causes of our backwardness, not to rationalize them.

I am concerned when I don’t find a single philosopher of science in Pakistan who has published some original critical work. There was not a single logical positivist in Pakistan, excepting Dr. Qadir whom I had mentioned in my article.

Almost all of your references in your posts are from the western sources – yet you call me a westerner as if you are not. The label of ‘west’ should not be used as a curse or abuse. Philosophy by itself has not produced any great work of hard sciences. To me, it is important because it gives you a critical and analytical outlook.

My heroes are Professor Abdus Salam and Professor Ahmed Zewail (see my article on naseeb.com, if you are interested); both of them are Nobel Laureates. Salam was a physicist and Zewail is a chemist. They did a great service to the Islamic world and I recommend others to follow their lead. There are hundreds of other Muslim scientists who are silently contributing in their respective fields without bothering to Islamize any of them. They are the ones who are re-establishing science in the Islamic world.

Islamization of science is misleading and just propaganda. Those who are propagating it have failed to clarify what it is, how it can be done or who will do it. Above all, is it worth doing? I wish you best of luck but if you are in your twenties or early thirties, don’t waste your life in such unproductive pursuits. Life is a gift of God and it’s given only once; don’t waste it. (This is not an advice, I’m in no position to advise you; it’s just a suggestion. Or, may be it’s just an idle thought). Wishing you well,

Mohammad Gill

Gill, few comments. It is interesting for me to see that we have interests in the same issues yet our analysis differ sometimes:

1. Many issues you have pointed out especially vis a vis the west are embedded in certain philosophical and cultural boxes, the very notion you have objected to:

- I have a feeling that throughout your paper you have equated Western Philosophy with Philosophy ignoring completely not only the Islamic Philosophical tradition but all the other traditions as well, religious and otherwise. Though you make reference to other religious traditions the philosophical schools you have mentioned are exclusively Western. Why western philosophy alone? You might want to clarify this point.

- Your usage of the word `science` also presupposes as if there is only one science or maybe there is only one valid science. Either way the word scientia which means `to know` does not have a connotation of a particular kind of knowledge and a particular method, namely empirical. The modern notion of science presupposed and explicated in your article again has a western bias. There is more to this point but I just wanted to highlight your assumptions.

- The categories of modern, post-modern and medieval Islam again have western origins and you might want to contemplate over their meaning in the Islamic context. It seems your sources of learning are predominantly western, which is fine, but this poses few problems. I leave it here too.

- The category of `secular philosophy` and of `philosophy of religion` both having western and modern origins are again presupposed. It just seems that you are also working from within a box, the box of western intellectual tradition extending claims and labels to the whole Islamic tradition. The comment: Philosophical thinking in Pakistan, by and large, is boxed in Islamic container; there is hardly any meaningful discussion of the realities that are outside the box`` applies equally to western philosophy where the dominant discourse is secular. I can again go on and on to elaborate on this point.

- The comment: ``I wonder why the whole entire vast field of philosophy was left for the west`` in the light of what I have said above is such an over-generalization that it seems - and I will be explicit in my judgement - completely absurd to me. You are exactly implying what West has been trying to prove.. that it`s only the people in the west who are thinking and rest of the world does not think at all (good old Social Darwinistic claim). In the case of Islam, philosophy died with Averroes (this is what Western historians of philosophy wrote and what you are buying into).

- The advances of western science should be acknowledged but your comment ``Occasionally, a few admit and recognize the advances that the philosophical thought has made in the west`` is definitely questionable. I would relate one personal experience. While the US started bombing Iraq, we were in a Phlosopphy seminar unsuccessfully trying to deal with skeptics and antirealists attempting to prove that yes there is an objective reality out there. Now this is definitely progress of thought!!!

- In view of above, the long quote again from a westerner ``Thus philosophy in the East came to a dead end because it did not get the material of philosophy which could nourish it and keep it alive” is just your view seeking endoresement of an authority of a big name in the discourse, the very notion you are not very comfortable with. Just quoting someone does not prove the point and you yourself made reference to this argument.

- Finally an equally important question is why break-up from a tradition unless we are claiming that tradition lacks which needs to be proven before we embark on such a project.

I do agree about the general claim that thought is stagnat in Pakistan, but my opinion about what stagnation means, what are its causes, how it could be overcome and what needs to be done differs radically from yours.

Again, so long we are sincere in our quest for knowledge and truth every difference in opinion is valuable. Salams.

Thank you for providing an appropriate platform for expressing my outrage. Chowk just banned my IP address because I taught one of their favorite ``pets`` a few lessons about freedom of thought.
I was finally able to get back in and this is the thread that I started:

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This is just to prove to Sobia and Succubus that we can still get in.


Thanks to my husband, I was able to log in. The guy is a genius and he made it work just before the Super Bowl – go Eagles!

On a more serious note, Chowk is merely a reflection of the larger Paki society. Your dictatorial government, your intolerant religion, and your unfair society are all represented by Chowk. Just like in Paki society, you ban dissenters that you don’t agree with, you mysteriously make messages disappear, you wipe out entire threads you don’t like, and you block IP addresses when all else fails. You do this based on the traditional Paki “SIFARISH” system of who knows whom in power. You use selective enforcement, selective banishment, and selective judgment to make your rule prevail over the innocent subjects. Three of your civilian leaders are in exile, several journalists and columnists are in jail or “house arrest” merely for their opinion, and you have officially declared some of your own coreligionists as “non-Muslims.”

Indians can help you resolve IT and Telecomm issues, but they cannot teach you democracy and freedom of speech. That you will have to learn, practice, and defend on your own. Perhaps we Americans could help somewhat. Eye Rak and Afaghanistan are headed for democracy. Iran is next. Perhaps Pakistan will also become a democracy one day – with American help. How do you say it? Inshallah and Mashallah!

The main question for my group of associates is whether we want to waste our time on a medium where certain “pet” favorites control the environment? Six out of eight in our group have lost interest in Chowk because of its selective censorship. Kum se kum, Mumbaichick aur Nangaparbat ne Sobia ki sukhi lay lee. No wonder she was so upset and had to run to super Chowk Staff for assistance, just as Saminasha and Scout before her. When these privileged few lose their debates they run to Chowk mama – I think the rest of us can claim this as a victory!
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Thank you and long live freedom of thought and expression.
Mumbaichick

subah ro ro ke shaam hotii hai
shab ta.Dap kar tamaam hotii hai

shaid log padhte hain yeh column
ke badhte raqmoN ki numaish hoti hai

kisi ne kiya jin qaida ka izhar
capital letter mahroom-e-nazar hoti hai

pesh keiN sukhn-e-mast bateiN
scholarship waheiN tamam hoti hai

sha_id istamal-e-infestation
na_ii keDe qaum ki tadbir hoti hai

ham jo kahate hai.n kuchh ishaaro.n se
ye Khataa laa-kalaam hotii hai

[With thousand appologies to Bahadur Shah Zafar]

Freddy_Kruger: Can you point me to any good Punjabi to English dictionaries, preferably online....Thanks.........

Gill,

What do you think of ``philosophical thinking in pakistan, well just plain ``thinking`` will be a good idea for pakistanis. The pak society does not support any divergent views, even simple logical deductions, the man who said that the parents of mohammed could not be muslims was charged with blasphemy and killed.

Gill, it is people like you who are detriment to the progress of pakistan by talking about as though it is a normal society. You should focus on he reality of pakistan, write about what happened to simple thinkers of pakistan. I understand that jang newspaper was attacked because they wrote about incest in pakistan.

Blasphmey laws inhibit any kind of thinking in pakistan about religion. Furure is very grim, simply because of the education system. A society that does not accord any credit to a noble laurette for his contribution to physics cannot support any philosophy.

I understand that omar quiraishi is a well educated asst editor of a news papaer in pakistan, and he once posted that he wrote an obitury for abdus salam, never ever dared to write again about him.
Chowk is infested with educated pakistanis, how about funding a scholarship in the name of abdus salam. Gill, write an article why such a scholarship should not attract blasphemy laws, and that could be a philosophical contribution to pak thinking. Gill, do you think that parents of mohammed could not be born muslims. Do you think that could have some philosophical basis. Pathetic.

Chandala, Sunlight

Any Hindu knows that our concept of `God` is so fundamentally different from the one propounded by semitists that the two shouldn`t be clubbed together. They belong to different scales, different time-frames, different views about the nature of matter and non matter.

Scepticism is a characteristic trait of systems that bestow sufficient legitimacy on mutlitiplicity. For It (not his or her) to be capable of accepting infinite multiplicity, one`s God has to be infinitely big. No limited God can tolerate scepticism and the free reign of reason.

In the middle ages, revolutionary Christian Bishops made it compulasory to read Greek and other philosophers. The philosophers` teachings contradicted Chrisitian Beliefs. Still, the bishops deemed it necessary to expose their students to different views and free thinking.

I was talking to a Christian school teacher Wednesday on the subject. At the school, they teach evolution with equal fervor as Creationism. If, the students are sheltered from opposing thoughts, in real world, they will either convert and shun their beliefs or turn into fanatics.

Strictly convent educated pupils turn into perverts and abnormal behavior....ie Madonna singer, or convert to a different religion.

Re: # 43
juar bhata jo samundar mein uTThta hain kuyaiN mein nahin;
kuyaiN ke menDak kuyaiN ke talabgar hotein hain samundar ke nahin.
How is that for poetic imagery ;)

Rg veda are pristine documents that seemd `rigged` to baffle any intellect,but talking about it could tantamount to `existential - code` [ no confusion with Da Vinci accepted here ]. Timewarp and mindwarp may help to together create the illusion of contemporaneous existence of Saadi and Iqbal doomed by temporal `carnage` even further the cause of discrediting thory of ``Final Cause`` in the world void of ``divinely ispired`` mullahs and Ayotullahs.But it can not ignore the theory of EDGE[#24 by Freddy_Krueger] - so smooth, foamy, cheap . For $2.59 this product gels well with removing any hairy detail to bring out the visage of Philosphical developemnt or ``constructive thinking``. Just like Raag bhairav cannot be sung at all time and mood you cannot use love to rule - sword looks like a necessary evil to rule . But notice I endorse the edge theory[ I get 1% from revenue;)].
In this mood [majaz] let us sing the `hymn` of majaz lacknavi:

Khuub pahachaan lo asrar huu.N mai.n
jins-e-ulfat kaa talab_gaar huu.N mai.n

ishq hii ishq hai duniyaa merii
fitanaa-e-aql se bezaar huu.N mai.n

chhe.Datii hai jise mizaraab-e-alam
saaz-e-fitarat kaa vahii taar huu.N mai.n

aib jo haafiz-o-Khayyaam me.n thaa
haa.N kuchh is kaa bhii gunah_gaar huu.N mai.n

zindagii kyaa hai gunaah-e-aadam
zindagii hai to gunah_gaar huu.N mai.n

merii baato.n me.n masiihaa_ii hai
log kahate hai.n ki biimaar huu.N mai.n

ek lapakataa huaa sholaa huu.N mai.n
ek chalatii hu_ii talavaar huu.N mai.n

Re: # 38
``..``strand of scepticism..``?

Then who knows it could also titled ``Hymn of Destruction``. How do we know that instead of having been CREATED we are really going through a SHREDDER. The button that was pressed was REWIND & my son is really my father--TIMEWARP with MINDWARP!

and the last line of the hymn tells us even He doesn`t know.``
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Before knowing the answer, you have to know what the question is. Besides, only a true poet knows the delight of poetic imagery and language, and only a true intellectual can appreciate the delights of speculation. I think this is the central issue that is being debated.

There is a Sanskrit poem by Bhartrihari which says that tides arise only in the ocean, not in a well.

Men have used the sword to rule the earth - all in the name of the ``final cause`` i.e. the God`s Will.
Until we agree to discard this ``Final Cause`` theory and accept the culpability of the perpetrators of criminal action wisdom will never descend upon the gullible Ummah- Until we stop believing that the self proclaimed Ayotollahs and Mullahs are NOT divinely inspired in their actions and that their lust for temporal power has nothing to do with the ``Final Cause`` we remain doomed....................we would keep on blaming US and the Jews for all the miseries that befall upon us due to our actions................