A Critique of Philosophical Thought in Pakistan

Leaving Islam for learning philosophy........everything will be sorted out soon. Death is not too far from all of us.

The philosophical thought in Pakistan is not likely to change in the forseeable future no matter what few of us think and wish. Actualy the reasons are not that complicated to understand. As the author pointed out and I repeat here are simply the result of mytholigizing Islam, Islamic history, Islamic dogma and absolute belief in the inherent goodness of Islam. Additionally, all of the concepts are magaconcepts without any serious, micro or in-depth analysis through reductionism or deductionism. These megaconcepts are universally believed by Muslims irrespective of education and intelligence level.

When Akbar S. Ahmed says, ``I see Islam everywhere in USA but no Muslims and Islam nowhere in Islamic countries but mostly Muslims`` he is essentially saying the same thing that Iqbal said in his Reconstruction of Islamic thoughts and the excerpt from his speech ShoreSahib quoted, ``bring them into closer contact with its own original spirit and with the spirit of modern times``. The belief that Islam is inherently good and would help succeed Muslims if applied in its essence is prevalent even here at chowk.

This belief is not just the result of infallability of Quran, Quran as the actual and best words from god delivered though Mohammad as the last prophet but also from the myth of the golden age of Islamic history it led to produce. This is a mytholigized megaconcept. First it assumes with 100 percent certainty that there was a golden age of Islam (which was actually measured in territorial and power terms than anything else) and then it links it without proof to the inherent goodness of Islam. Why not claim inherent goodness in empire building if powerful and vast empire is touted as the best outcome and proof of Islamic goodness?

Even the western historians have no problem in believing that Islam produced an efficient, lagre and dedicated fighting machine. No other place could produce as many young male fighters per 100,000 population as Islam was able to produce through a combination of teachings of submission to Islam, importance of jihad and rewards of jihad in this world and hereafter. However, if this is the extract of inherent goodness responsible for the golden age of Islam, it is absolutely useless in modern times of technology, education and brain power. Islam can raise a million man fighting machine but destroyed from the sky by air force with planes flown by women as many of the pilots used in Afghanistan by the USA were women. So the inherent goodness goes down the drain as useless. The best part of Islamic success is obsolete now.

Muslims, more than any other nation or people believe in the reversibility of time and coming back of the so-called golden age of Islam. Again this reversibility is baseless; it is only wishful thinking. Many other people have seen the golden age before and after Islam - greeks, romans, byzantium, vikings, british, spain and mongols to name few. Are all of these people today dreaming about recreating the golden age? Are Italian hoping to rule the former territories of Roman empire? Are greeks hoping to revise Alexander the Great conquering? Greeks had great strategists and generals, Romans had great loyal administrative capability, British relied heavily on sea power (Navy) as did vikings before and Church helped a lot in Spanish conquests. All of these people can claim to have inherent goodness and strength as Islam and Muslims do today.

Why do Mongols leave behind in dreaming? They can sit in the tents on great Mongolian grasslands and plan to revive the successes of Genghis Khan and Hilagu Khan. It so happens that Mongols expanded actually faster than Muslims despite all the inherent goodness of Islam and ruled the largest land area in the history of mankind which included all of Russia, most of China, central Asia, Iran, Turkey and almost all of middle east except Egypt. They did this within 2 generations through goodness created by Genghis Khan, his sons and grandsons. The speed, dedication, loyalty, ruhlessness, disciplined fighting machine followed something which could be said complete blueprint for living - a deen of Mongols detailed with guidelines for everyday daily life.

Genghis Khan comes very close to Mohammad in the effectiveness and influence both men were able to generate within short period of history, except that Genghis Khan did not claim to communicate with god and let the goats eat all the written pages of anything in his empire. What goat did not eat makes all the difference for Muslims, differentiating them from Mongols of today.


Once the belief in the inherent goodness, the best religion and rrevivability of golden age exist, various organs are created or made use of to hekp it. Those who help it most and most cherished, propagated and kept in high esteem, such as Islaimc hstory in subcontinent-TNT-Urdu trio. These three go hand in hand, for example Aurangzeb was great Muslim king, TNT was essential and Urdu is the main Muslim language. This trio has now created additional support structure on its frontiers in the form of mullahs-jihadis-madrassah.

So outer most layer or first line of defense is made up of mullah-jihadis-madrassah. Second line of defense is Islamic history of empires in subcontinent-TNT-Urdu language and in the middle sitting comfortably is inherent goodness of Islam, Islam, dogma in the minds of people. People have to break thrugh two outer layers to breath fresh and modern air in order to think seriously about changing philosophical thoughts which is not likely to happen any time soon.

It sounds funny but promotion of native languages and cultures could actually help change philosophical thoughts. For example, Islamic madrassah system is not available in most Pakistani native languages. There are no equivalent words of murtid, mulhid, dehriya etc in Punjabi. Most punjabis use them as such from Arabic or Urdu and most uneducated villagers dont know the meanings of these words.

There are really 2 options to challenge the strangling of philosophical thoughts; either enlightenment through education and exposure to the West or much easier and very effective one, requiring minimum basic education by going native, makng native cultures/ languages supreme or at least of equal importance to Urdu. The consequences of promoting Punjabi, Sindhi, Balochi and Pashtun are fully realized by the establishment and in order for business as usual/ status quo, suppression of native languages is deemed essential. This is one area where mullah and military are on the same boat.

Dear Mr. Gill,
It is very interesting to me that you have translated Khudi as Selfhood. Do you not think that it is an extremely narrow definition of the word. It is such a word that essays can be written in order to explain it satisfactorily to some degree.
Iqbal was not a secular philosopher, rather he worked within the paradigms of the philosophy of religion particularly Islam in the Indian Subcontinent. In his speech delivered to the 1930 annual session of Muslim League, Iqbal stated:
````I, therefore, demand the formation of a consolidated Muslim state in the best interests of India and Islam. For India, it means security and peace resulting from an internal balance of power; for Islam, an opportunity to rid itself of the stamp that Arabian imperialism was forced to give it, to mobilize its laws, its education, its culture, and to bring them into closer contact with its own original spirit and with the spirit of modern times.``
Iqbal`s ideas about religion, state, politics, etc. were not concerned with Logical positivism or Atheistic existentialism, and that is precisely why he did not comment on such fledgeling philosophical movements fraught with their own logical fallacies and assumptions.
``The philosophy of religion should include critical examination of the philosophy of other religions also. Philosophy, in its entirety, should be studied and worked upon for its own sake.`` Muhammad Gill
Yes, I agree. Philosophy of religion does include critical examination of all religions at US universities, but Paksitan is another story. In a country where an illogical and unjust law code prevails formulated especially during the reign of Pakistan`s self proclaimed Islamic savior Zia-ul-Haq, how can the universities in such a country teach or encourage critical thinking especially when it is concerned with Islam in plain view of the Blasphemy Laws. For philosophy to flourish anywhere in the world, it is imperative that the state protect the right to free speech.
In order to come out of the stagnation of philosophical thought and endeavor in Pakistan, a total overhaul of political and religious thought is necessary. Only after Pakistan`s law code is free from the meddling of political and religious goons, can independent critical thought flourish in a secular homeland as deemed by M.A. Jinnah.

Re: # 2

A for Aggravated.....

A for Atheist.......

A for Arjun........:-)

Why did Chowk block Arjun`s post, his post was very sensible.

I would add that what you have in the Muslim world is a disinterest in Western philosophy. Some ideologues may cringe, however this is far more tolerable than the disinterest in Science and Technology.

``Our views are preformed about the universality of Islam; dissident views are considered prejudiced and discarded out of hand. Arguments are crafted to support Islamic viewpoint at all costs.``

The counter arguments are no less crafted...that is, after all, the essence of a well formed argument! One could equally say that given one with an Islamic world view, the western one is not compelling enough. But then, how can one be objective with something that is entirely subjective? You can`t.

The worst non-filthy curse in our day-to-day vocabulary is the word ‘atheist’. In Urdu, we use ‘dahriya’ and ‘zindique’ for it. We condemn atheism without acquainting ourselves with its intrinsic arguments.


Besides the point....Atheists don`t care what you call them....nor do they have an evangelical zeal to prove to you, the stupidity of your faith in a ``higher being``....in short...they don`t give a shit....

I took quite a few philosphy classes in college. From Socrates to Descartes to Sartre. The problem with philosophers is they create a problem (imaginary or real) and try to solve it. The worst of these were who used religion to solve these problems. The religious dogma was used as `facts` or the basis of the support. This ``evidence`` and ``philosophers`` could be termed stupidity at best.