Islamic Education, Madrassah Reform, Rationality and Dawkins

>>>>......
At the moment even the best scholars I`ve heard speak base their arguments on logic which even a bright undergrad student of philosophy could refute since they are the same arguments made by medieval scholars. Arguments which Hume and Kant etc. refuted amongst others (e.g. the First Cause argument or the Design Argument and which Dawkins, in his excellent recent polemic, The God Delusion has again refuted).
....... <<<<<

First islam has to come to terms with the fact that it is also based on the same pretense that other religions of its time were based on and will face the same arguments as others get.

Essentially, other religions have retracted to the realm of individual or mass hullicination i.e., I as a person cannot accept that god is dead, hence I believe, though you are free to not follow me and I wouldn`t bomb you to pieces for that.

.....

``Where has God gone?`` he cried. ``I shall tell you. We have killed him - you and I. We are his murderers. But how have we done this? How were we able to drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What did we do when we unchained the earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving now? Away from all suns? Are we not perpetually falling? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there any up or down left? Are we not straying as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is it not more and more night coming on all the time? Must not lanterns be lit in the morning? Do we not hear anything yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we not smell anything yet of God`s decomposition? Gods too decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we, murderers of all murderers, console ourselves? That which was the holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet possessed has bled to death under our knives. Who will wipe this blood off us? With what water could we purify ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we need to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we not ourselves become gods simply to be worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whosoever shall be born after us - for the sake of this deed he shall be part of a higher history than all history hitherto.``
Nietzche


http://www.news.faithfreedom.org/index.php

Mr. Naqshbandi,

I recently came across your article on the subject at chowk. At the moment I would keep my self restricted to the issues on the subject mentioned above not rationality and Dawkins.

I am sure there are people, who would agree to change the concept of Islamic education and reforms in meddrassahs by changing or reviewing the current syllabus to more contemporary needs and demands, not only for survival but to meet the challenges of change.

My idea of a maulvi, clergy or Pesh Imam is quite contrary to what it is today.

The person who is your leader (Imam) during the prayers should be educated and capable of your leader in worldly issues as well. He should not be looked down upon instead the people should look towards him for guidance not only in religious but worldly matters as well.

Now, the question is “How to make it possible?” and “How long will it take?”

Is it just a dream? Or can it be transformed in to reality?

Any idea or comments?

With best regards,

Umer Farooq

Naqshbandi

There would be no disagreement if we accept that Absolute and Certain Knowledge resides only in Allah or howsoever else that Absolute Reality is called by different people, and not in the pages of any book or with any human, living or dead. Nor should we accept any claims to the contrary.

#126 by Naqshbandi

Man, instead of being miniscule is actually a microcosm who contains within him the macrocosm.

We don`t differ on that. I said that much in #118 in `` till the tiniest sub-atomic particle`` of which of-course man is made of. But so is everything else ... don`t you think?

zeemax/kaalchakra

First of all, I have not attained to any kind of knowledge!
Secondly, Absolute knowledge of all things is with Allah alone--yet Man has been
given the capacity to reach a higher knowledge of Allah than any other creature--angels included. This is why he is ashraf al makhluqat--the noblest of creation. And the Messenger of Allah is the noblest of all creatures since his knowledge of Allah is the greatest. This knowledge of Allah is called gnosis or ma`arifat in Urdu and Arabic. It is the attainment of a degree of this gnosis that is the goal of the Sufi path--this is the `certain knowledge` which Imam Ghazali speaks of and which he found in the sufi path alone.

You see, Man, instead of being miniscule is actually a microcosm who contains within him the macrocosm.

As Iqbal said: mumin hai tau hain usmein gum aafaaq/if he is a mumin [true believer] the heavens are lost inside him [his heart] .i.e. the perfect man -- al insaan al kaamil --a sufi concept -- is the macrocosm of creation. To use a Christian metaphor--God created Man in His image--an honour accorded not even to the archangels!

#124 by kaalchakra,

Well, a better term than `Allah ki marzi` is `Allah ki Raza`a`. There`s a difference as Marzi is human and challengable but Raza`a is divine and unchallengable.

`Mashiat` literally means ``to go along``. Acceptance, submission to God`s laws if you will.

It has been split into three parts by Islamic scholars:

1) The laws of biological life, which are laid down in Qura`an through revelation. Man has liberty to accept or reject these, but there`s a direct causal relationship with the decision.

2) The laws of the external universe, which are fixed and unchangable. Man can acquire knowledge of these laws, but cannot alter them.

3) The laws of God (or Raza`a) which constitute God`s programme, or agenda, or destiny if you will. These are unknowable by man, and one can only submit to these and follow unquestioningly in total faith as God`s `Mashiat`.

As per above, the Absolute and Certain Knowledge possible is limited to (1) & (2). Venturing into the domain of (3) is considered Kufr in Islam. That is why Sufis are not regarded as being in the Islam mainstream because their search extends into the third.

Hope it helped ... but doubt if by much :-)

Raw_Dust, Zeemax

One interesting bit was about where Al-Ghazali (and Islam) ended up trying to understand the nature of Absolute Reality (Allah, or Brahman, or God or whatever else one may call That Reality) - the subject of intense meditation all around the globe since the dawn of human consciousness.

One approach led to the conclusion that Absolute and Certain Reality was unknowable, beyond comprehension. As Raw_Dust says, Absolute and Certain Knowledge lay ONLY with Absolute Reality (let`s call that Reality Allah).

The other approach was to claim that one had actually found that Absolute and Certain Knowledge, and all disagreements with what one claimed was such knowledge constituted error (resulting, for instance, from not fully understanding Allah ki marzi, or a closed heart, or insufficient application to the task).

There is a famous prayer: Rabb e Zidni Ilma. God, increase my knowledge.

Absolute and certain knowledge is with Allah, all humans can hope for is some infinitesimally small portion of that ``knowledge`` to be revealed to them by Allah. But acquiring knowledge related to material world is irrelevant as the Truth (knowledge for the salvation of Man) has already been revealed by Allah to humans in its perfect form i.e. Quran.

kaalchakra:
Allah is possessor of absolute knowledge. He is not bound by the causal chain but exists outside the chain. Allah is capable of doing the absolute evil since, Allah by definition is not bound by human reason and moral strictures. I came across a brilliant exposition of this fascistic concept by Rosenzweig:

---

``The god of Mohammed is a creator who well might not have bothered to create. He displays his power like an Oriental potentate who rules by violence, not by acting according to necessity, not by authorizing the enactment of the law, but rather in his freedom to act arbitrarily ... Providence thus is shattered into infinitely many individual acts of creation, with no connection to each other, each of which has the importance of the entire creation. That has been the doctrine of the ruling orthodox philosophy in Islam. Every individual thing is created from scratch at every moment. Islam cannot be salvaged from this frightful providence of Allah ... despite its vehement, haughty insistence upon the idea of the god`s unity, Islam slips back into a kind of monistic paganism, if you will permit the expression. God competes with God at every moment, as if it were the colorfully contending heavenful of gods of polytheism.``

Zeemax

I wasn`t immediately clear about the relationship of `Mashiat-e-Aizdi` with apparent futility of innovation once absolute and certain knowledge had been received. Some search suggested (there isn`t much public information on `Mashiat-e-Aizdi`!) the phrase to mean ``allah ki marzi.``

This appears to be part of the general argument a lot of Muslims use very often to explain their views - ``Allah knows best.``

Clearly, that approach to interpreting reality must be central to holding on to any definite corpus of absolute and certain knowledge. IMO, Aasif will enthusiastically agree (although he seems to have gotten terribly busy :().

(if `Mashiat-e-Aizdi` means anything other than un-understood will of God, will be glad to learn more about this profound concept).

#119 by anil

Perhaps the first person who interpreted and expressed `Mashiat` was Ali, who said the following (loosely translated):

``I found Allah in the failure of my intentions``

This was striking because most people even at that time ascribed their successes to God`s intervention, but Ali said quite the opposite ... he ascribed his `failures` to God`s intervention, and accepted it.

Later scholars expanded on the concept, clarified and built upon it, by demystifying `Allah` in the term `Qadir-e-Mutliq`, which means `Law Giver of Totality`. This is based on the Quranic text appearing several times ``Inallah ala qullun shey un Qadeer.``.

Allama Parvez, for example, described it as the ultimate power over `cause & effect` which in its totality is beyond reason (f`ahm) of man, but he goes on to say that if we trace back to the beginnings of cause & effect, we`ll find nothing but an undecipherable law of `Qadir-e-Mutliq`, which governs all nature of things. That is `Mashiat-e-Aizdi`.

Rgds

Re: # 118

Zeemax Sahib:

What is the source and developer of `Mashiat-e-Aizdi` concept in Islam?

Anil

#117 by kaalchakra

Hope this is not too heavy. But you like heavy stuff.

`Mashiat-e-Aizdi` is one of the most profound concepts in Islam. It addresses the vital question `why do bad things happen to good people`, and directly points towards the `mysterious tune` and the `unified entirety` at which point Einstein concluded his research as he could go no further. So did Stephen Hawkings.

Thus I beg to differ with ``No innovations contary to that knowledge can be or should be accepted.`` Innovations should and can be accepted only till the point where man begins to believe himself to be bigger than the sum of the whole to whom he belongs, and that`s where he must stop and think. That is going against nature and a recipe for swift destruction. That is what Islam terms as `enemies of Allah` and those who have other Gods than Allah. I.e. at-least, in my opinion. Perhaps Asif/Masadi/Urstruly can grace us with their opinions.

I do not believe time to be a measurable commodity. I believe time to be endless and without form or measurement - but I do believe in lifespans within lifespans within still more. From the ages to eras to milleniums to centuries to decades to years/ days/ minutes and so forth till the tiniest sub-atomic particle, everything is a living organism and with a lifespan, at the end of which it merely turns into something else. All an organism does at the end of its lifespan is to be compressed into another but with the resulting ever increasing density, till the time that lifespan reaches near zero but the density is close to infinity. This is clearly observable in compression of knowledge in succeessive generations, the current digital age and so forth. When the final stage of this compression comes, that will be the end of the universe (note the Eschatological religions) and another big bang, and start all over again in perhaps other forms.

Islam identifies all of the above, but no Mullah will explain it. Islam as an organised / ritualistic faith is quite attractive as well and sufficient for most.

But then again, perhaps I read more into it than was intended :-) Here Ghazali enters.

Zeemax

Agreed completely.

Once absolute and certain knowledge has been found and the method of discovering that knowledge has been learnt then the only intellectual growth (Aasif`s concern here) worthy of interest would consist in applying that same knowledge consistently in all walks of life everywhere. No innovations contary to that knowledge can be or should be accepted.

That`s a very high level of intellectual attainment, and it would be great to know if Aasif has already found such knowledge.

#114 by kaalchakra

Does Islam constitute or provide absolute and certain knowledge?

It is only man`s conscience which makes him appear to himself as unique, and vainly observing nature of things from a distance apart, when man is no more than a miniscule and insignificant part of nature and the known and unknown universe as a whole - a unified organism - consisting of animate and inanimate objects, all dancing to a mysterious tune.

Islam identifies that mysterious tune as `Mashiat-e-Aizdi`, and the whole in its unified entirety as Allah. The only source of the only absolute and certain knowledge.

But Naqsh may differ.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110009348
On a Wing and a Prayer
Grievance theater at Minneapolis International Airport.

BY DEBRA BURLINGAME
Wednesday, December 6, 2006 12:01 a.m. EST

Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar! Those are the words that started it all. Six bearded imams are said to have shouted them out while offering evening prayers as they and 141 other passengers waited at the gate for their flight out of Minneapolis International Airport. It was three days before Thanksgiving. Allahu Akbar: God is great.

Initial media reports of the incident did not include the disturbing details about what happened after they boarded US Airways flight 300, but the story quickly went national with provocative headlines: ``Six Muslims Ejected from US Air Flight for Praying.`` Yes, they were praying--but let`s be clear about this. The very last human sound on the cockpit voice recorder of United flight 93 before it screamed into the ground at 580 miles per hour is the sound of male voices shouting ``Allahu Akbar`` in a moment of religious ecstasy.

They, too, were praying. The passengers and crew of flight 93 lost their valiant fight to take back the plane just one hour and 20 minutes after it pushed back from the gate. Until the hijackers stormed the cockpit door, they were just a handful of Middle Eastern-looking men on their way to sunny California. So, yes, let`s be exceedingly clear about the whole matter. Some 3,000 men, women and children are dead because the unassuming people on those airplanes did not look at them and see murderers. Or dangerous Arabs. Or fanatical Muslims. They saw a few guys in chinos.

In five years since the 9/11 attacks, U.S. commercial carriers have transported approximately 2.9 billion domestic and international passengers. It is a testament to the flying public, but, most of all, to the flight crews who put those planes into the air and who daily devote themselves to the safety and well-being of their passengers, that they have refused to succumb to ethnic hatred, religious intolerance or irrational fear on those millions of flights. But they have not forgotten the sight of a 200,000-pound aircraft slicing through heavy steel and concrete as easily as a knife through butter. They still remember the voices of men and women in the prime of their lives saying final goodbyes, people who just moments earlier set down their coffee and looked out the window to a beautiful new morning. Today, when travelers and flight crews arrive at the airport, all the overheated rhetoric of the civil rights absolutists, all the empty claims of government career bureaucrats, all the disingenuous promises of the election-focused politicians just fall away. They have families. They have responsibilities. To them, this is not a game or a cause. This is real life.

Given that Islamic terrorists continue their obsession with turning airplanes into weapons of mass destruction, it is nothing short of obscene that these six religious leaders--fresh from attending a conference of the North American Imams Federation, featuring discussions on ``Imams and Politics`` and ``Imams and the Media``--chose to turn that airport into a stage and that airplane into a prop in the service of their need for grievance theater. The reality is, these passengers endured a frightening 3 1/2-hour ordeal, which included a front-to-back sweep of the aircraft with a bomb-sniffing dog, in order to advance the provocative agenda of these imams in, of all the inappropriate places after 9/11, U.S. airports.

``Allahu Akbar`` was just the opening act. After boarding, they did not take their assigned seats but dispersed to seats in the first row of first class, in the midcabin exit rows and in the rear--the exact configuration of the 9/11 execution teams. The head of the group, seated closest to the cockpit, and two others asked for a seatbelt extension, kept on board for obese people. A heavy metal buckle at the end of a long strap, it can easily be used as a lethal weapon. The three men rolled them up and placed them on the floor under their seats. And lest this entire incident be written off as simple cultural ignorance, a frightened Arabic-speaking passenger pulled aside a crew member and translated the imams` suspicious conversations, which included angry denunciations of Americans, furious grumblings about U.S. foreign policy, Osama Bin Laden and ``killing Saddam.``

Predictably, these imams and their attorneys now suggest that another passenger who penned a frantic note of warning and slipped it to a flight attendant was somehow a hysterical Islamophobe. Let us remember that but for their performance at the gate this passenger might never have noticed these men or their behavior on board, much less have the slightest clue as to their religion or political passions. Of course, that was the point of the shouting. According to the police report, yet another alarmed passenger who frequently travels to the Middle East described a conversation with one of the imams. The 31-year-old Egyptian expressed fundamentalist Muslim views, and stated the he would go to whatever measures necessary to obey all the tenets set out in the Koran.

The activist Muslim American Society (MAS) issued a press release within hours of the incident, demanding an apology and announcing a ``pray-in`` at Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C. Standing just a short distance from the Pentagon, where five years ago black plumes of smoke from the crash of American Airlines flight 77 could be seen for miles, the assembled demonstrators complained that African-American Muslims, accustomed to ``driving while black,`` must now cope with the injustice of ``flying while Muslim.`` This brazen two-step is racial politics at its worst; none of the imams are African-American. MAS, which teaches an ``Activist Training`` program with lessons on ``how to talk to the media,`` must have been thrilled when one cable news outfit, suckered by the rhetoric, compared the imams` conduct to that of civil rights icon Rosa Parks, who refused to give up her bus seat in the face of institutional racism. One wonders what the parents of the three 11-year-olds who died on flight 77--all African-American kids on a National Geographic field trip--would make of this stunning comparison.

Today, MAS Executive Director Mahdi Bray says his organization wants more than an apology. He wants to ``hit [US Airways] where it hurts, the pocketbook,`` and, joined by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), will seek compensation for the imams, civil and federal monetary sanctions, and new, sweeping legislation that will extract even bigger penalties for airlines that engage in ``racial and religious profiling.`` An investigation by the Department of Homeland Security`s Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties is under way. Not incidentally, it is the ``fatwa department`` of MAS that pushed for segregated taxi lines that would permit Muslim cab drivers at the Minneapolis airport to reject passengers carrying alcohol.

Here`s what the flying public needs to know about airplanes and civil rights: Once your foot traverses the entranceway of a commercial airliner, you are no longer in a democracy in which everyone gets a vote and minority rights are affirmatively protected in furtherance of fuzzy, ever-shifting social policy. Ultimately, the responsibility for your personal safety and security rests on the shoulders of one person, the pilot in command. His primary job is to safely transport you and your belongings from one place to another. Period.

This is the doctrine of ``captain`s authority.`` It has a longstanding history and a statutory mandate, further strengthened after 9/11, which recognizes that flight crews are our last line of defense between the kernel of a terrorist plot and its lethal execution. The day we tell the captain of a commercial airliner that he cannot remove a problem passenger unless he divines beyond question what is in that passenger`s head and heart is the day our commercial aviation system begins to crumble. When a passenger`s conduct is so disturbing and disruptive that reasonable, ordinary people fear for their lives, the captain must have the discretionary authority to respond without having to consider equal protection or First Amendment standards about which even trained lawyers with the clarity of hindsight might strongly disagree. The pilot in command can`t get it wrong. At 35,000 feet, when multiple events are rapidly unfolding in real time, there is no room for error.

We have a new, inviolate aviation standard after 9/11, which requires that the captain cannot take that airplane up so long as there are any unresolved issues with respect to the security of his airplane. At altitude, the cockpit door is barred and crews are instructed not to open them no matter what is happening in the cabin behind them. This is an extremely challenging situation for the men and women who fly those planes, one that those who write federal aviation regulations and the people who agitate for more restrictions on a captain`s authority will never have to face themselves.

Likewise, flight attendants are confined in the back of the plane with upwards of 200 people; they must be the eyes and ears, not just for the pilot but for us all. They are not combat specialists, however, and to compel them to ignore all but the most unambiguous cases of suspicious behavior is to further enable terrorists who act in ways meant to defy easy categorization. As the American Airlines flight attendants who literally jumped on ``shoe bomber`` Richard Reid demonstrated, cabin crews are sharply attuned to unusual or abnormal behavior and they must not be second-guessed, or hamstrung by misguided notions of political correctness.

Ultimately, the most despicable aspect about the imams` behavior is that when they pierced the normally quiet hum of a passenger waiting area with shouts of ``Allahu Akbar``and deliberately engaged in terrorist-associated behavior that was sure to trigger suspicion, they exploited the fear that began with the Sept. 11 attacks. The imams, experienced travelers all, counted on the security system established after 9/11 to kick in, and now they plan not only to benefit financially from the proper operation of that system but to substantially weaken it--with help from the Saudi-endowed attorneys at CAIR.

US Airways is right to stand by its flight crew. It will be both dangerous and disgraceful if the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Transportation and, ultimately, our federal courts allow aviation security measures put in place after 9/11 to be cynically manipulated in the name of civil rights.

Ms. Burlingame, a director of the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation, is the sister of Charles F. ``Chic`` Burlingame III, the pilot of American Airlines flight 77, which was crashed into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.