Tag Archives: humanism

A Moment for Tears, for Compassion, for Gratitude, for Relief

02 Wednesday Oct 2013

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▶ True HD “for the best communication” TrueMove H: Giving – YouTube. – 9/11/2013

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The clip has been viewed more than 12 million times as of this sharing of it.

In my previous post, I suggested “Money shouldn’t be everything.”  Here I may add that image shouldn’t be everything either.

The telecommunications company True Move H may have to rise to the challenge of doing business with the humanity — in essence, the compassion and charity — it preaches in its video.

Japanese clients and customers will have to fill me in on how that’s going.

For pathos — the emotional content of the argument — the numbers tell how well the message has worked.

For the blubbering, call it advertising’s Spielberg moment of 2013.

Will the clip encourage global political effects?

Perhaps as with chicken soup, a little bit of what it’s got couldn’t hurt.

Additional Reference

The True Move H mobile phone advert that has everyone crying | Mail Online – 9/16/2013

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“Another Kind of Islam . . . .”

27 Friday Sep 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Philology, Philosophy, Politics, Psychology, Religion

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Ahmed is convinced that only the Muslims themselves could be the answer to the “Islamists” and that the moderate Muslims must find the resources to counter what she called the “multi-head Medusa.”

“Only if we tell ourselves the truth, that the Islamists are a threat within us, can we confront them. The chasm between Muslims and Islamists is a deep one,” she said.

Israel Hayom | Muslim scholar: ‘I refuse to let Islam fall captive to the Islamists’ – by Reuven Berko, 9/27/2013

Between Islamic Jihad and Western Anti-Jihad, or perhaps better phrased, between the Islamist’s Believers and the More Strident of the Crusader West — that’s got the Kavkaz Center obsession working in it — reside the lives of approximately 1.2 billion persons.

Where the true religion mixes time in a forever present, leaving the virulent segment of believers forever fighting the Battle of the Trench, “another kind of Islam” would seem to want to join with the nations in progress across the many qualities of living.  As sensible as that may seem, as easy as it may be to do — just switch off the “contempt” and “hate” buttons — language-based perception — start with the child’s command of a globally antagonistic and misfitted social grammar; move on to the compression of time integrated with a powerfully romantic and barbaric scripture (for example, reference At-Tawba 29 — the binary or split Jihad/anti-Jihad views of the literature are abundant on the web); and wrap-up with alignment of ahadith, essential hearsay, to suit political interest, and don’t forget to add the black-and-white thinking (acceptable / not acceptable) accompanying it — precludes so convenient an answer.

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Narrators who took the side of Abu Bakr and Umar rather than Ali, in the disputes over leadership that followed the death of Muhammad, are seen as unreliable by the Shia; narrations sourced to Ali and the family of Muhammad, and to their supporters, are preferred. Sunni scholars put trust in narrators, such as Aisha, whom Shia reject. Differences in hadith collections have contributed to differences in worship practices and shari’a law and have hardened the dividing line between the two traditions.

Hadith – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia – as viewed 9/27/2013.

With Muhammad’s death, apparently, the Religion of Peace seems to have become the Religion of Eternal Conflict, starting with the conflict between the Shiite and Sunni camps in their exercise of a) tribal choice in the b) absence of more clear successionary  instructions.  In the medieval fields of battle in an age much less comprehending of empiricism, enlightened reason (Shakespeare’s contribution to a pagan humanism that he would weave within and around the separate character of the Church — or ever mindful of it — more than 700 years later), it would be said that “God decides” even though what “decided” then (as now) would have been diplomacy, energy (brought to bear in battle), strategy, and steel.

The Jews have had issues with language too, but where the Torah teases minds into arguments — what is the meaning of an action, a passage, a moment? — injunctions to act as programmed in the adoption of attitudes and beliefs about others and with reference primarily to one’s own grandiose image as licensed to subjugate whole populations, a thing well demonstrated by either the invention or favored adoption of the Banu Quarayza legend, that behavior as primarily language behavior has and indeed has had other effects.

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For Muslim readers, perhaps the toughest chapters deal with Muhammad’s slaughter of the Banu Qurayza. Fatah denounces the story as invented by influential scholar Ibn Ishaq nearly 100 years after the Prophet’s death. No archeological evidence supports it. No Jewish text corroborates it. Yet the story forms part of Islam’s Hadith literature and the Sira, the biography of the Prophet, and has come to be regarded as divine truth, Fatah says.

The problem, the author says, is that Islam lacks a tradition of questioning religious texts. So far, no Toronto imam has joined him to reject the Banu Qurayza story. So far, no mosque has invited him to speak.

The Jew Is Not My Enemy: Tarek Fatah | Toronto Star – by John Goddard, 11/19/2010

More than merely modernity or opportunity, the “humanity of humanity” — there will be a page on that here — has long tempered Islam in its treatment of Jews, albeit capriciously, much in line with the fate of the Jews left exposed to the will of more powerful others whenever and wherever Jews have been in the minority position, and that from Roman times to this day.

As with the quintessential Jewish desire to band in the desert — in human evolutionary reality, who were those people who first gathered together and determined a good way, their way, and way of life that would leave dictators to their fates — or, as with Haman, defeat them? — Islamic humanism and humanists seem to me a more natural course for Muslims than that conceived, promoted, and disciplined by the God Mob even though their stripe seems to have been there at the beginning.

There may be in the above thought a patently Jewish perspective, but a glance at Islam’s more beneficent and merciful humans, certainly more so than the miscreants often mentioned on this blog, tells of something deeply universal operating across cultures and languages as one slips into the modernity of any epoch:  Eman Fahad Al Nafjan, Irshad Manji, M. Zuhdi Jasser, Pervez Hoodbhoy, Mudar Zahran, Qanta Ahmed, Tarek Fatah have each taken firm stances against “Islamist” drift while deeply acknowledging or affirming their relationship with Islam.  With such good people and scholars, every one of them, one wants to know whether theirs collectively will become the voice of a powerful Muslim “silent majority” — I don’t think they are that today in the world’s Muslim-majority states — rather than the expression of a highly educated, intellectual, western-oriented elite, which (look ’em up on YouTube) is how some may be played by the more Brotherhoodly among zealous coreligionists.

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It’s hard to look into the heart except through the mouth using for an instrument one’s ears.

Those I’ve named speak bravely, consistently, reliably and seem ever good voices and great souls.

They are influential in our global online village, and they’re not in the least alone — the fan base is pretty good, but perhaps its development may be likened to depositing vaporized precious metal on a suitable substrate — it takes a little bit of time and repetition to get from that process something solid and strong.

For the time being, I suspect the English speaking and Express Tribune reading Muslim complement to a still emerging global intelligentsia — we have each shared with the other a hearty “welcome aboard!” although aboard what may remain in contention — indeed comprises but a thin layer and kind in the amalgam of the earth-wide communicating whole.

Will Islamic humanism and humanists contain what needs to be contained?

Tune in (after the Sabbath).

Additional Reference

VCU Menorah Review, “An Open Letter to Tarek Fatah” by Richard Sherwin, Winter/Spring 2012.

The Jew is Not My Enemy: Unveiling the Myths that Fuel Muslim Anti-Semitism: Tarek Fatah: 9780771047848: Amazon.com: Books (2011)

Maimonides – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia – as viewed 9/27/2013:

During the reign of the Almoravids, the position of the Jews was free of significant abuses,[14] but after another Berber dynasty, the Almohads, conquered Córdoba in 1148, they abolished the dhimma status (i.e. state protection of life and wealth) in some of their territories. The loss of this protected status threatened the Jewish and Christian communities with conversion to Islam, death, or exile.[13]

Maimonides fled to Egypt and became the personal physician to the Kurdish general and sultan Saladin and his family.

Golden age of Jewish culture in Spain – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia – as viewed 9/27/2013:

The coexistence of Muslims, Jews, and Christians during this time is revered by many writers. Al-Andalus was a key center of Jewish life during the early Middle Ages, producing important scholars and one of the most stable and wealthy Jewish communities and a relatively educated society for the Muslim occupiers and their Jewish collaborators, as well as some Christians who openly collaborated with the Muslims and Jews. María Rosa Menocal, a specialist in Iberian literature at Yale University claims that “Tolerance was an inherent aspect of Andalusian society”.[1]

Islamic Humanism – Lenn E. Goodman – Oxford University Press

Islam And Terrorism: A Humanist View, by David Schafer, May/June 2002

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FNS – Qanta Ahmed Pleads for Pluralist Islam

04 Wednesday Sep 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Fast News Share, Islamic Small Wars, Politics, Religion

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“The Mosques are our barracks; the minarets our bayonets. The domes are our helms. The believers are our soldiers”

This was the Islamist poem quoted by the mayor of Siirt, Turkey in December 1997. Charged with using inflammatory speech, he was ejected from office and sentenced to jail by the Ankara High Court.

Today he is president [STET] of Turkey. During a decade in office, he has slowly but inexorably pushed secular Turkey, a member of NATO, toward an unabashedly Islamist future.

Ahmed, Qanta.  “Castrate Islamism: Column: Moderate Muslims must confront the threat that Islamism poses to countries like Iraq, Syria and Egypt.”  USA Today, September 4, 2013.

Only a few years ago, conservative “Islamophobes” would raise the call for “moderate Muslims”: where are you? why do you not protest? why are you silent on Osama Bin Laden and so many, too many, murderous acts against unarmed others whom you do not know?

Times change.

Islamic humanism and pluralism, or perhaps I should put the “humanism and pluralism” first, restating all of a contemporary and thoughtful cast as “Humanist and Pluralist” (to be followed by cultural-ethnic-religious affiliation from “Atheist” to “Polytheist”).

One way or the other, we’re stuck with “us” — all of us — and we know that in the main “humanity of humanity” that we are not murderers and should not be so beset by those whom we know are exactly that and nothing much beyond.

Updates

Wikipedia.  “Recep Tayyip Erdoğan”:

He was given a ten-month prison sentence (of which he served less than four months, from 24 March 1999 to 27 July 1999)[21] for reciting a poem in Siirt in December 1997, which, under article 312/2 of the Turkish penal code was regarded as an incitement to commit an offense and incitement to religious or racial hatred.[22] It included verses translated as “The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers….”[10] The aforementioned verses, however, are not in the original version of the poem. The poem was from a work written by Ziya Gökalp, a pan-Turkish activist of the early 20th century.[7] Erdoğan claimed the poem had been approved by the education ministry to be published in textbooks.[23] With the conviction, Erdoğan was forced to give up his mayoral position. The conviction also stipulated a political ban, which prevented him from participating in parliamentary elections. He completed his sentence on 24 July 1999.

Note: Turkey’s current President is Abdullah Gül; Erdoğan serves as Prime Minister.

Antepli, Imam Abdullah.  “Only in America . . .” Huffington Post, September 5, 2013:

However, I say in full confidence and pride that the secular democracy and civic society that the U.S.A. has produced so far are still the healthiest on earth and the best available attempt to understand God’s pluralistic creation of humanity.

Additional Reference

Global Centre for Pluralism

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A Glimpse of Qatar’s Generational Transition and Portent for The Middle East Conflict

27 Thursday Jun 2013

Posted by in Anti-Semitism, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Fast News Share, Islamic Small Wars, Israel, Middle East, Qatar, Regions, Religion

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These days, the term “middle east conflict” would seem to refer to conflict and unrest in every state in the region but Israel.

Nonetheless, while Egypt roils and Syria burns and the King of Jordan fends off the seeding of perhaps a new class of secular Palestinian politico*, Qatar’s new head of state, Sheikh Tamim has this to say of the refugees of numerous Arab-led wars since 1948:

One day when our “Blue Dot” of a planet is a little more gathered together — that as opposed to riven with war — we may find common ground in five language principles:

Compassion

Humility

Integrity

Justice

Security

Of the four, the most difficult term and the one most relevant to autocracies seems to me to be “integrity” — just the power to be honest about ourselves and with others.

This is not as easy as it may sound.  If it were, we would not have the fairy tale that is “The Emperor’s New Clothes”, which is in essence and for the ages a story about lying and power.

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It may be noted that God placed two trees in the Garden of Eden: the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  When the snake entices Eve to eat of the forbidden tree, only mention is made of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, effectively hiding the other tree through omission.

You know the rest of the story: Eve eats the apple, becomes conscious or comprehending, also self-conscious, and, with Adam joining her, possessed of conscience, out of which reaction, perhaps, come the fig leaves, a courtesy, each to the other, and practical too (God, a few sentences later, provides clothing made of skins — one imagines chamois — lending perhaps dignity and protection to their introduction to life as men and women would experience it forever after).

The “Middle East Conflict” — which is never about conflicts in the middle east but only about the creation of the Jews and Israel (or, lost in the Pharaohnic dawn, the gathering together beneath the unrestrained ego and violence of a tyrant)l — seems to me to be always about two things not at ease with one another: 1) the possession of good conscience in light of the knowledge of good and evil; 2) the testing of God for favor when the relationship needs to be the other way around.

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Where kings are concerned, I suspect there may be more to the story than meets either eyes or ears.

When God, being God, and with Torah received as divine message, hides the second tree — the Tree of Life that we are told is there but when it counts is not mentioned by the snake and, later, will be barred from access (by cherubim and an eternally revolving sword guarding the Garden left behind) — the sin of omission becomes a virtue: to have eaten of the Tree of Life also would have been too much, for God forbids it, and so protects His children.

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To be as gods, lower case that term, with nuclear capabilities, among other extraordinary but still human capacities, one might counsel also a prudent humility.

Carl Sagan’s clip about the “Pale Blue Dot” that is our planet viewed from space, has many renditions on the web — and there’s an entire film available too (somewhere — I’m going to be lazy here) — but this may do for essence.

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Guest Blog: “Banning the Burqa”

12 Tuesday Feb 2013

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In more than half the Muslim countries women wear skirts.

By Waseem Altaf

In December 2011 Canada banned wearing of “burqa” within its territory.

Earlier on France, Tunisia, Turkey, and Syria did the same.

The Canadian ban was meant to ensure that those taking the oath of Canadian citizenship were actually reciting the oath.

The fact remains that wearing of clothing that completely or almost entirely covers the face is fundamentally at odds with public life.

Is wearing the “burqa” a religious obligation?

Perhaps not!

Women do not wear “burqa” when they perform Hajj.

Does it have to do with culture?

Yes, but which culture?

Is this Culture of tribal areas where women wear shuttle cock “burqas”, or Punjab where we find those black “burqas?”

If the objective is “show of chastity” then for those women who are not allowed to leave their houses, the ones’ wearing shuttle cocks are immodest. To the ones’ wearing shuttle cocks, those wearing the black “burqa” are essentially culpable. To the ones’ wearing black “burqa”, the ones wearing a “chadar” are downright unchaste. To the ones wearing a “chadar”, the ones wearing a “dupatta” are promoters of obscenity.

So on and so forth.

In more than half the Muslim countries women wear skirts. But typical Pakistani women would prefer wearing a “shalwar kameez” worn by Hindu women, than wear a skirt put on by a Muslim Tajik or Turkish or an Iraqi woman. So local cultures determine the dress code and it is not appropriate to set universal standards of so called chastity; as every culture has its nuances and niceties, these have to be respected.

We find female visitors from the West coming to Pakistan and India wearing “shalwar kameez” or jeans while rarely visible in skirts or shorts.

Similarly the Western culture has its own values which should be respected by those who have opted to live there. Those who get remuneration in dollars, francs, pounds and liras; who enjoy full social security benefits in the West; who have sought asylum in there while their lives were not secure in their own countries.

Those who enjoy the Western lifestyle should also have respect for Western values and should try to assimilate them or should abandon the West and come back to Gujaranwala or Kabirwala and put on “burqas” of any color or texture.

From a purely scientific perspective “burqa” is not suitable to wear in hot climates. It obstructs peripheral vision. It also deprives you from the positive effects of nutrients you get from sunlight.

It also seems bizarre when we find pictures of “burqa” clad women on passports and NIC’s.

One should also remember that numerous acts of terrorism in many parts of our country were committed by women wearing “burqas”. Hence “burqa” is also a security threat. It also imprisons you and isolates you from your surroundings and distances you from those around you, creating a trust deficit. It also reminds of medieval constraints where despotic monarchs would hide their concubines from others lest they were exposed to an outsider, endangering their absolute ownership of the “live object”.

As “satti” was banned by the English which did have sacred connotations, banning of “burqa” by Western countries should also be welcomed.

Finally, if you have opted to settle in the West while begging for citizenship, you have no right to contaminate the West with nonsense.

Or if you think it is good to wear a “burqa” put it on in your own country — that is Pakistan or if at all you want to enjoy the civil liberties and social security benefits and human rights and special allowance for the jobless and pizzas and burgers and Western standards of health and education and lavish housing and entertainment and sights of bikini clad babes on the beach then please for God’s sake respect the cultural niceties of those who are providers of all this stuff which you cannot have here in Pakistan or for that matter from the so called heartland of Islam.

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Reprinted by permission of the author, Waseem Altaf; lightly edited for visual impact and heightened verbal sensibility.

Related Reference

Sherwood, Deborah.  “World Exclusive: Spooks Unmask Burka Death Squads.”  Daily Star, June 12, 2011.

Guest Blog: “Were There Any Great Muslim Scientists?”

08 Friday Feb 2013

Posted by in Politics, Religion

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By Waseem Altaf

As we remain enamored by our past achievements in the sciences, we forget that there is very little “original” we as Muslims can celebrate and be proud of.

It was during the reign of Abbasid caliphs, particularly Mamun-ur-Rashid (around 813 CE) that in his Dar-ul-Hikmah (the house of wisdom) in Baghdad, the Muslim scholars would begin translating the classic Greek works, primarily toeing the Aristotelian tradition.

In addition, they were heavily relying on Persian and Indian sources.

They also penned huge commentaries on works by Greek philosophers.  However, the Muslim translators were small in number and were primarily driven by curiosity. More than ninety nine percent Arabic translations of works of Greek philosophers were done by either Christian or Jewish scholars.

It is interesting to note that Islamic astronomy, based on Ptolemy’s system was geocentric. Algebra was originally a Greek discipline and ‘Arabic’ numbers were actually Indian.  Most of these works were available to the West during 12th century when the first renaissance was taking place. Although Western scholars did travel to Spain to study Arabic versions of classical Greek thought, they soon found out that better versions of original texts in Greek were also available in the libraries of the ancient Greek city of Byzantium.

However, it would be unfair not to mention some of those great Muslim scholars, though very few in number, who genuinely contributed in the development of philosophy and science.

Al-Razi (865 – 925 CE) from Persia, the greatest of all Muslim physicians, philosophers and alchemists wrote 184 articles and books, dismissed revelation and considered religion a dangerous thing.

Al-Razi was condemned for blasphemy and almost all his books were destroyed later.

Ibn-e-Sina or Avicinna (980-1037CE), another great physician, philosopher and scientist was an Uzbek. Avicenna held philosophy superior to theology. His views were in sharp contrast to central Islamic doctrines and he rejected the resurrection of the dead in flesh and blood. As a consequence of his views, he became main target of Al-Ghazali and was labeled an apostate.
Ibn-e-Rushd (1126-1198 CE) or Averroes from Spain was a philosopher and scientist who expounded the Quran in Aristotelian terms. He was found guilty of heresy, his books burnt, he was interrogated and banished from Lucena.

Al-Bairuni (973-1048 CE), the father of Indology and a versatile genius, was of the strong view that Quran has its own domain and it does not interfere with the realm of science.

Al-Khawarazmi (780-850 CE) was another Persian mathematician, astronomer and geographer. The historian Al-Tabri considered him a Zoroastrian while others thought that he was a Muslim. However nowhere in his works has he acknowledged Islam or linked any of his findings to the holy text.

Omar Kyayyam(1048-1131 CE), one of the greatest mathematicians, astronomers and poets was highly critical of religion, particularly Islam. He severely criticized the idea that every event and phenomena was the result of divine intervention.

Al-Farabi(872-950 CE), another great Muslim philosopher, highly inspired by Aristotle, considered reason superior to revelation and advocated for the relegation of prophecy to philosophy.

Abu Musa Jabir- bin- Hayan or Geber (721-815 CE) was an accomplished Muslim alchemist cum pharmacist. Although he was inclined towards mysticism, he fully acknowledged the role of experimentation in scientific endeavors.

Ibn-ul-haitham or Hazen (965-1040 CE) was an outstanding physicist, mathematician, astronomer and an expert on optics. He was ordered by Fatimid King Al-Hakim to regulate the floods of the Nile, which he knew was not scientifically possible. He feigned madness and was placed under house arrest for the rest of his life.

As we go through the life history of these great men we find that they were influenced by Greek, Babylonian or Indian contributions to philosophy and science, had a critical and reasoning mind and were ‘not good’ Muslims or even atheists. A significant number of them were reluctant to even reveal the status of their beliefs for fear of reprisal from the fanatics.

They never ascribed their achievements to Islam or divinity.

And they were scholars and scientists because of a critical mind which would think and derive inspiration from observation and not scriptures which set restrictions on free thinking and unhindered pursuit of knowledge.

Hence bringing in Islam to highlight achievements of Muslim scientists is nothing but sheer rhetoric as these men did not derive their achievements out of Islam or flourished due to Islam.

And we find that whatever little contribution to science was made can be owed to ‘imperfect Muslims’.  In fact, It was the ‘perfect Muslim’, the Islamist, from the 12th century who was to give the biggest blow to scientific thought in the Muslim world: Imam Ghazali (1058-1111 CE) who still occupies a center stage among Muslim philosophers openly denounced the laws of nature and scientific reasoning.

Ghazali argued that any such laws would put God’s hands in chains. He would assert that a piece of cotton burns when put to fire, not because of physical reasons but because God wants it to burn. Ghazali was also a strong supporter of the Ash’arites; philosophers who would uphold the precedence of divine intervention over physical phenomena and bitterly opposed the Mu’tazillites; the rationalists who were the true upholders of scientific thought.  In other words Ghazali championed the cause of orthodoxy and dogmatism at the cost of rationality and scientific reasoning.

Today we find that all four major schools of ‘Sunni’ Islam reject the concept of ‘Ijtehad’ which can loosely be translated as ‘freedom of thought’. Hence there is absolutely no room for any innovation or modification in traditional thought patterns.

We also find that as Europe was making use of technology while transforming into a culture of machines, the acceptance of these machines was extremely slow in the Islamic world. One prime example is that of the printing press which reached Muslim lands in 1492; however printing was banned by Islamic authorities because they believed the Koran would be dishonored by appearing out of a machine. As a result, Arabs did not acquire printing press until the 18th century.

It also stands established that science is born out of secularism and democracy and not religious dogmatism. And science only flourished in places where religion had no role to play in matters of state. Hence there is an inverse relationship between religious orthodoxy and progress in science.

Rational thought in the Muslim world developed during the reign of liberal Muslim rulers of the Abbasid dynasty who patronized the Mu’tazillites or rational thinkers.  After the religious zealots’ compilation of the Ahadis and the rise of scholars like Al-Ghazali that all scientific reasoning came to an end in the 13th century.  As a consequence the Muslims contributed almost nothing to scientific progress and human civilization since the dawn of the 13th century. And while science and technology flourish in the modern world, a vast majority of Muslims, engulfed by obscurantism, still find solace in fantasies of a bygone era——the so called ‘golden age’ of Islam.

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Reprinted by permission of the author, Waseem Altaf; lightly edited for visual impact and heightened verbal sensibility.