Dr Muhammad Maroof Shah

“School failed me, and I failed the school. It bored me. The teachers behaved like Feldwebel (sergeants). I wanted to learn what I wanted to know, but they wanted me to learn for the exam. What I hated most was the competitive system there, and especially sports. Because of this, I wasn’t worth anything, and several times they suggested I leave. This was a Catholic School in Munich. I felt that my thirst for knowledge was being strangled by my teachers; grades were their only measurement. How can a teacher understand youth with such a system? From the age of twelve I began to suspect authority and distrust teachers.” The above quote from Einstein (the greatest scientist of the twentieth century whom school system almost killed) reproduced here should be enough to alert those who seek to change educational policy, especially academic session for facilitating examination oriented academic policy. Examinations, as currently held, are not defensible; they are causing gangrene to the sou

Why is today so much confusion about religion? Why anxiety to prove one’s sect or school the best? Why declare others somehow inferior, misguided? What is misguidance, anyway? Why use this as a whip to beat whatever we don’t like? Let me assert that the essence of religion, which saves, is simple to comprehend and universally known and agreed upon by the best minds of every tradition that what we need is to start action or following the well-known Way. No books, no complicated commentaries, no elaborate polemical theses are needed to be consulted before one convinces oneself regarding this essential point. What is this essence of religion, mysticism, traditional philosophies? The following famous passage of Ibn Arabi is particularly detailed and important expression of this essential point. In this passage is summed up essential Ibn Arabî (I would claim, essential Rumi, essential Ghazzali, essential Ibn Taymiyyah, essential Sheikh-ul-Alam, essential Iqbal) and the central message o

Public perception, especially perception in educated class regarding animal husbandry is that is not the ideal choice even for a farmer, not to speak for a minister to choose as his profile. Farmers continue to be imagined as poor, ignorant, crude, uncouth. Animals are best when prepared for table but not when it is encountering them live with all the dung and bestiality associated with them. Another presumption is livestock sector is only of marginal importance to our economy. Public perception may well be erroneous but as creatures who do care for reputation or perceived image we may be prone to escape reality. And reality must be faced.  Let us examine the facts. Before I come to the status in our state I need to make an observation about a pathology of modernity called necrophilia – love for corpses which is Erich Fromn’s expression for our love for machine culture. Man has been created in divine image and this requires living with other species, seeing ourselves in them as sha

It is a flood that comes annually, destroys generations and cripples minds There is a flood that comes once in a century, destroys properties. But there is a flood that comes annually, destroys generations and cripples minds. And it is on a mass scale. And we are all its victims. And we don’t talk about it. It has claimed innumerable lives, destroyed creative spark in countless students. It costs us money, time, human resource and other resources. I mean Examination System prevailing here which needs examining, a thorough post-mortem. A preliminary post-mortem report follows. Detailed reports from different labs (intellectual, moral, social, psychological, political, religious) will hopefully follow in future. The body is giving offensive smell. One can’t imagine how it functioned in its great days. Once upon a time there was instituted a system for preparing students for mastering crafts and skills they had shown promise by virtue of natural inclination, heredity etc. Students wer