Dr Muhammad Maroof Shah

Here systematic explication of postmodernism is not possible so a few points will be made though I risk certain oversimplification. It must be borne in mind that there are divergent interpretations of and approaches to understand postmodernism. Muslims are required to appreciate the spirit of the times and recognize the signs of the Lord in change, in history, in new unfolding events.  A   Mujaddid   or reviver of religion is born after every 100 years to help cope up with the new challenges. Today we try to appreciate the challenge from postmodern thought currents are posing and opportunities they are providing for exploitation on our part. First it is to be noted that ours is, willy-nilly, the postmodern age. Living in a globalised world, a multicultural world we might suffer cultural shock or pathologically reaction to the cultural or religious other. Salafi-Sufi polarisation or Shia Sunni skirmishes that have intensified recently for reasons we know can be better understood by un

How many ZEOs or CEOs spend time in schools? We do have an information processing cum literacy department but not any education department. I argue that we need to change the name of the department from education to literacy department as long as we don’t prove that it is also educating. Once we had it, at least something approximating it. Now we don’t. I think the following explains my point.      There have been numerous critiques of current educational system and various proposals to redress the increasingly appreciated problems at moral and spiritual plane inherent in it.      Suggestions from certain well known commissions constituted for analyzing and development of educational policy; suggestions for bringing in the moral and spiritual element in education that had traditionally been the bedrock of Indian educational system and that constitutes vital element of our cultural heritage have not been implemented, or perhaps could not be implemented due to current fashionable par

One of our most brilliant and original scholars, who has been more reviled than read and condemned for certain inferences in which he is not unique. Who remembers authors of 40 fatwas against Iqbal today? Who sends blessings to the person who greeted Sir Syed with shoes? Who respects those who persecuted great thinkers in Islamic history? And isn’t ours an age where argument rather than sermonizing is more convincing? Today’s persecuted, reviled minds could be tomorrow’s celebrities. Javed Ahmad Ghamidi, I have reasons to think, is one of our most brilliant and original scholars who has been more reviled than read and condemned for certain inferences in which he is not unique. We mayn’t or needn’t agree with everything of any great scholar in the history of Islam. We need to identify the basic methodology of the scholar to situate him properly in context. Thus approached Ghamidi is rooted in Tradition, builds upon the universally accepted sources, is not a modernist or rationalist

Life lost in living, knowledge lost in information, and wisdom lost in knowledge. What for do schools, colleges and universities exist? We all know they are for education, and comprehensive concept of education would include teaching or developing skills for earning a living or vocation. Now our educational institutions fail on all the grounds. They don’t fashion souls or make us better humans. Ethically, in terms of vulnerability to corruption or harbouring a selfish, mean, sadistic personality, educated persons including the best educated PhDs don’t score better than uneducated rustics. They don’t teach the most important thing – the art of thinking (critical thinking, difference between opinion and truth, facts and interpretations, divine and human views, self and Self etc.), scientific and unscientific attitude (recently some sermons against weather prediction legitimacy were heard!). They are not, excluding some professional colleges or institutions, oriented to vocational train

Kashmir has a mystical heritage and identity. And it has politically been transformed by socialistic vision of Marxists and Sheikh Abdullah. However, Marxism and mysticism have been mutually suspicious and that has hampered tackling the questions of both politics and religion. So we ask today why is religion perceived as an enemy of a socialist or communist state? It is replied that because it is “the opium of the peoples.” It lulls workers to sleep. It is thus anti-revolutionary. It is complicit with capitalism. It too exploits in the name of God when it extracts wealth from gullible masses. It creates false substitutes like the goods of the otherworld so that people don’t take the problems of this world very seriously. It encourages detachment that conflicts with the spirit of active involvement needed for changing the order of the world. It reconciles people to present ills by attributing them to fate or karma . It says resist not evil and believes that change of heart in the capi

Without reading Marx one is illiterate in modern thought Like it or not, Marx tops the list of the most influential thinkers of the modern age. He has helped shape, or influence, not only politics, but economics, literature and literary criticism, philosophy, liberation theology and almost every important stream of humanities. Nothing makes sense in the capitalist world except in light of Marx. Without reading Marx one is illiterate in modern thought. Name any philosopher or writer or political personality with whom one day (Ist May), every year, is identified across the world?  Reading Marx helps explain the world we live in and partly help fighting injustice in it. All those who curse money power or rat race for competition and hanker for guaranteed employment, free education and healthcare, more leisure, holidays, pensions, social welfare schemes,  all kinds of insurances against exigencies, and have reasons to complain about banks and other capitalist institutions, and keep deman

The universe can’t be justified except in aesthetic terms. Nietzsche Religious, artistic, mystical and philosophical traditions are unanimous in asserting that we are here to appreciate, to love, to enjoy, to play, to beautify rather than to worry, to solve the mystery in logical terms. But our tragedy today is we seek explanations, utility, profit. We taunt youth why they spend time in playing or watching sports. We don’t live life. We just vegetate. We bring calculative business mentality to basic question of living. We ask how much does one earn, what work does one do, what new thing has been added. We do not know how much joy is there in the world. What great treasures we lose daily, we don’t notice. Our education doesn’t teach us to live life. “The School of Life” is nowhere to be seen. We are crippled before weal and woe of life; a small event may make us sad or even force us to consider suicide. We don’t learn the art of life in schools, in mosques, in social networking sites o

Because Rahi is to Kashmir what Sartre is to France Muhammmad Yusuf Taing, one of the frontline critics of Kashmiri literature and culture, believes  that it will require another 500 years to produce second Rahi. Why? Let us seek to investigate today. How it is possible,for any critic, to say that “Rahi is Kashmir”, as Charles de Gaule, the famous French President, said about Sartre: “Sartre is France.” “What do you like from Rahi’s poetry?” “All of it is dear to me,” replied one of the meticulous readers, and critics of Kashmiri poetry. If we ask this question regarding even the great Kashmiri Sufi poets, not to speak of other poets, none of our important critics can go to this extent.  Rahi giving us, in captivating and sublime language, the best of Persian Masters in (post)modern idiom,. He has expressed the best of Indio-Persian Kashmiri literary heritage in the (post)modern or contemporary idiom, it is he who has distilled in local idiom,  certain important elements in Hafiz,