Dr Muhammad Maroof Shah

Great writers don’t invite us to themselves; they invite us to the holiness accessible to all. “I'm crazy about Chekhov. I never knew anybody that wasn't,” said Woody Allen, US filmmaker. Chekhov died at age 44 fighting tuberculosis with rare dignity and fortitude.  Great writers are missionaries of Spirit/Life and thus welcome in every land as they don’t invite us to themselves, to airy abstractions, to utopias, to ideologies that come and go. They invite us to the holiness accessible to all and sundry, to common or shared joys and beauty. With them we don’t feel intimidated but a certain fellowship of spirit. The way we need personal/family doctors and Masters we also need writers. West, a Christian and teacher of religion at Harvard, wrote about the agnostic Chekhov: “I find the incomparable works of Anton Chekhov— the best singular body by a modern artist— to be the wisest and deepest interpretations of what human beings confront in their daily struggles. . . . I find

Rival Truths or Points of View in Religions and Sects To the less informed the conflicting claims of religions and sects of religions or philosophy and religion appear as real battles over conflicting truths. The situation has been captured thus by Mark Twain: “Man is the Religious Animal. . . . He is the only animal that has the True Religion—several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself, and cuts his throat if his theology isn’t straight. He has made a graveyard of the globe in trying his honest best to smooth his brother’s path to happiness and heaven.” Umberto Eco has pointed out that we should fear “those prepared to die for the truth, for as a rule they make many others die with them, often before them, at times instead of them.” Could it be the case that apparently or obviously conflicting claims are not conflicts between rival saving truth claims but mostly political conflicts or reflect our situatedness and it is indeed impossible to avoid presup

Reading Ionesco on the Meaning of Life. Once we approached the elders, priests, pirs/gurus and theologians to illuminate dark or difficult questions. Now people turn to writers/poets. Although it is the case that our most trusted guides – the fraternity of prophets and sages – are united in espousing the only Tradition we have as far as the ethics and metaphysics grounding saving truths are concerned – writers are sought to explicate essential saving truths by modern man amidst confusion of tongues. Amongst such writers certain especially stand out by virtue of their influence and remarkable presentation of certain saving truths that many have found helpful in illuminating difficult questions including that of our ultimate destiny.       Although there are many who have not heard the anguish and pleas of major modern and postmodern prophets, the disturbing ground report is that we are living in difficult, dark and complex times where weather continues to be foggy and stormy and we f

His position is far more nuanced than generally known or attributed to him by hostile critics. Sir Syed is amongst the most misunderstood, misread and boycotted thinkers. His tafsir has been often ridiculed though few have cared to read it. His seminal thesis – that Islam is identifiable with Nature, with what is the case and thus Islam embraces, by definition, whatsoever truth is there and is not to reduced to a religion or creedal system or theology as popularly understood and is the very name of openness and free inquiry and thus needn’t be proved and can’t be meaningfully doubted and is only a reminder of what we already know/can know in principle – has never been seriously debated. Sir Syed has arguably provided for Islam a philosophical foundation that can’t be shaken in principle and thus immunizes it against all critiques beforehand. It is in the name of truth/Islam that we challenge any claim to truth of any ideology or system. Islam has been understood as a meta-religion

Admittedly difficult questions but the answers are not difficult to comprehend in principle. How come good is seemingly defeated, justice undone, and the strong have the day; and the poor common people suffer like dogs? Or there is a meaning in all this and one can see some ground to avoid despair? If the oppressed fail in political terms, how do they find will to go on, to suffer with dignity (“Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better”) and not lose heart? These are admittedly difficult questions but the answers are not difficult to comprehend in principle. Marxist and other fundamentally secular answers aren’t convincing beyond a point where we need to marshal spiritual resources to keep fighting. In fact we seem to know the answers and we can rest assured that “all is well.” And Ghazzali wasn’t far from the mark when he said this is the best possible world and none of the ills it has in store for us are gratuitous. One possible answer we all can appreciate and

Modern Contributions to Kashmiri Na’t Tradition All great poetry is a species of na’t defined as poetry in praise of the Prophet who in turn is understood, by the greatest na’t writers who happen to be inspired by Sufism, as the Principle of Manifestation, Logos, the Pole of Existence, the Perfect Man, Wisdom personified, drive for  perfection of ethics and love of beauty. One may better appreciate the thesis if one notes the function of poetry as provision for discovering the good and beautiful in all that meets and surrounds one (Coleridge), “truth telling, which is why in the Celtic tradition no one could be a teacher unless he or she was a poet,” reconciliation with the world/celebration of love/women – one may recall Wallace Stevens’ remark “A poet looks at the world the way a man looks at a woman,” and Holderlin’s point that the duty of the poet is “to stand/Bare-headed under the storms of God,/Grasping with our own hand/The Father's beam itself, And to offer the gift of

In continuation with previous column “Why Read Ibn Arabi?” a few more points to consider for those who have problems with life/religion/Sufism or with advocacy of Ibn Arabi. Besides/instead of looking at the world from God the King and man the subject angle as has been the case with major Muslim revivalists, (and the anxiety of this world and otherworld as has been the case with exoteric theologians and those who haven’t heard of postmodern thinkers) one may consider appreciating that God alone is there playing a game, projecting Himself in the mirror called the world/man. God is more than a King, a Lover and the Beloved playing hide and seek that constitutes the drama we call life. How thankful we should be of those who play the other – our  enemies, critics or opposite team in a contest – as they make life interesting or at least eventful. Just be a spectator (actualize the name Shahid) deep inside though outwardly one might adopt a role given situation requires, say try hitting,

Ibn Arabi matters because he is amongst the thinkers or sages whose meditations on key questions, we all face, are arguably amongst the most comprehensive and profound. In physical, moral, spiritual and intellectual distress one seeks relevant healers and one doesn’t ask about the colour or race of the doctor. I find everyone, regardless of creed or IQ in some distress crying for help that Ibn Arabi can offer. The distress over any issue – personal, familial, religious, metaphysical – is overcome by turning to understanding/meaning of the issues in terms that one can’t but testify. If one is in distress over some family issue or has been hurt from someone’s bad words or divorce or is suffering an existential crisis or regretting the course of events on which one had no control or asks why people go astray or why good people suffer or why people die in religions they were born into and arguably earn damnation for choices they hardly make, consider what Ibn Arabi has to say. Ibn Arab

There is no final station and if there is, it is the station of no-station.  Khizr, has been a perennially sought presence across cultures. Who is he and is he around or is there Khizr within or in every other person if we are attentive enough? Is he alive or dead? Why was Moses asked to be his student? Despite such ever debated questions that have occupied/divided scholars, meeting him is generally considered a privilege though it is also said that few recognize him when this happens. He is around but we are heedless. In many subtle ways, we might have experienced his kind presence and help. So much confusion around him reigns because good works on him are not available. Partly filling the gap for Urdu reading world is Dr. G. Q. Lone’s Hazrat Khizr: Tehqeek ki Roshni Mei ; lucid book that reviews and distills centuries of scholarship on the issue though one misses engagement with modern approaches, especially myth criticism, and certain aspects of traditional science of symbolis