Dr Muhammad Maroof Shah

The best is self authenticating. The Sun shines and we know and need not fight over it. Many religions claim to be the best or assert their finality or primordiality. How do we understand such claims and appreciate Mulla Sadra’s point, endorsed by Muslim theologians and sages in their own ways, regarding Islam as superior and more complete than any other religion because it incorporates the teachings of all religions?       If we closely attend to the ground of the claim of finality – access to the Absolute – for which prophets are the means, we can, across religions, identify the ground of superiority and resolve conflicting claims. Today we note Schuon’s (Shaykh Isa Nuruddin’s) clarification of the logic underlying finality. Schuon clarifies the logic with reference to Islam (and this should apply to other religions also): “True terminality – the glory of being the omega – is not realized by any one religion as opposed to another, it is realized by esoterism in relation to all

Reading Eric Voegelin on Sacred Oriented Politics. We live in a world where Syed Maududi remains a presence to contend with. One is either for him or against him – there is no option of ignoring him. There remains certain ambivalence with regard to his central ideas amongst mainstream Ulema, and some intellectuals. Ambivalence may be underlined by noting sharply divided estimates of him by Hasan Askari, and his student Saleem Ahmed, two great traditionalist critics of Pakistan. Askari was quite critical of Syed Maududi and a fan of Bhutto, while for Saleem Ahmed converse was true. (Muslim religious/intellectual communities similarly remain divided in their views of revivalist theology and politics). It appears that Maududi would be better understood in relation to the thoughts of the best of his contemporaries in political philosophy and religion. One such illustrious contemporary was Eric Voegelin who shared Maududi’s commitment to the Sacred infused life and public sphere, distrust

Reading Joseph Campbell on Costs of Misreading Myths   Utter failure of our education in the schools and the pulpit is evidenced by equation of myth with trith (lie), asserting that the Quran has no myths and laughing at great myths of world’s religions or wisdom traditions – and also calling other religions myths – and not knowing how theology and art are better served by proper understanding of myths. Fundamentalism  is based on gross misreading of some key myths of one’s own and other religions. Many common myths of major scriptures and certain details of Quranic myths in hadith literature have been such a problem of many modernist scholars and modernist critics of hadith. Much of wisdom literature, such traditional resources as Puranas and in fact every scripture, great art and poetry and such phenomena as  Joyce and Mann abound in mythological themes that can’t be appreciated without deep understanding of myth. Failure to appreciate the point that Imam Hussain has been approp

Reading Dostoevsky and Levinas and bringing local testimonies on evidences of our guilt. Imagine we are suddenly summoned for any crime committed anywhere while we have no idea about even our remote involvement and we have no forum or chance to plead our innocence. According to world religions and, as expressly stated by such writers as Dostoevsky, Beckett, Kafka and such philosophers as Levinas, this is indeed the case and we stand accused and are currently facing the trial and it seems that punishment phase has already begun. The task is to awaken to the full implications of this Kafkaseque nightmare. We are not responsible for sins of others but for injustice suffered by others anywhere. The Quran accuses man for choosing to accept the Divine Trust when the earth and the heavens had refused. This trust requires being true to the divine image in which man is created and that in turn means being responsible for the whole creation. This responsibility is back breaking. Unspeakable cri