Dr Muhammad Maroof Shah

The Ashtavakra Gita is a classic of nondualism that appears shocking to many outsiders and quite offensive to literallyminded. However, when read in the context of tradition of which it is a flowering all the key reservations about it get dissolved. If we keep in mind the following points while reading it, it appears neither new nor unorthodox and it is no wonder that such great saints as Ramakrishna used to refer to it without any hesitation. It does appear addressed to elite intellectual and spiritual audience and presupposes certain basics to have been already cleared. These include transcendence of the attachment to senses or desires and thus removing of key hurdle of ego and passions that veil or distort truth. All the hard discipline of which traditions talk is presupposed by the sage Ashtavakra. What he questions is attachment to beliefs which we find in other sages as well such as Sankara, Ibn Arabi and Eckhart. What he emphasizes is freedom from imposed constructions that we f

As curriculum is national debate and countering intolerance generally acknowledged priority, it is time to consider philosophy, the queen of sciences. The pursuit or love of wisdom, as philosophy aspires to be, there can be no doubt about its need for anyone in any culture. In Islamic culture the Prophet (S.A.W) is quintessential teacher of hikmah which means wisdom. Muslims settled score with wisdom traditions from other cultures and today are required to take stock of several wisdom traditions that we encounter in globalized world. How do Muslims approach this crucial task? I would suggest that philosophy’s central definitions/charecterizations/objectives including love of wisdom, seeing things as they are or right vision, preparation for death, self discipline and self inquiry, examination of life and opinions/critical thinking, life of mind/contemplative activity, orientation towards the Good and cultivation of beauty constitute perennially or universally sought/relevant ideals ev

Understanding, with Simone Weil, the pathology of being somebody and invitation to martyrdom as an offering of “I”  Arguably nine tenths of problems we face at personal, familial and social levels are due to wrong view of oneself and one’s vocation. We have not been taught or haven’t interiorized first shahadah/kalima that teaches us to give up the notion of ordinary self/ego for transpersonal Self. The passion for fame or for self aggrandizement or power or position or bossing in administrative career, awards, rewards and recognition are all aspects of the pathology of self-knowledge. Check again your deepest motivation when you choose your career. If it is for certain glamour for getting a name or becoming somebody instead of discovering nobody we truly are, one is doomed to pursue an illusion. If one is an ambitious man of career, gets readily irritated, maintains a distance from fellow people one meets in the street every day, is ever thinking about promotions, not nice to one’s f

For someone baffled by diversity of religions and comparable zeal and commitment shown by believers to their respective traditions and almost universal fact of someone born in some faith choosing to die in that faith, a few points call for attention.      Our situation resembles that of pilgrims travelling in the night to some unknown destination. Pilgrims are divided into different groups, holding different flags distinct identity of which is not clear during night hours. Pilgrims hold fast to their own groups imagining that others have misidentified the road to the destination. It is not quite clear if the destination is one or how to describe it for many pilgrims. Pilgrims are mostly mistrustful of one another’s travel documents. Many, however, imagine that they are following the well-trodden path of pious ancestors first lit by respective founders. During the dark hours it is not clear if the paths of different pilgrims criss cross. There are some pilgrims who stick to their own re

 There are, in the Muslim world, amongst masses, Sufis, poets, intellectuals though not amongst most of professional theologians, broadly, three attitudes regarding treating the religious other: a) Taking salvation of non-Muslim believing communities for granted, b) not worrying about it c) considering it to be not an object of enquiry here as it is God’s call while maintaining hope in the dominion of Mercy. Our view regarding salvation of religious other may be substantiated by noting how relations with it are here on earth as they figure in the historical record of community. One can’t here review all the major positions and events but only indicate possibilities that may or mayn’t have been fully realized so far at given place and time.     There has been general amnesty in principle to believers and nonbelievers of all kinds. The Islamic holy text can be and has been interpreted as extending freedom of religion to “disbelievers” or those outside the Abrahamic tradition. None could

Muslim Modernism and the Problem of Modern Science Muhammad Maroof Shah Indian Publishers Distributor , 2007, xiv, 318 p., ISBN 81-7341-427-0 View the book on Amazon.in Contents: Preface. 1. Modern science and varieties of Muslim modernism. 2. Muslim modernism, reconstructionist thesis and the problem of appropriating modern science in Islam. 3. Frithjof Schuon's traditionalist critique of modern science. 4. Conceptual confusions in modernist thesis of compatibility between the Quran and modern science. 5. Thesis of compatibility between modern science and Islam from Iqbalian perspective. 6. Legitimating the modern project: Iqbal's interpretation of the idea of finality in Islam. 7. Modernist appropriation of evolution and Iqbal. 8. Muslim modernism and demythologization : Sir Syed, Abduhu and Iqbal perspective. 9. Modernist psychologism and the question of reconstruction of religion: an appraisal of Iqbal's approach. 10. Perennialist critique of modern sci

The deeper or comprehensive meaning of Quranic descriptions about hell as mawla – friend (Q. 57:15) – and umm – mother (Q. 101:9), as something for which we ought to be thankful in the chapter Rehman , and use of such words as azab derived from the root word azb meaning sweet thing haven’t been given due attention by mainstream Muslim scholarship. The distinction of Ibn Arabi lies in providing an alternative understanding of hell that finds deep resonance in our hearts and minds besides opening up new vistas on various verses of the Quran. Ibn Arabi declared that his life-long mission is to broadcast the Mercy centric message of Islam – he deciphered the universe’s relationship to the Breath of the All-Merciful  and need to appreciate the dimension of beauty or aesthetic point of view – so that no servant ever despairs. Let us read how he applies his ontology of mercy to non-believers and hell in light of a few statements and works of William Chittick and Muhammad Khalil.      Ibn

For Islam that requires affirming all revealed traditions/scriptures, known and unknown, as a condition for being a Muslim and has nurtured a civilization that assimilated/engaged with diverse religious/cultural forms and has, relatively, better record of peaceful coexistence with other traditions and great textual and other resources for building impressive non-exclusivist approaches as in Sufis, poets and Muslim sages, certain pluralistic ideas in the air today present an opportunity and not an embarrassment. The following is a selection from certain influential pluralists that echo Islamic tradition’s respect for difference without degenerating into groundless relativism that leaves no room for the Absolute and the emphasis on uniqueness and special access to truth of diverse traditions.  (It is ironic that exclusivist fundamentalism should have grown in Islamic lands in last two centuries and it is noteworthy that we can trace it to certain pathologies in colonial politics and Orie

Syed Moududi, despite his differences with Sufism, especially its philosophical framing and the perception of divergence of its popular form from sharia , succeeded in translating the core moral and spiritual content of Sufism understood as struggle with the lower self and perfection of virtues in the pages of his work that exudes the perfume of discovery of God by a self consumed by obedience to the Divine Will. Reading Syed Moududi one finds that one is led to take God seriously and in that light see everything else. History and our odyssey get a new meaning with fellowship of God. Sufism, according to its acclaimed Masters, is not the science of states but stations and one can take his critique of world wary intoxicating bliss pursuing indulgent Sufism in positive light. Great Masters of Sufism would thank Syed Moududi for feedback on dangers of abnegating reason, eschewing self criticism and cultistic servile following of so called spiritual guides and pleading for non-attachment t