Dr Muhammad Maroof Shah

Iqbal thought that the West is a development of Islam. Willy nilly, we live in the Eupropeanized world – our political institutions, our education, our economy, our sciences, our technology and our largely secularized post-theological world in which metaphysics as traditionally understood has been displaced from the centre stage – all testify to it. In Heideggerian terms one could say that modern man’s relation to Being is marked by encounter with Europe, its science and technology. In this technologized world, the world seen as a resource, God withdraws. Man is forced to live in a world where faith as it traditionally used to be is not available. In Iqbalian terms it might be rendered as a long night of waiting for God since the world has its own uses for destinies to be shaped( “Kare jehan daraz hae ab mera intizar ker” ).       We are in the world indelibly marked by colonial legacy and are paying for the choices we have made. We have adopted colonizer’s d...

Our underperforming and ill directed economy may be seen both as a cause and symptom of our political ills. Kashmir has failed to integrate with India and it has not failed to long for Pakistan or independence. It has ridiculously bad performance in human development and other important indices. Its underperforming or ill directed economy may be seen both as a cause and symptom of its political ills. It has been weakness for rice that has been, both in symbolic and literal senses, at the centre stage of fight for Kashmir’s political future. Now Kashmir is a disaster in terms of management of natural resources (a huge fraction of them were never even considered for tapping and have been locked for reasons not difficult to fathom), unprecedented employment crisis (too many casual jobs implying casual attitude to future, most of important sectors like agriculture and livestock unorganized, mostly alienation in jobs  and we have mostly jobs that drain us further in the long run imply...

Schuon offered a devastating criticism of modern priests of science such as Freud, Dawkins, Hawking on a very different plane . Few are aware that the science that claimed to oust God, to explain everything in principle without reference to the First Principle/Absolute, to dissolve mystery and to usher in an age of universal happiness has been discredited not only by postmodern philosophers and certain developments at the edge of modern science itself but also by our great metaphysicians such as Coomaraswamy and Guenon who were also trained as scientists. Lyotard famously pointed out that modern science as a grand narrative (grand overarching explanatory paradigm) is no longer credible in our age. Feyerbend and others have reiterated the thesis that modern science has been dogmatic and power-inflected and thus can’t arbitrate or monopolize truth. However, criticizing science’s big ideological claims alone doesn’t suffice; what we need is arguing for an alternative epistemology and me...

Reading Darbar Move as Governance Disaster There are many painful reminders that we encounter too often that unmistakably mean we are specially abled people whom some ghosts have taken possession of. A few examples include: When we are charged for electricity usage or heaters/boilers searched, or lights go off and every analysis stops at the point we can’t or haven’t realized full potential of water resources thanks to IWT and NHPC and India’s refusal to give counter-guarentees for mega-investment projects needed; When there is a match between India and Pakistan and someone in us  can’t cheer for India or either of them; When we try to fathom why State is the key employer, employees are too many and people are virtually dying for lack of jobs in resource rich State ( if we could only tap mineral and other resources under the earth, we would have almost no unemployment as has been argued by many an expert).       While we may be one day cured of th...

Who can vow that he has seen ten people he knows intimately and none had significant behavioural problems. Swift’s idea in his satirical masterpiece A Modest Proposal which proposed that the poor Irish may consider easing their economic troubles by selling their children as food for rich people was to shock people out of complacency and insensitivity towards issues that they pass by. I think in Kashmir it is impossible to shock people perhaps for the reasons karwan kae dil sae ehsas-i- ziyaan jata raha . Or is it because we have converted life into an object of art? Or we are Nietzschean Zarathustras not vulnerable to pity and sons of the soil of saints who are said to be “beyond good and evil" ?  Humane Slaughter of New Generation “Papa, would you please slaughter me?” a five year old child asked.   “Why?” asked the shocked father. “Then I will join God and willn’t have to go the school.”   I heard this dialogue few days back and can assert that something simila...

I propose a few measures that appear to me best solutions to some nagging problems we all suffer from. Treating Professional Hazards We have many State appointed bakers, operating with tax money of the poor, who spoil over 80% precious cakes after months of toil and throw them to the dogs. Or many State sponsored car manufacturing units that throw into the sea over 80% of its finished products as they either don’t find roads for them or necessary oil to grease them. Professional colleges are, for the majority of students, animal farms where students are not made into productive beings but fattened for slaughter but their meet, unfortunately, is unacceptable to the public and they die like abandoned horses and old cows slow painful deaths thanks to frustration, ostracization and drudgery of applying and preparing for interviews for all kinds of posts. Therefore it is proposed that after completing degree of professional colleges, 80% of graduates should be hanged in a public ceremon...

He comes close to mystics but doesn’t go all the way with them. Beckett is considered by some as the greatest writer of the twentieth century. Those who know what the hell has been modernity and especially the twentieth century and have read or watched Beckett’s work will largely agree. His work is set in hell or purgatory because he sees  them everywhere. Do you know of any person who is really happy, at home, without revenge or malice or complaint and not speaking ill of someone? Do you know anyone who can confidently say his life has been live well or he has found meaning in it? Who isn’t a creature of habit? Who doesn’t wait aimlessly and distract himself by gossiping or playing absurd games or meaningless chatting on social networks? Who has found unalloyed love that heals all wounds? Beckett describes  man’s failure, especially modern man’s failure who has lost faith in God. Anyway do you know anyone who truly believes today? Belief in manifested by virtues of accept...

It could well be the most important book of the current century in research in Kashmiri literature.   G.N .Gowhar has already done so much for Sheikh-ul-Alam studies that no history of evolution of the discipline could bypass him. As he grows older his power and resolve to touch taboo areas has only increased. His magnum opus – gowhar - in this field was awaited by us from years and, despite his ill health, has come. Though bound to receive mixed and heated response, and generate debate both for and against some of his theses this Mu’taber Kulliyat-i-Shaikh-ul–Alam seems destined to reorient Sheikh ul Alam studies in a decisive way. It could well be the most important book of the current century in research in Kashmiri literature.       So far proper historical criticism hasn’t been applied to Sheikh corpus. Even the laity and not to speak of many important scholars of the Sheikh has been uncomfortable with what goes popularly in his name. It is diff...