Dr Muhammad Maroof Shah

Every educated Muslim should read at least introductory texts on important facets of Islamic Tradition written by scholars capable of critical thinking.   The tragedy of the Muslim world consists, generally speaking, in refusal to think and reflect and outsourcing these tasks to those who haven’t been trained to review the state of art of different disciplines and master the art of thinking and conceptual apparatus required at the highest level. At certain level and on more general problems, all Muslims are required to know basics and think over them. In the name of Islam it has been the case that on certain issues one could be misled, misinformed and needlessly opinionated and judgmental. Self esteem, relationships/family life, job prospects, respect for reason, authority of conscience, faith in God/Islam all have been negatively impacted due to misconstrued views one has interiorized. Every educated Muslim should read at least introductory texts/review articles on important f...

All ideologies are exclusive and could lead to violently excluding the right to disagree. Islam is not an ideology but fundamentalism is. Fundamentalism doesn’t know, as Wahidudin Khan often emphasizes, that we live in a different world, that we no longer understand the language of legalism that uses fatwas instead of communicative dialogue, that sectarianism is against both spiritual humanism and basic ethos of a globalized world. All ideologies are exclusive and could lead to violently excluding the right to disagree. Islam is not an ideology but fundamentalism is. It is vain to appropriate such terms as fundamentalism  (see this in some popular preachers) and give it an Islamic dress as implying firm belief in fundamentals of religion. Historically literalism has been both exclusive and violent. In the history of Islam exclusivist ideological battles have given us some heinous wars and killings and we can trace them to Kharjite mind set if not even farther in the past. And ...