Dr Muhammad Maroof Shah

Reading Muhammad Asad on Respecting Common Man’s Understanding of Islam and Islamic Law. A tradition warns us that zealots – who are all around us, within us – shall die. Timely plea of Muhammad Asad, “the gift of Europe to Islam,” the famous Quran and Bukhari translator, commentator and author, “Islam should be presented without any fanaticism. Without any stress on our having the only possible way and the others are lost”. we today apply on the discourse of fiqh in the context of heated and often politicized debates on Islamic Law (e.g., on triple talaq, apostasy penalty, recent changes in Saudi Arabia)       “The task before the modem Muslim is immense”, wrote Iqbal. He went on: “He has to rethink the whole system of Islam without completely breaking with the past.’’ With the exception of Muslim feminists and the likes of Muhammad Asad, Fazlur Rahman and Ghamidi and some lesser know scholar-intellectuals Muslims seem to have largely ignored Iqbal on this...

Exploring Abaqat and Hikmat al-Ishraq on the controversy between Religion and Philosophy, Theology and Esotericism.   Better known as a writer of immensely influential and, for some, controversial classic Taqweat-ul-Iman , Shah Ismail Shaheed should have been better/first approached – and needs to be now read – as a writer of greater classic Abaqat ; book that builds on and explicates Shah Waliullah’s metaphysical and spiritual teachings to make us understand an aspect of the legacy of the sage of Delhi and comprehensive Marifa and Hikmah oriented Islamic tradition.       Abu Yazid was asked about lawful and unlawful and he replied that one should better be in a state where the question doesn’t arise. Polemical issues or theological disputes (say between Shias and Sunnis) are best approached by taking one’s vision to a point where we can see origin of them in God and thus transcend them and this is what esotericism/ irfan does. The dispute concer...

Hayat Aamir succeeds in the great task of saying yes to life despite all the horror it entails. To the question “What do you do?” the poet’s answer is “I praise”, as Rilke phrased it. Why is it so? It is through praise that man rises to the challenge of “the deadly and monstrous… the nameless and the anonymous.” Heschel noted that "There are three ways in which a man expresses his deep sorrow: the man on the lowest level cries; the man on the next level is silent; the man on the highest level knows how to turn his sorrow into a song."  Jesus  said that “Blessed are they that weep and wail, for they shall be comforted.” One of the greatest contributions of Islamic culture – great poets of marsiya and traditional exponents of Shiite perspective – to the world heritage is teaching how suffering/tragedy may ennoble us and be an instrument of gnosis ( irfan ). Our most blessed task consists in blessing that which made the blessing called life possible and this task is performed...

Reading Whitehead on Philosophy and Religion To be given human state and fail to gratefully acknowledge those who have been its greatest explorers in different domains is both a moral and intellectual failure. There have been towering minds who have left behind a legacy of great insights regarding almost every important thing that concerns us and if we don’t visit their palaces of wisdom, we lose our claim to be lovers of wisdom or hikmah . The opposite of philosopher (etymologically lover of wisdom) is not a prophet or saint or theologian but misosopher (hater of wisdom) and we have no choice to avoid philosophy but are unavoidably either good or bad philosophers. Much of Sunni Muslim world’s tragedy is that it fears philosophers and is guilty of slander ( bohtan ) and unfounded opinions ( zann ) about them. It assumes philosophy is threat to religion or philosophers don’t know religion in its proper manner. What a decline from the past practice when it was perceived as an ally a...

How Serious is Invitation to Debate Serious Matters ? Much of the Muslim world, especially the Sunni part of it, has been suffering from unwarranted fear of philosophy and now of mysticism as well. It fails to understand that philosophy, mysticism, poetry and religion have all been important parts of any living culture or tradition and unless these are integrated and given due recognition, decay occurs. One can’t give one’s soul to any one aspect and when religion claims to encompass every aspect of life, it should no longer be called religion but Ad-Deen that includes Hikmah (philosophy and mysticism, both of which have been connected with art/poetry as well). The greatest minds of all traditions including the Islamic have, mostly, been integrating in themselves all of them and they are the sages that find universal appeal in human heart. Iqbal is the greatest example in recent history reminding us of great polymaths of the past. He was called Ali-guna (Ali like) by another grea...

Whom one reads indicates what one is. We are born with a love for perfection and it is against human dignity to settle for mediocrity and not to pursue the best – the most beautiful. Ihsan – doing everything in a style – is the universally acknowledged human prerogative. Let us ask today how we apply this  in approaching religion and literature. Thanks to modern education there are now many people who want to understand and create the best to satisfy their intellectual and creative yearnings but few are ready to pass through the ordeal of mastering the required sciences. This doesn’t necessarily mean  formal learning but requires what the Quran calls tafakkur – thinking. And what is called thinking? It is philosophers like Ibn Sina and Heidegger who are needed to explain it. The Quran's charge against most humans is they don’t think. Do we care to know what is called thinking? Who can claim access to required disciplining of attention?       Whom ...