Dr Muhammad Maroof Shah

Asking Some Difficult Questions about Islam Following Iqbal, Fazlur Rahman has been arguably the last major philosopher of our subcontinent and like the former’s philosophical lectures, his works are largely unheard, and certainly unheeded. He has been one of the most brilliant minds who was deeply informed about traditional Islam’s most important languages, thinkers, history and general self understanding. It is shocking how little he has been read or understood or engaged with by Ulama whose key premises he interrogated. His great works have been and could be criticized on this or that point, but that does not mean his many an insight and contribution could be ignored. We can’t proceed to solve certain problems today for the Muslim world, especially in the subcontinent, without taking note of Fazlur Rahman. He was indeed fazl of Rahman and so far we have been absent to receive the treasure he uncovered. Today we take note of some of his questions he has raised regarding Quran ex...

Ancient, Medieval and Modern Kashmir; Insights and Problems in P. K. Nehru’s Satisar to Kashmir. Pandits are homeless in more senses than one. What is especially ignored is chosen homelessness or self exile to barren landscapes where the richness of imagination and culture one owned is disowned. Exploring one’s history, myths and literature constitute vital means to live and refuse annihilation. P.K.Nehru has done such an exploration in Satisar to Kashmir and invites Pandits to their lost selves.       The author seems to take partly historical works rather uncritically as works of history. We know Nilmat Purana is not primarily a work of history in the sense we now understand the term. And even Rajatarangini too makes us pause and requires us sift poetry from history in various places. Just an example: In Rajatarangini , Lolar, now a small part of Kupwara district, is said to be the place where 840000 buildings were constructed.     ...

Reorienting certain debates on the meaning and constructions of Islam today. Sectarianism in Muslims is mostly a product of ignorance and vested interests. How far it is a product of ignorance is documented by Shahab Ahmed in his What is Islam , one of  the really great works on Islam that is destined to be influential and help reorient certain debates on the meaning and constructions of Islam today. First a few remarks on the author and the book.       Shahab Ahmad knew 15 languages including the most important classical languages in which Islamic tradition is expressed. He is extremely careful with regard to sources he quotes and usually deals with original sources and classical authorities to build his arguments. There is little by way of his own interpretation and much by way of letting authorities and little noticed scholars speak in their own words. He asks questions after piling huge mass of facts and marginalized scholars. Let us read him, as he r...

Camus on the Choice Between Politics and Morality In these testing times as chaos reigns and people talk about conscience in politics one recalls Albert Camus, one of the towering writers of the 20th century and revered as “moral conscience of his age,”  whose hero said in The Plague ( a novel about pestilence in Oran that one especially recalls living in plagued Kashmir and one can perhaps identify some major  elements and characters  in it and the problem it engages with around us without much difficulty) : “I have no idea what's awaiting me, or what will happen when this all ends. For the moment I know this: there are sick people and they need curing.” Elsewhere he remarks: “I would rather live my life as if there is a god and die to find out there isn't, than live my life as if there isn't and die to find out there is.”       Those who truly see God acting in history and our lives agree with Camus’ statement “Do not wait ...

Let us note that he matured as a writer-statesman at a time when Pakistan was split and indigenous political movement had lost hope. The most important question Kashmiris face today, it would appear, is to choose between autonomy and azadi. Mainstream leadership and India could settle for autonomy (or its other versions) but Kashmiri resistance leadership and masses demand azadi . So there appears a deadlock. The solution, it might be argued, is to re-conceive autonomy (or self rule) in a manner that it would be a concrete content of what appears to many an abstraction called azadi . So far mainstream leadership (or “pro-Indian” mind) has failed to do so. So the choice is straightforward: azadi. But the idea of azadi is resisted  by force. Despite all the moral, political and other arguments against India for denying self determinism, the first and the last response is force, brute force. And in this world our arguments amount to little more than a consolation for our suffer...

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...

The question of time is the vital question of life and death for Muslims, as Iqbal noted. Time is terribly real. So is history. The question of time is the vital question of life and death for Muslims, as Iqbal noted. Semitic traditions have been especially concerned with linearity of time and exigencies of history. On this fateful moment in history when the “clash” of civilizations has been brought up, how do we approach the vital question? What is the meaning of history if we find it a “huge slaughterhouse” of people and find the will to power ruling the roost? How is it possible to say goodbye to another fateful year that precipitated the debate on meaning of Muslim understanding of history and allied conceptions of Islamic State and Khilafah that, self avowedly, seek to redirect history with a value based  paradigm. The problem of evil especially presents itself with all its horror today as we recall groans and sighs and tears from violence and alienation that seems to hav...

For most women living here, Kashmir has always been hell. To live as a daughter is hell, to leave one’s home for the spouse’s home is a bigger hell. To continue to live in alien house (that rarely becomes home) is like serving a life sentence. Most homes are a hell for daughters-in law. Mothers-in law have their own hell to keep burning. But let us today focus on the hell of our daughters who suddenly get deprived of the status as daughters and become only legal subjects, who are no longer humans. One daughter-in-law reaches her home by   6pm   where everyone including the mother-in-law and husband’s brother, are waiting for her to prepare tea and dinner for them. She is unable to take tea before 7.30pm .  Kitchen odour must not spread to irritate anyone in the house and she must be very careful in the kitchen. Another has to buy the milk she boils that curdles for no fault of her own.  Another is caught between two dictators – mother-in-law and husband who make it...

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 ...