Dr Muhammad Maroof Shah

Unlike Holderlin and Rilke, Iqbal is still awaiting his Heidegger, who could appropriate and present him for the post-Nietzschean world audience. Unlike Heidegger, he has received little attention from great philosophers and theologians of the world. Even the Muslim world has been largely ignoring him or just packaging his complex and enormously fecund and subtle mystical and metaphysical insights into some neat and clear formulations. Due attention to his existential and metaphysical thought has been overshadowed by overemphasis on his political thought. He has so far been written off by major histories of philosophy into margins of modern Muslim thought through his vast output was addressed to modern man as such and not to the Muslims only.       Under his unique literary genius and combining all traditionally-recognized approaches to the Ultimate – poetry, philosophy, religion and mysticism – has immense power to speak to an age marred by various crises that fundam...

The Master on Life and Afterlife. Ghalib is a sad angel, Who from the intoxication of nearness Has brought divine revelation In the form of his ghazals. (Yusuf Hussain’s translation. Other translations here are from the same work Persian Ghazals of Ghalib )       Indeed Ghalib has bought a “revelation” that has been such a healing and joy and a fount of beauty. One must be thankful for the privilege of being born in a land and with a language of Ghalib. Ghalib’s Islam as an “Answer” to Difficult Questions Every Muslim in the subcontinent who can read poetry but is disturbed over routine disharmonies or complains about this or that issue in life would be required to answer one question on the Day of Judgment: Have you read Ghalib? Ghalib “answers” all our complaints we might conceive or imagine against Fate or providence or people or God. Since God created Ghalib, He has been largely relieved of entertaining many a question on wonder, love, beauty, betrayal...

Modern Contributions to Kashmiri Na’t Tradition All great poetry is a species of na’t defined as poetry in praise of the Prophet who in turn is understood, by the greatest na’t writers who happen to be inspired by Sufism, as the Principle of Manifestation, Logos, the Pole of Existence, the Perfect Man, Wisdom personified, drive for  perfection of ethics and love of beauty. One may better appreciate the thesis if one notes the function of poetry as provision for discovering the good and beautiful in all that meets and surrounds one (Coleridge), “truth telling, which is why in the Celtic tradition no one could be a teacher unless he or she was a poet,” reconciliation with the world/celebration of love/women – one may recall Wallace Stevens’ remark “A poet looks at the world the way a man looks at a woman,” and Holderlin’s point that the duty of the poet is “to stand/Bare-headed under the storms of God,/Grasping with our own hand/The Father's beam itself, And to offer the gift of...

It is more correct to say that God finds us the moment we are ready. There is a commonly repeated complaint that prayers don’t help and God’s number is unreachable. One of the characters of Fazl Ilahi’s recently published The Signs thus gives expression to this complaint: “’God doesn’t help and reward good people. Have you seen Him helping, huh? The thing that doesn’t exist, how can it come to your rescue? Now, when you feel deprived from all sides, you reflexively create the margin for God, or the signs that you talk about. It’s psychological. Blame goes to the mystery and uncertainty of this world that forces you to run for and catch shadows.’ He smiled. ‘You actually don’t need God, you need the will to believe that things can, and surely will, improve if you keep on trying, but you know, people tend to lose hope in themselves. As they get neck deep in crisis, they withdraw into inaction, and pinning hope on something beyond that will ultimately come to their help.’”  ...

Exploring contributions of Nasr to Islamic Studies and Need to Improve Curriculum in Universities. Islamic Studies as a discipline and Islam as a Tradition in the integral sense of the term that includes proper engagement with the whole legacy of Islam – aesthetics, metaphysics, ontology, art and architecture, esoterism, a host of traditional sciences and much more – are absent in much of the Muslim world and its institutions. There are very few students formally trained by Islamic Studies/Comparative Religion Departments/Madrassas who are interested in or have resources for proper comprehension of works written by Muslim scholars in most of the disciplines, religious or “secular.” All we see in most students is certain atomistic approach and recourse to some verses and traditions to buttress their understanding of Islam they often cofound with/reduce to ideology or some imagined system or book of answers or juristic-legal manuals. Absence of deeper understanding of philosophical, a...

Reflections on Rahi as a Poet of Silence. In Kashmir we have enough pain and beauty for one million documentaries. But we have chosen, generally speaking, not to speak on almost everything Kashmiri. There is very little of Kashmir, especially its glorious empire of Mind and Spirit – on the YouTube. There is no Kashmiri cinema for reasons we know. Silence is sometimes imposed and often chosen. It is no wonder that our best known living poet Rahman Rahi would also be a victim of this chosen silence. Our talented film makers have largely ignored Rahi and Rahi in turn has cared little to break his silence and till date there is much of him and about him that is either obscure or silenced. Bilal Jan’s recently released documentary "The Poet of Silence" scripted by Shafi Shoaq (arguably best qualified encyclopaedic scholar who could write on Rahi and an institution in himself who has gifted us Dictionary of Kashmiri language, standard work on Kashmiri Grammar and co-authored most...

It is time to recognize many new contributions to English writing in J & K. Once a while we have some good news from Kashmir. Kashmiris have been the kings and king makers, at least in the realm of mind and heart. Providence seems to have amply compensated them in surprising ways leading them to live with head held high despite being underdogs in other realms. One way is the gift of words that is manifest in many ways including writing good poetry in English that is becoming a presence to contend with. New generation of Kashmiris, as worthy inheritors of Agha Shahid Ali, have proved worthy witnesses by converting tragic experience into works of art and thus, in a way, won the battle. The world will have to take note of Kashmir’s new generation of writers who have been its best ambassadors. Influential Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish’s pen has been more feared than scores of tanks echoing rare tribute paid to Abul Fazl’s pen when it was described as sharper than Akbar’s sword. ...