Dr Muhammad Maroof Shah

In engaging with the mystery and tragedy of Karbala, such questions as the following are asked: What was God doing when the Prophet’s (PBUH) family suffered a blood-bath? Where is the compensation for the victims? Is there no justice in this world? How can we affirm the whole tragedy without getting profoundly disturbed on moral, aesthetic and religious planes? Isn’t God fully in control and ultimately directing everything towards the Good? If yes, how? Blood, thirst, trampling human dignity – what crime was not committed in Karbala – and still we are required to see divine wisdom? Why is mourning Hussain (AS) such a catharsis if it is pain and sorrow that is relived? How come the mourning procession accomplishes what could be described as an aesthetic miracle for the participants? In order to approach to resolve these questions, let us examine how Nietzsche, one of the most influential of modern philosophers, approached the question of suffering in life, for, it is only at the heigh...

Nietzsche can’t be wished away and there is no escaping the task of engaging with him. Would you believe that there are people who don’t know that there are social sciences,  computers, airplanes and countless technological gadgets around us? Those who believe we can have, or we can use modern technology without engaging with background science or secular reason that brings it are such people. Divided personalities, divided loyalties, clouded vision, cursing imagination and insensitivity to finer culture are what distinguishes them. They constitute the majority in the Third World. They have not heard of Nietzsch. They haven’t read any of his books and haven’t heard even his most (in)famous statement “God is dead.” Yes, they haven’t heard of the bull in the China house of conventional religion. They still talk of God in terms of substance, in terms of force, in terms of cosmic being or policeman, in terms of ground of ordinary morality. They still talk as if the other world is ...