Dr Muhammad Maroof Shah

As curriculum is national debate and countering intolerance generally acknowledged priority, it is time to consider philosophy, the queen of sciences. The pursuit or love of wisdom, as philosophy aspires to be, there can be no doubt about its need for anyone in any culture. In Islamic culture the Prophet (S.A.W) is quintessential teacher of hikmah which means wisdom. Muslims settled score with wisdom traditions from other cultures and today are required to take stock of several wisdom traditions that we encounter in globalized world. How do Muslims approach this crucial task? I would suggest that philosophy’s central definitions/charecterizations/objectives including love of wisdom, seeing things as they are or right vision, preparation for death, self discipline and self inquiry, examination of life and opinions/critical thinking, life of mind/contemplative activity, orientation towards the Good and cultivation of beauty constitute perennially or universally sought/relevant ideals ev...

Understanding, with Simone Weil, the pathology of being somebody and invitation to martyrdom as an offering of “I”  Arguably nine tenths of problems we face at personal, familial and social levels are due to wrong view of oneself and one’s vocation. We have not been taught or haven’t interiorized first shahadah/kalima that teaches us to give up the notion of ordinary self/ego for transpersonal Self. The passion for fame or for self aggrandizement or power or position or bossing in administrative career, awards, rewards and recognition are all aspects of the pathology of self-knowledge. Check again your deepest motivation when you choose your career. If it is for certain glamour for getting a name or becoming somebody instead of discovering nobody we truly are, one is doomed to pursue an illusion. If one is an ambitious man of career, gets readily irritated, maintains a distance from fellow people one meets in the street every day, is ever thinking about promotions, not nice to one...

Understanding the meaning of Ibn Arabi’s universalism for contemporary world and its exclusivist ideologies We are living, from centuries in the Muslim world and from around a century in the West, in the times of Ibn Arabi and Rumi as it is they who are at vital for both academic and popular intellectual, spiritual and literary landscapes today. Let us  explore something about Ibn Arabi, the most influential Sufi-metaphysician and the greatest exponent of Divine Love in the history of Islam. About him it has rightly been remarked that the subsequent Muslim thought is largely a footnote on him. And he interests almost everyone who cares to think or practise spirituality as he has ample room for all kinds of outsiders – atheists, sinners etc. His dialogues with previous prophets and saints constitute one of the most profound encounters with transcendence and proof of intimations of the higher life of Spirit. His notion of man is most comprehensive in world history.    ...

“Man can live without science, he can live without bread, but without beauty, he could no longer live because there would no longer be anything to do to the world. The whole secret is here, the whole of history is here.” (Dostoevsky)  Laotze’s and Kant’s respective remarks about beauty as “the usefulness of the useless,” and “purposiveness without purpose” are recalled in Martha Nasubaum’s choice of the title of her work “ Nor for Profit: Why Democracy Needs Humanities .”       Given the modern penchant for utility and commodification that reserves only a small corner for arts in museums and seeks profit by organising art exhibitions, and impoverished modern souls not ready to live and die for beauty, the twentieth century has been the ugliest as Ananda Coomaraswamy noted. Our standard references to immortal works of art and architecture usually go to ancient or medieval times against traditional cultures that glorified God by cultivating beauty within and witho...

If you want to immortalize a community oppress it brutally as its memory would later unite it. When God was distributing  special gifts to communities few could match Kashmiris in felicity of choice and fastidious taste. Kashmiris demanded and were granted the best of lands where heaven found its own reflection, the best of minds and hands and the hearts that have delighted, influenced and enriched the whole world. It was especially fastidious about the cuisine and developing a refinement of stomach for the same. Kashmir settled for nothing less than its own scriptures and wrote its own versions of great epics including the celestial song Gita as well. A whole new school of philosophy that is brand Kashmir it cultivated and gifted to the world. It invented new science of art/drama and its appreciation as well. It couldn’t accept any rule from outsiders on intellectual, artistic or spiritual planes. All these gifts, however, meant that it  had to excel in the virtue of pati...

Do we ever ask about the contemporary relevance of the use of intellect, sunlight, air and water? Similarly, we shouldn’t ask about the relevance of Tasawwuf today. Let me explain why. Anyone who reflects on what is Tasawwuf or what are its key definitions/characterisations would understand that Tasawwuf or what is said to be its true signified is to be treasured by everyone, every sane human and every Muslim. Just reflect on the standard definitions and characterisations of Tasawwuf here italicised followed by brief comments on our part.       It is the inward/deeper dimension of Islam. A Muslim can never ask about the relevance of the core of Islam. It is worshipping God as if one sees Him or imagining that God is seeing one. Isn’t it perennially the requirement of all true prayer or worship? Isn’t ihsan the perfection of Islam, the ideal end to which faith is oriented? Ihsan has also been linked to husn paida kerden (creating beauty/doing everything in a ...

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...

Reading Wittgenstein on the Blessed Life One version of mystical experience that involves being safe and intoxicated by the miracle of being is what we find in Wittgenstein, the quintessential modern philosopher who initiated two influential movements in philosophy and impacted upon philosophy of religion. His description of being absolutely safe and seeing creation as a miracle are so compelling that we hardly need to entertain any second opinion about the mystical in him or his encounter with the mystical. The cognizance of the fact that there is a world is enough to make one dance with ecstasy and wonder. Wonder is the beginning and end of human wisdom for both philosopher-mystics as diverse as Ibn Arabi and Whitehead. It is time to explore the ideas evoking/invoking/leading to/reflecting Heaven or parasitic on our quest for Heaven or what may appear as some secular substitute or fragmented image of Heaven in Wittgenstein.       For Wittgenstein the metaphysical s...