Dr Muhammad Maroof Shah

Debating Traditionalist Thought in Kashmir What does one do to squarely face scores of influential books and websites targeting Islam, especially in the wake of modernity and post-modernity? Turn to the greatest Masters of Islamic tradition to examine for oneself how far can one’s moral, intellectual and spiritual legacy sustain this battery of critiques and in turn gives one certitude and meaning amidst torrential currents of doubt and despair that beset us in troubled irreverent times. This is what bright Kashmiri youth like Aamir Suhail Wani have done. Brought up in typical Kashmiri mystical ambiance and having unconsciously assimilated the heritage transmitted orally by parents/educators/Sufis in Kashmiri households, Aamir has been able to stay Muslim and modern thanks primarily to great modern sages of traditionalist school who have presented a compelling critique of modernity and defense of Tradition of which historical Islam is a subset. Few know that even Iqbal was ...

Here is where thinking is needed as against unthinking ideology of development that has brought irredeemable evils along with it. Do we ever ask why God-chosen-Mecca happens to be such a “desolate” hilly landscape and why stay in Arafat and Mina under the naked sky is such a challenging and liberating one? Why should one of the greatest scenes – the storm scene – in arguably the greatest play King Lear that unfolds Lear’s redemption be about encounter with nothingness and disowning civilization’s artificialities?  Why is that mountains are treasured symbols of spirit and mountaineering a mantra/ wazeefa and pastoralism/sheep-goat rearing in mountains treasured spiritual experiment/experience? Why do religious and spiritual traditions propose periodical retreats for their adherents? Why we should opt for culture over civilization is we are forced to choose only one? Art and religion – the manifestations of what is called culture – are treasured means of giving meaning to lives...

Recalling some insights of Prof. Saleem Iqbal Kashmir keeps producing some memorable personalities who die unsung. One such personality, Prof. Saleem Iqbal, left us last year. His death was a loss to Kashmir’s intellectual and spiritual culture. He was larger than life, a man of immense energy, indefatigable adventurer of mindscape, reasonably good reader of select classics, friend of the poor and the marginalized and a scholar-scientist attentive to violence of exclusion in dominant epistemes of science and theology. He was among the very few truly educated professors who had not sold soul to specialization (viz. knowing only “more and more about less and less”) and knew a wider world and with authority. He knew more and more about his history, culture and religion and the ideologies that summon us to abstractions or utopias. He minced no words in giving strong judgments though occasionally one could feel him courting extremes. What was especially impressive was his generosity o...

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...

Understanding Modern Science as a Problem for Religion. Deep down many believers resent our age of science believing that it has undermined faith. But everyone would love to extol rational credentials of religion and avail many gifts of modern science at the same time. There are many who think that science can be an ally of faith. Such towering scientific minds as Darwin, Freud and Hawking, for instance, all have been critical of popular religion. Most scientists today are not believers. Many young people exposed to science turn against religion. This is a complex problem – note, for instance, heavy weights like Wallace and Darwin disagreeing on the question of including or excluding man in evolutionary account, and crucial disagreements between Freud and Jung, Russell and Whitehead, Iqbal and Nasr on the question of religion vis-a-vis modern science – and we propose to treat one aspect of it today.       The first point to be noted is the difference between...

Reading Eric Voegelin on Sacred Oriented Politics. We live in a world where Syed Maududi remains a presence to contend with. One is either for him or against him – there is no option of ignoring him. There remains certain ambivalence with regard to his central ideas amongst mainstream Ulema, and some intellectuals. Ambivalence may be underlined by noting sharply divided estimates of him by Hasan Askari, and his student Saleem Ahmed, two great traditionalist critics of Pakistan. Askari was quite critical of Syed Maududi and a fan of Bhutto, while for Saleem Ahmed converse was true. (Muslim religious/intellectual communities similarly remain divided in their views of revivalist theology and politics). It appears that Maududi would be better understood in relation to the thoughts of the best of his contemporaries in political philosophy and religion. One such illustrious contemporary was Eric Voegelin who shared Maududi’s commitment to the Sacred infused life and public sphere, distrust...