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...

If Islam is submission to Truth/Reality who is against it? If this Reality is known or manifest by what is the Praised One, the Embodiment of all perfections that human nature aspires for, who can dare to oppose it? If the beauty of Muhammad known to select saints and sung by such poets as Jami and Iqbal is known by any human, it is impossible to oppose it or ignore it. If we note the distinction between Muhammad as known by Muslims in history and Muhammad as known by Homo religiosus as its own aspiration for transcendence/ideality or the image of perfection one adores, as the Messenger sent not only to all humans but all creation, as the Mercy of the worlds known and unknown, as the Envoy of the Absolute as such and not a person so and so, it needs to be understood if it is possible or feasible to deny Muhammad. If blasphemy against the Sun is impossible or vacuous that is best ignored, doesn’t it call for revisiting the current debate on blasphemy on theological and other grounds? ...

Transposing a famous maxim about God to the Devil one could say that if there were no Devil, it would have been necessary to invent one. To the credit of the Devil goes much adventure in the odyssey of life including the first one of leaving the Garden of Eden for earth, sharpening of our faculties and capabilities and unfolding of good as he is the principle of resistance, variety and colour in the drama of life and universal drive or march for excellence or assertion of individual talent  and ten thousand uses of the ego in the struggle and enrichment of life. It is not only the poet-philosophers such as Goethe and Iqbal who have paid rich tributes to it but  great saints and sages of various traditions. In fact the key functions attributed to the Devil such as leading people astray and inflicting loss are in the Muslim Tradition functions of Divine Names ( Al-Mudill, Az-Zar ). Jung in his Answer to Job was not too off the mark in identifying the Devil as the left hand of G...

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.    ...

One of the most important problems in history is failure to admit that one doesn’t know or that there remain other options or possibilities besides the one’s chosen one or that one’s position is probable and could be questioned/reviewed by oneself or the other. Islam’s path breaking announcement expressed in its shahadah implied  bracketing all claims to finality/certitude  and recognizing that God alone is reality/truth/knowledge/certitude/beauty. From this metaphysical or ontological openness follow radical consequences including rejections of all absolutisms in the world of contingency. Even if we find certain statements in the canon so clear and unambiguous, the necessity of human filter/interpretation of it and multiplicity of contexts and possibilities of  change in their reception with time/situation introduce element of uncertainty or need to qualify one’s dogmatic absolutism. Without questioning the sovereignty of the Good and the absoluteness of the command and...