Quranic Reflections: Surah Al-Mulk (The Dominion)
By Aasem Bakhshi An important element of Quranic discourse – and a kind of indirect proof of its Divine originality – is how it pushes the reader towards an almost natural and impulsive mode of pondering. This is sometimes achieved by countering the inner-most arguments developing deep within the folds of the human self. In his autobiographical journey towards Islam from atheism, Dr. Jeffrey Lang shares how he used to encounter responses to his questions as he interacted with the Quran on day to day basis. In fact, most of the Quranic interlocutors would agree that this observation is not a totally extraordinary experience and often there are moments when an unbiased and persistently reflective reader would feel as if his subconscious is laid bare before the Quran. Being structurally as well as … Read entire article »
Filed under: Islam, Islamic Holy Book Quran
On the tele-evangelist who got caught with his pants off….
The high drama of the week status can be awarded to the leaked Amir Liaqut video that went viral in a matter of hours two days ago and was as swiftly taken off youtube and a host of other sites. Thanks to the democratic and interconnected nature of the web already copies of the video are floating on the net. Café Pyala has done an excellent commentary on the situation. The updates on the post … Read entire article »
Is Islam a patriarchical tradition (II): Exegesis or Eisegesis
by Aasem Bakhshi Those who listen to the Word, and follow the best (meaning) in it: those are the ones whom Allah has guided, and those are the ones endued with understanding. (Al Quran 39:18) Every interpreter comes to the text bearing those complex histories of effects we call tradition. There is no more a possibility of escape from tradition than there is a possibility of an escape from history or language. (David Tracy in Plurality and Ambiguity: Hermeneutics, Religion, Hope) Interpretation being a human enterprise primarily means that it would be essentially modulated by inherent subjectivities of the interpreters, about which they might not be fully aware of themselves. This is because we cannot claim objectivity beyond our personal and social construct of reality. This is exactly the kind of subjectivity which … Read entire article »
Is Islam a patriarchical tradition (I): Understanding the hermeneutical gap
By Aasem Bakhshi We have made it a Qur’an in Arabic, that ye may be able to understand. (Al Quran, 43:3) Nothing exists except through language. -Gadamer in Truth and Method Islamic tradition, in many ways, can be described as a tradition of literature and one way to legitimately analyze the above question is to ask whether the core Islamic texts, i.e., Quran and Hadith are necessarily patriarchical [1]. Although it is true that Quran was originally revealed in a primarily patriarchical society and, at least in Islamic tradition’s formative and post-formative periods, interpreted mostly by the subjects of patriarchies, its text equally allows more coherent, less subjective and unauthoritarian interpretations to contest the popular traditionalist (or orthodox) interpretations with a visible patriarchical bent [2]. A … Read entire article »
Five Myths About Pakistan
We are cross posting this short but insightful post by Anatol Lieven where he discusses the five popular myths about Pakistan. In our view, these myths as much of a must-read for non-Pakistanis as they are for the Pakistani nation. (Editors, PTH) … Read entire article »
Filed under: Islam, Islamism, Pakistan, Religion, state, Taliban
Lesley Hazleton: On reading the Koran
Lesley Hazleton sat down one day to read the Koran. And what she found — as a non-Muslim, a self-identified “tourist” in the Islamic holy book — wasn’t what she expected. With serious scholarship and warm humor, Hazleton shares the grace, flexibility and mystery she found, in this myth-debunking talk from TEDxRainier. Source: http://www.ted.com/talks/lesley_hazelton_on_reading_the_koran.html … Read entire article »
Filed under: Islam, Islamic Holy Book Quran
A.R Cornelius – The Islamic Catholic?
By AA Khalid ‘’Over the past twenty-five years, academics in Europe and the United States have written a great deal about the relationship between Islam and democracy, and between Islam and human rights. This scholarship often fails to acknowledge or take into account similar debates that occurred earlier during a period of decolonization. This article discusses the work of a Christian judge who served on the Supreme Court of Pakistan. This judge, A.R. Cornelius, was a famous Cambridge-educated legal liberal who courageously tried in the 1950s and 60s to protect human rights as Pakistan came under martial rule. Cornelius came to argue shockingly and controversially in the 1960s and 70s that Islamizing the law of the state not only permits the liberal rule of law to survive, but, under certain … Read entire article »
Filed under: human rights, Islam
Curse of God on the Mullahs
By Bin Ismail A while ago an Ahmadi said “assalamo alaikum”, meaning ‘peace be unto you’ to the mulla of his neighborhood. Though courteous, this was obviously not a very wise act on the part of the Ahmadi gentleman. The mulla returned the courtesy by lodging a complaint against the Ahmadi, claiming that the Ahmadi had violated the Anti-Ahmadi Ordinance XX, now a part of the constitution of Pakistan, by using an Islamic greeting, thus “posing to be a Muslim”. The accused was summoned to the Police Station. The not-so-wise Ahmadi was fortunately received by a wise police officer, who asked him why he said “salam” to the mulla. The Ahmadi innocently replied, “I only intended to send peace to the cleric.” The wise policeman said to the Ahmadi, “I’m letting you go … Read entire article »
Filed under: Islam
Understanding Qisas and Diyat
By Yasser Latif Hamdani (First published in The Friday Times) When all the heirs of those murdered by Davis pardoned him for badl-i-sulh , the religious right cried foul. Technically there was nothing wrong procedurally and legally with the way Davis’ alleged crime was pardoned under law. The religious right claims that (i) that the heirs of the two victims were pressured into accepting badl-i-sulh , (ii) that Davis should have been convicted for fasad fil arz and (iii) the judge’s decision to impose a fine of Rs.20,000 and time served under Section 13 of the Arms Ordinance of 1965 was far too lenient under the circumstances. For the first contention, no heir of the deceased has come forward to declare that they were pressured into … Read entire article »
Reason.tv: Bollywood vs. Bin Laden – Why radical Islam fears pop culture
By Hawk Jensen & Paul Detrick Even before Osama Bin Laden was killed by U.S. soldiers, his brand of anti-modern, anti-pleasure Islam was under attack by Bollywood, India’s pop culture juggernaut that boasts a global audience of 3 billion people. … Read entire article »
There’s a Pakistan beyond the ISI and terror; wish it was stronger
By Anshul Chaturvedi General VP Malik’s book, “Kargil – From Surprise To Victory” is not quite what I expected to see on the shelf at the bookstore in the Sheraton lobby in Karachi; but then, after Katrina staring at me from hoardings extolling the virtues of Lux body wash and Veet hair remover, and an improbably rosy-cheeked Kareena pitching in for Head and Shoulder from her billboards, after seeing skimpily dressed babes walking the ramp on a … Read entire article »
The chilling curse of vote banks
The brutalised lives of Muslims in Kolkata slums have a resonance for the entire country, says Yoginder Sikand People Without History: India’s Muslim Ghettos Imran Siddiqui and JeremySeabrook Navayana 257 pp; Rs 295 THAT MUSLIMS are among the most deprived sections of Indian society is undeniable. But as to why this is so, there is no unanimity. This book, immensely rich in ethnographic detail drawn from dozens of in-depth interviews, explores the dimensions as well as causes for widespread Muslim … Read entire article »
Filed under: Islam
Islam and the Early History of Pakistan
By Ziad Haider (Contributor to the Working Group on Islamism and the International Order) With Osama bin Laden dead, a reflection on this increasingly Islamist country. From its inception in 1947, the idea of Pakistan was a contested ideological matter. Having lost their privileged status when the British supplanted India’s Mughal rulers, Indian Muslims divided in response to a deepening cultural and political insecurity under colonial rule. Culturally, a schism emerged between the Aligarh tradition, which balanced selectively embracing Western notions of modernity and learning with retaining an Islamic identity, and the Deobandtradition, which rejected Western mores as a deviation from religious orthodoxy. Photo credit: takebackpakistan Politically, as the independence struggle gained momentum, Indian Muslims divided into three primary groups. The first was affiliated with the Indian Congress Party, which advocated territorial nationalism. The second was affiliated … Read entire article »
Political Islam: To Radicalize or to “Unite”
by Raza Habib Raja Today’s Pakistan displays strange contrasting patterns with respect to religion’s influence. Apparently Pakistan looks to be a relatively moderate country particularly when compared to the likes of Iran , Afghanistan , Saudi Arabia etc. Here the hardliners have never been voted in power through the ballot box. It has an independent media and relatively loose censorship standards. Radical Islam as a mode of life is still largely absent from the overall lifestyle of the Pakistanis as the country by no stretch of imagination is following the trajectory of Iran. It does not have the charismatic cultish religious leader like Khomeini and the public mood despite being conservative is hardly appreciative of hard line version of Islam when it comes to ballot box. Anyone coming from abroad for the … Read entire article »
French Veil Controversy: Muslim rethinking of Islam is overdue
French Veil Controversy: Muslim rethinking of Islam is overdue By K. Itarwala The Mullah and the torch-bearer Hail from the same stock; They give light to others, And themselves are in the dark. (Bulleh Shah, Sufi, revolutionary and poet) The shrill opposition of many ‘Muslims’ to the French ban on the face veil has only reinforced my conviction that a thorough reform, indeed nothing less than a complete paradigm shift, in the ways in which ‘Muslims’ understand Islam is more than overdue. My point is simple: ‘Muslims’, by and large, are guilty of equating their own historically-produced and conventionally-understood readings of Islam as equivalent to and wholly synonymous with Islam itself or the Divine Will per se. Since these understandings are humanly produced, and, hence, necessarily flawed and limited, to insist that these represent ‘true’ Islam … Read entire article »
PTH biweekly Cartoon
Picture of the Week
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Sunrise at the Arabian Sea, Charna Island
24 Dec 2011
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