Wednesday, March 16, 2005
Choose sides! The great progressive / Fundi debate
Ever since having his politcal abilities immortalised in the movie "Dumb, Dumder and Dumberer" we have been driven by the Bushian drivel of "us or them"
Muslims, of course, never to miss any new trends in modern political thought decided to adopt this in internalising the dabte. To be fair this kind of thought pattern has been going on for a couple of centuries. Ever since then people like Jallaludin Afghani decide that it was time to stop herding the goats and read the Goethe (yes appaling I know - but you cant have gold level sarcasm all the time).
Of course Mr Afghani laboured under the delusion that civilisation somehow had become the sole property of heavy set german men with a liking for convuluted philosophising. In itself a great ommision considering that he lived in Iran for alot of his life and was surrounded by one of the most cutured and civilised people I have ever had the pleasure to meet.
The women are quite hot too ( to keep other readers interested) [No I'm not going to go on about the nature of civilisation and the correlation to hot women].
Ever since then our intellectuals have suffered under the general delusion :
OLD RELIGION BAD \ WESTERN SECULAR MODERNISM GOOD
Today we seem to continue this debate by painting ourselves as progressive and fundementalists.
Fundis - want to go back to a cave in Mecca and grow really really long beards (I'm paraphrasing)
Progressives - want to party like its 1954 , write beat poetry and claim their inner sufi. (see paraphrasing bit)
Personally I think anyone that far into each extreme is a muppet.
We have to work at creating a balance between those to extremes. We must recognise that be a Muslim there are certain fundementals you have to accept as being the tennet of religion. You can't pick and choose because John Templewick-Nosh has invited you to a dinner party and you don't want to appear as one of the ghastly towel heads.
But within those fundamentals of belief there is enough scope for discusion and debate. So lets not rule out other interpretations of what we have in our laws. We need some learned people to start being serious about how we are going to talk about living and being modern.
When we end up colonising space - in which direction are we going to pray? How would a muslim burial take place on IO? What is classed as halal on Andromeda?
How would you come up with answers to that in a cave?
Muslims, of course, never to miss any new trends in modern political thought decided to adopt this in internalising the dabte. To be fair this kind of thought pattern has been going on for a couple of centuries. Ever since then people like Jallaludin Afghani decide that it was time to stop herding the goats and read the Goethe (yes appaling I know - but you cant have gold level sarcasm all the time).
Of course Mr Afghani laboured under the delusion that civilisation somehow had become the sole property of heavy set german men with a liking for convuluted philosophising. In itself a great ommision considering that he lived in Iran for alot of his life and was surrounded by one of the most cutured and civilised people I have ever had the pleasure to meet.
The women are quite hot too ( to keep other readers interested) [No I'm not going to go on about the nature of civilisation and the correlation to hot women].
Ever since then our intellectuals have suffered under the general delusion :
OLD RELIGION BAD \ WESTERN SECULAR MODERNISM GOOD
Today we seem to continue this debate by painting ourselves as progressive and fundementalists.
Fundis - want to go back to a cave in Mecca and grow really really long beards (I'm paraphrasing)
Progressives - want to party like its 1954 , write beat poetry and claim their inner sufi. (see paraphrasing bit)
Personally I think anyone that far into each extreme is a muppet.
We have to work at creating a balance between those to extremes. We must recognise that be a Muslim there are certain fundementals you have to accept as being the tennet of religion. You can't pick and choose because John Templewick-Nosh has invited you to a dinner party and you don't want to appear as one of the ghastly towel heads.
But within those fundamentals of belief there is enough scope for discusion and debate. So lets not rule out other interpretations of what we have in our laws. We need some learned people to start being serious about how we are going to talk about living and being modern.
When we end up colonising space - in which direction are we going to pray? How would a muslim burial take place on IO? What is classed as halal on Andromeda?
How would you come up with answers to that in a cave?
Comments:
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I think Afghani's mention of Goethe was to indicate the rishness of muslim intellectual and philosophical life that gothe drew from in writing his work.
# posted by 
: 2:12 am
: 2:12 am
Thx for posting,
Actually , i would disagree with that. i think Afghani was very hung up on the idea that Islam had lost its philosophical bearings and needed a to follow the western trends of thought.
Its a vien of thought that a lot fo muslim scholars were pursuing and now doubt have done since.
People like Sir Syed Ahmed Khan were also determined to bring forward notions of progress.
One of the problems withit was that it down graded our own structures of learning and philosophy
Actually , i would disagree with that. i think Afghani was very hung up on the idea that Islam had lost its philosophical bearings and needed a to follow the western trends of thought.
Its a vien of thought that a lot fo muslim scholars were pursuing and now doubt have done since.
People like Sir Syed Ahmed Khan were also determined to bring forward notions of progress.
One of the problems withit was that it down graded our own structures of learning and philosophy
I agree with you, they suggested that we take the westerner's take on muslim philosophy and find their origins in our own , and not producing any worthwile work themselves, they created a vacuum and a seperation between the philosophy of our philosophers (Ibn Arabi, Farabi....) and Todays 'reformer'.
And your point about progress breaking the strutures is very spot on. I like to hear more about it.
Thanks
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And your point about progress breaking the strutures is very spot on. I like to hear more about it.
Thanks
# posted by : 6:49 pm
: 6:49 pm << Home
