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| Finding meaning in Post Modernist Existence |
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| Maliha |
| 10/16/03 at 20:09:07 |
| [slm] Finding meaning in Post Modernist Existence I don't even know what to say and how to frame my fleeting ideas. It's been a while I know since I last said anything meaningful (if i ever do) , and a little while longer I begin to understand there is such a dead density to words. Too many people talk, too many people want to be heard *by any means necessary*, but where are the listeners? And fewer still are true thinkers. For the first time ever, I am actually studying Islam formally, Alhamdullillah. To say I feel blessed is an understatement. It's been barely a month and I can literally feel the horizons of my brain cracking! Those dusty recesses of my mind that I never utilized, those cobwebs, are slowly dissipating. I realize it will take a lifetime and probably not till our next life, for me to truly begin to comprehend the Falacy of our reality. It has to be the one experience in life that can combine all the adjectives of hope, idealism, frustrations, challenge, despair, desperation, excitement, faith, etc. in one lump sum of trying to even describe what I am going through. I guess the best way to try is to say something of the process of Un Learning everything I learnt before, in order to allow this new way of thinking, this holistic perspective offered by Islam to really penetrate my inner being. We are so dichotomized by a western school methodology on one hand, whose very philosophy is based on and built through Secular, atheistic concepts (the day you realize even Science as we know it is not at all "objective" and as "rational" as it's proposed to be, you realize the fundamental error of our whole educational system)...on the other hand we have Traditional Islamic Sciences that are normally presented as one concept totally divorced from the rest of our lives. So we have Muslims praying, giving charity, etc. who think like secularist scientists in the very way they approach life, work, problems etc. Then we wonder why we have soo many issues when it comes to dealing with the very real problems of our Ummah today. It's not that simple. It gets more complicated when we follow the pattern of worldviews that have dominated the earth since humanity began. From pre modernism that actually is the closest to Islam, with Allah in the center, and a spiritually unified way of looking at the world, then we have Modernism (with the very "objective" philosophers who influenced the "rational" newton and his cronies) to begin to look at the world divorced from the very Source of it's life..Allah. Modernism tried to inverse everything. The universe went from being a "sign" of Allah, to learn, reflect and draw spiritual principles from, to basically atoms bouncing away towards infinity! This reduction of the natural sciences and divorcing them from the prior concept of God left pretty much a world that's colorless, an autonomous engine that self propels towards its own annihilation. Where does that leave man? When we divorce ourselves from Allah, when the beauty of nature can no longer point us to the higher realms of our existence, where does that leave our very concept of being? From this really illusory and self deceptive ground, everything else was built on! Practicle sciences were coined with the new name "social" Sciences and hence value judgement suspended, Right/wrong, good/bad simply dissolved into "tastes", "styles" and "personal" preferences. Science was trying to be "objective" (although I am not sure who defined atheistic as being objective in the first place) and hence everyone else bowed down to the "god" of Rational Math and Science whose very theoretical basis is far from being objective. Making philosophical presumptions on the world and basing your whole frame of reference from it, hardly makes it a "science". Of course the practical manifestations and many "discoveries" of new technologies and such worked to solidify this framework and remove any doubt from people's minds as to the superiority of science to everything else (especially Religion in this case). What happens when Einstein hit the world with Relativity and Quantum Mechanics was discovered? I never understood the impact of Einstein (although I figured him to be smart), except in the light of Newtonian philosophy. If Newton was wrong in the very theoretical ground what does that mean for all the "sciences" built atop this foundation? Not to worry, somehow Relativity was explained in terms of refining the Newtonian theories and thus the stable bedrock of Secular Sciences was still fundamentally unshaken. Still modern "thinkers" became a bit shaken, and thus the new floodgates of Post Modernism opened. This is even a worst era of atheism, since we are not even taking the central case to be "God doesn't exist" but now the framework is "You have your truth and I have mine". How can you argue with that? The status quo as far as the systems built on the secular framework remain untouched and trying to philosophically convince someone that "your" value judgement is actually *real* is like talking to a madman. If the problem were confined simply to a philosophical discussion it would be easy to contain, or even ignore. But what these seemingly harmless "theories" translate to is the madness of today's world..The un real Reality of having a mother languishing in the dust of starvation on one end of the earth and another dying of obesity on the other. The warped mentality of building nuclear weaponry and sophisticated machines of death (because we "can") while the masses are hungry, voiceless, starving, in the depth of "third" world countries look soulfully on. The increasing justification for anything "goes", which actually translates to real repercussions of anger, hate, violence etc. How can an aspiring Muslim thinker begin to deal with these deeply entrenched problems? How can we, who have been trained in the bossom of secular thinking and worse *not* knowing it, because the discussions in school is obviously not what Newton's philosophy is, or Adam Smith's, or any of our founding fathers...but basically what they said is presented as the ultimate truth to be built upon in the name of "Progress". Progress from what and to what? This is an interesting discussion that Inshaallah we can talk about later. The concept I am struggling with now, is the issue of "compounded ignorance". What happens when you think you know, and you don't even know you don't KNOW. What happens when the brain is so hardwired by a system of thought that is completely alien to our own Islamic Heritage? We wonder why Ghazali, Ibn Farabi, etc sound so novel in this day and age of repititive and minute thinking. We wonder how people could actually study astronomy, Psychology, Medicine, theology at the same time and see no *contradiction* whatsoever (they are all branches at attempting to understand the Divine after all). Yet today we have people plowing away at very myopic research, where even in the same department communication is scarce (let alone across fields). We have so much information, irrelevant data, consuming us with its tidal wave of ever changing and "new" philosophies, ideas, etc that it's hard enough to stay afloat let alone be able to actually concretize them into a unified vision of the world. How do we deal with this? The implications of us drifting unknowingly into the dismal chaos of "relativity" is too much for my weak state of being to accept so readily. For Muslims the question is what is the nature of our Jihad today? And what it really means in this era of multiple ideologies and multiple "gods" of ideals, goals, hopes, etc. sigh...i don't know when I will manage to gain some clarity into all these issues...but just some random thoughts, I write to attempt to understand for myself what my reality in this chaotic world is. Struggling sis in a world of confusion and spiritual diffusion. :'( PS: all the ideas above are actually from different readings/lectures/etc. My attempt was to simply try to put it in my own reference of being...If you are interested in any references email me. [wlm] |
| Re: Finding meaning in Post Modernist Existence |
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| lucid9 |
| 10/17/03 at 04:26:33 |
| [slm] Ok, here is another one of my idiotic replies. If you want to tell me i'm full of nonsense or smoking something funny, note that my instant messaging is turned off :D :D (1) There is much good in western civilization. What is wrong with modern civilization is the consumerism, the materialism, and the masking of the disappearance of spirituality with overindulgent consumerism -- partying, shopping, clubbing, moviegoing, celebrity watching etc. I.e stuff to keep you busy and make you forget that you are empty inside. In order to appreciate islam in this time and age, you shouldn't trash western civilization. You need to appreciate its boons and recognize its drawbacks. Western civilization is not synonomous with playstations or MTV -- that is modern cosumerism and is alive in Mecca as well as in New York city. Western civilization is synonomous with representative government, humanistic liberalism -- i.e. acceptance of all cultures and modes of thinking, and a non-intrusire approach to regulating people's lives (liberterianism). And all of these, you will find, in varying degrees are consonant with islam. When you say our brains are "hardwired" by modern culture to think secularly, I would very much disagree with you. Our brains are perhaps hardwired to be cosumer addicts. Throw away television, music, mobile phones, long shop till ya drop getaways to the mall -- and many of us wouldn't survive -- or would at least struggle to survive. The evil is not western society, or its civiliization -- the evil is the same old dude as in yesteryears -- the bad old nafs egged on by shaitan who tempts it with the latest got-to-have gadget, seductive tv, heedless surfing of the web, and stuff like that. The fact that everybody from the muslim world is dying to get out of their countries and come here and live in the most free and generous, and just society has got to mean something. These people come because the west has created successful societies. The lack of spirituality and hedonism doesn't bother them because it doesn't affect them because their religiousness makes up for it. I mean why is it that jannah.org is an american website and not say an egyptian one? (2) Science is pretty much just using your common sense. Math and physics are just about solving equations, and constructing a mathematical portrait of the the universe. That by in itself is totally objective. The only subjective part is the underlying assumptions used to model the world, and certain predilections or biases about how the universe should [i] be [/i]. For example, cosmologists assume by definition that there is nothing outside the universe or something which in principle cannot be modeled or measured. They say, what is the point of something "outside" the universe if you can't measure its properties? They say: just disregard it and assume it doesn't exist, cuz its meaningless to consider it since we can't detect it. Muslims take a broader point of view and say that there are things which in principle we can't measure -- the ghayb -- and find it presumptious for humanity to believe that it has the capacity to understand all forms of knowledge. [i] And if all the trees on earth were pens and the ocean (were ink), with seven oceans behind it to add to its (supply), yet never would the Words/knowledge of Allah be exhausted: for Allah is Exalted in Power, Full of Wisdom. [/i] 31:27 Also scientists don't like to believe in fine-tuning -- that the universe is tailored, that the fundamental constants suddenly took special values to allow life -- that humans suddenly appeared on earth, stuff like that. Scientists want a mechanism to explain all of life's "coincidences." That is why some people now talk about the idea of multiverses -- i.e. that an infinite number of universes besides our own exist. Because a generic universe will collapse right after it is born, it is very improbable for any universe to yield life. That is why some like to imagine a zillion other universes with one very special universe stuck in the middle (ours) which is life-sustaining. I.e., when you have a zillion universes it is not surprising that at least one will allow life -- and happily that universe happens to be our own! On the other hand, muslims don't necessarily dislike fine-tuning. They also desire a mechanism to explain all of life's coincidences, but they would not be filled with horror if some of the coincidences are simply that -- special aspects or our universe. [i] "Did they witness their creation?" 43:19 [/i] Meaning -- some things are beyond us -- and beyond our models and ideas of how the universe should "be." (3) About athiesm: non-muslim scientists are athiests precisely because they are non-muslims. They come from a background where god is thought to be some old guy up in heaven directing things, and who is periodically in a drunken stupor. If this is what you are taught from a young age, it is not surprising if you later disdain religion. Muslims have a totally different understanding of the nature of god -- that he is perfect in all respects -- that he is transcendent, yet still near -- and that there is nothing like him. See my thread "is jesus god?" in the al-manar folder. That is why muslim scientists tend to be much more religious. Most of the muslim scientists i know are religious in some way, and many are praciticing. Contrast this with non-muslim scientists! Muslims don't have the same hangups that non-muslims do. For example the only nobel prize winning theoretical physicist from the muslim world is the qadiani Abdus Salam, who was very religious and was one of the great giants of 20th century physics. People like stephan hawking are athiests not because they find the idea of an ordered universe and the idea of god preposterous -- they are athiests because they find the notion that an entity -- who created the entire universe which is zillions of light years across with countless planets and stars and structures -- should take so personal an interest in us preposterous. We are lowly inhabitants of a speck of dust in the great dustbowl that is the universe -- the idea that the cause/raison t'etre of the universe should take care about us useless folks is what they find outrageous and improbable. And that is because they come from a judeo-christian point of view. We as muslims consider it absolute common sense that God should take a personal interest in us. We are his creation. God by definition is never heedless of his creation. Hence he should regulate our affairs and take a personal interest in our affairs -- as we are his creation -- and for him to "forget" us would be ungodly and unbecoming of the source and originator of it all (the supreme creator, knower and sustainer of everything). Also, if we as human being can "love," feel compassion, be tender to others, and show mercy, kindness and warmth to others -- who is to say that the be-all and end-all -- the one for whom all things (which are godly) are possible cannot also love, be merciful, and be compassionate?! In fact as muslims, we flip the whole thing around. We say that these are divine qualities and our understanding of love, compassion, etc., are dwarved by the boundless love and compassion of God almighty! I.e. the attributes of god besides being the all-knower, ominscient, the almighty, also include the all-merciful, the all-loving, and the all-compassionate... |
| Re: Finding meaning in Post Modernist Existence |
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| Maliha |
| 10/17/03 at 06:18:44 |
| [slm] A couple quick thoughts before ze fajr time enters... a) You can't dichotomize western civilization between it's "ideals" and "values" that it propagates. The ideals are not based on something concrete like Divine Will, Allah. The ideals are ever changing under the auspicious "gods" of "progress", "freedom", "welfare", "development" etc... So when the "god" of freedom decides we have to attack another country to have them taste this "freedom" of ours, we do it. When the "god" of development decides to open a nuclear plant, we go for it. After all who will fight against these beautiful and wonderful ideals that we rest on... can you logically say " I hate "freedom"?" No. There is much good in the ideals also, that is very true, and sadly from the decaying state of the world the best we have is a system pushing on us the secularist agenda while allowing us to "be whoever we want to be", as long as we faithfully devote ourselves to everything it represents. What happens when the "ideals" based on nothing, suddenely change? What happens when our men are cornered and imprisoned in the name of the "god" of "Homeland Security"?? What do we do then? The ideals are ever changing to suit the*whole* package..you can't divorce consumerism from the basic assumption that if we are created for nothing, why not eat until we die... b) You say science is "objective" if we ignore the underlying assumptions it's built on. ummm....How can it be objective then? The same philosophy that drove scientists to want to divorce everything they couldn't explain..including God, for their realm of thought and "research" is the same philosophy that drive "social" scientists to want to do the same thing. They figured if Science was succesful in building a world model of atheism, and still "progress" so much, we can build on top that institutions that mirror those assumptions...Hence economists start to figure.."what is it that drives men who have no purpose? Consumption of course!" etc. We have a whole system of thought, institutions, social "values" built on the "objective" science of "God doesn't exist". Okay it's fajr and I gotta go.....Inshaallah we'll talk later. [wlm] |
| Re: Finding meaning in Post Modernist Existence |
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| Nomi |
| 10/17/03 at 07:21:09 |
| [slm] [quote] The fact that everybody from the muslim world is dying to get out of their countries and come here and live in the most free and generous, and just society has got to mean something. [/quote] Ahem! got ur point but... u know!! [quote] I mean why is it that jannah.org is an american website and not say an egyptian one? [/quote] Reminds me of this looong discussion that i had with a friend! My point was that there are many gr8 (even gr16) scholars in this part of the world but someone sitting somewhere in the most corrupt societies can be the most learned scholar of the present time, it can be anywhere.. UK, US, India, Guyana...... Like there *is* a possibility so one doesn't need to be famous to be the most high in deen and taqwah, in the same way someone out there might be doing something many folds worthwhile! Like there *is* a possibility :) Like TJamaat started from indo-pak region. Dont get me wrong, the whole point is that if you are powerful and i am powerful then our powers as Muslims are not there to put down each other but to sum up and hence be stronger, not to say that you were demeaning someone :) [quote] When you say our brains are "hardwired" by modern culture to think secularly, I would very much disagree with you. Our brains are perhaps hardwired to be cosumer addicts. Throw away television, music, mobile phones, long shop till ya drop getaways to the mall -- and many of us wouldn't survive [/quote] It's sending out a wrong impression, Islam by all means is a modern religion and welcomes (in fact encourages us to go for) good scientific advancements. Again, i'm not saying that you meant otherwise. [slm] Asim Zafar. PS: Forgot to add..... [and "Modernists" are a different story] |
| 10/17/03 at 09:21:21 |
| Nomi |
| Re: Finding meaning in Post Modernist Existence |
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| timbuktu |
| 10/17/03 at 08:39:28 |
| [slm] just a quick one here: hyper writes:[quote]I mean why is it that jannah.org is an american website and not say an egyptian one?[/quote] jannah.org is a fabulous site, but plz check out these two, based in the middle east: www.hadeer.com www.islamonline.net hyper again writes:[quote] Western civilization is synonomous with representative government, humanistic liberalism -- i.e. acceptance of all cultures and modes of thinking, and a non-intrusive approach to regulating people's lives (liberterianism). And all of these, you will find, in varying degrees are consonant with islam.[/quote] well brother: western civilization is man- & this world- centered, & man-made laws are important to it, while Islam insists on God's laws for man's good life here & salvation in the Hereafter. how can i live with a spouse who has a different religion, & according to my understanding, is going to end up in hell? How can i allow my children the liberty that the west allows, & not feel the pain? sis Nur has pointed out that the secular education or living takes this feeling away. i can see my sisters are not "fundamentalists" like i am. they spent their entire school life in convent schools, i spent only a little time in missionary ones. & the emphasis on culture & enjoyment has meant that we feel less for the Ummah's suffering. we have been neutralised, & the next stage in our enslavement by Satan has begun. i think sis Nur, there is need to study the AHadeeth on the "times of fitan" with an input from those living in the West, & not the maulvis of the sub-continent. |
| 10/17/03 at 19:39:10 |
| timbuktu |
| Re: Finding meaning in Post Modernist Existence |
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| UmmWafi |
| 10/17/03 at 12:54:48 |
| [slm] Shukran jazilan Rainbow for that sincere outpouring of your mind and heart. I am not responding to anything cos Alhamdulillah, I realise the extent of my ignorance. Just want to remind u of what I shared with u earlier. In my first semester of studies, sitting there in class listening to my fellow scholars translating Fakhr ad-Din ar-Razi's book and then listening to my Professor's explanation of it, I felt pure unadulterated panic. Panic because I just then realised that I knew nothing worth comparing to even a miligram of what these eminent scholars before me knew. I felt humbled. Allah SWT has Graciously Shown me that truly, I indeed do not know. Wassalam. |
| Re: Finding meaning in Post Modernist Existence |
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| humble_muslim |
| 10/19/03 at 12:48:27 |
| AA Look, I'm sorry to say this but I think you guys are making a big mountain out of a molehill. Based on my own life experience, here is what I see as being the issue, and the solution. 1. Realise that Islam is the truth. 2. Realise that if you follow Islam, you will always get good in this world. 3. Realise that the herafter is an absolute reality. 4. Realise that Islam is not about pick and take. The "religious" person who is involved in the drug trade in Pakistan, or who is corrupt, or who cheats in his job is NOT religious. 5. UNDERSTAND THE QURAN!!!! UNDERSTAND THE QURAN!!!! UNDERSTAND THE QURAN!!! I am convinced that lack of knowing what the Quran says is the main reason for the way muslims act. That's it, all very simple. Any problems the muslims have in this world are due to not following the above, very simple points. I LOVE LIVING IN THE WEST because more than any "muslim" country, I can learn and practice my religion as much as I want without feeling fitnah. But this also means that I HAVE to practice my religion more, as I will be more accountable than, say, an opressed peasent living under a tryannical landowner in Pakistan. Am I being too simple? |
| NS |
| 10/19/03 at 12:51:37 |
| humble_muslim |
| Re: Finding meaning in Post Modernist Existence |
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| Maliha |
| 10/21/03 at 21:35:47 |
| [slm] bro humble muslim you are not being too simplistic..in essence everything you outlined makes sense..put in an integrated framework of seeing things. Have you ever thought why is it that every single person says the same thing about going back to Quran and Hadith and yet we are not going anywhere? Why is it as Muslims we feel like we can study any given topic like physics, engineering, etc for years and years, yet we feel like a halaqa here, a hadith there, is enough to make us good Muslims? The reason why i wrote the above, and the essence of what i am getting out of studying, is we are really dumb as Muslims today (to put it bluntly). We think myopically, for one, while those before us put everything in the proper context of Metaphysics, the world, our position, etc. Why is it that this century could never produce the likes of Al Ghazali for example? In terms of deeds alone, The Rasul [saw] made it clear that those before us are infinitely much better than us..why? The very nature of studying was different then, and everything was unified... The question comes back to haunt us today..when Muslim scholars are trying to do ijtihaad on issues that are affecting our existence in the west. For one, the muslim masses in the west are really ignorant of the lack of neutrality here. The convert normally knows the "deal"...so they take extra precautions with their families, and especially children to filter out the nonsensical ideology being pushed on us...but the immigrant? that's a different story. The very idea of neutrality of schools, Tvs, play stations, etc..makes it hard to see Reality for what it is. And us as Muslims, are hard workers in everything (aspects of dunya matters) but really really using our brains to critically study religion and extract the wisdom that is in the Quran. The first generations of Muslims dedicated their lives first studying the language, epistemology, they established the first literary criticisms, they endeavored in all aspects of branches of knowledge to solidify our framework of reference. The very vibrancy of our intellectual heritage is sadly constrasted with the dismal state of our minds today. No one cares about our intellectual heritage and how we can form that connection (okay very few) and that is fardh ayn on every individual. We need to *know* how to apply Islam to our lives, in a fully integrated manner... this is not the work of scholars or shuyukh, they deal with more sophisticated issues and questions. but the basic responsibility lies on us, to actually use the faculties given by Allah to truly discover Him in our lives and to connect to Him through nature, revelation, past heritage, etc. Yet how many seriously do this? and of those who do how many integrate that fully into their whole frame of being such that our waking, dying, breathing, is all for Allah? At best we are wanna be part time muslims...or compartmentalized muslims trying to fit islam into our busy schedules. Sorry i am rambling...but i guess Ummwafi summarized everything very well...I am going through the process of uncovering the depths of my own ignorance, and sorry if that seems too complex to digest. sigh... [wlm] |
| 10/21/03 at 21:43:42 |
| Maliha |
| Re: Finding meaning in Post Modernist Existence |
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| lucid9 |
| 10/23/03 at 04:27:03 |
| [slm] aS A mAjoR lEague IllIterAate, I aGrEE with NUr. bUt WHAT I doN't aGree wITH is the total thrashing of western civilization in order to reclaim our own scholarly tradition. for example, i had an argument with hamza yusuf a few days ago in which he baited me and played with me by saying that WMD stands for Weapons of Math Instruction I.e. he isn't too keen on the sciences, in particular: engineering. I felt he was being overly harsh, and that a great deal of western civilization is useful and shouldn't be trashed. Instead it should be embraced by muslims, and is fully consonant with our teachings. For example, science itself is not bad. How could it be? It is the abuse of science by government employed engineers and others in companies who exploit pure science to create weapons of mass destruction, etc which is bad. And it is not science which leads people to athiesm, it is the narrowness of judeo/christian/hindu scientists' understanding of religion (god is a man, etc.) which leads them to athiesm. Muslims are not saddled with such issues, and hence muslim scientists are a lot more religious. Recall the two muslim nobel lauretes Ahmad Zewail (religious but perhaps not very practicing) and Abdus Salam (qadiani, but very practicing). (There is a third -- the guy who invented viagra!! but i don't know anything about him.) Anyhow,....my mom visited for 3 days and left yesterday...so today i am sad... |
| 10/23/03 at 04:29:30 |
| lucid9 |
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