Where is Ibn-Sina of the 21st Century?

saudi arabia has all the money in the world.

It could build modern schools and colleges all over the islamic world but it doesn't. Instead, it builds islamic academies and madrassahs that indoctrinate the next generation of islamofascists into rioting on every real or perceived insult to mo or his pet camel...including one in my own county.

And muslims all over the world who riot at the first sighting of a mo cartoon in a danish newspaper give them a pass.

It would be naïve to suggest that islam isn’t holding muslims back, which it certainly is, in so many different ways, to name a few, women’s rights, freedom of speech and lack of democracy but, to blame islam/ religion for all the problems of developing societies is naïve as well, as that pseudo-intellectual hersi ali seems to do.

She blames FGM on islam, yet mullahs condemn the practise, she holds islam responsible for somalia’s plight, yet knowing full well that rest of Africa is in a similar mess.

Feroz, two bits caught my eye. Let me quote them first

(a) We do it to boost the sense of our collective worth, while the westerners do it to lend added prestige and credibility to their ideas.

(b)The 800-pound gorilla in the Islamic room is not ignorance or violence, but the basis of present-day Islamic philosophy, i.e., the “Blind” faith in Quran and the Hadith. I say Blind, because to question it is to ask for the wrath of Mullah – Allah’s assistant.


These two are related, (yes, Masadi has already treated it and expounded on it). However, this connection is not my point/issue.

These two are connected in a subtle manner, and THAT COULD GIVE YOU A CLUE regarding why there are no more Ibn_sina's in the 21st century amonsg the muslims.

In days gone by, there was no one between you and your Goddess. You said your prayers directly to her, and then went about your daily routine as you saw it best.

These days as you suggest in quote (b) there is an intermediary. This guy is often an ignorant little runt who has memorised a few things from the Prophets life, and maybe also from the Quran etc. For this guy any one with an independent mind is a threat - so he struts his stuff and his minions go about doing their bit on friday post prayer.

This is fine when the world is way too big to comprehend. But this being the 21st century it is small. News and views travel pretty damn quickly. The common mass of people do feel as if they have been left behind in the line, and hence the quest for self-worth (your point(a)).

Those guys who have ignored these mullahs and done their own thing have prospered - Salaam for one. (he was also very religious just as Ibn-Sina was). Indeed most of the people on Chowk are like that (even though they strut about like a bunch of Conservatives neandrathals - they basically will tell the mullah to go take a flying jump if he even dares to interfere in their lives beyond a particular point).

Maybe you can make a start today......but what the heck if you are Kulharee then you have already done that...

Re: # 94

Array gabu,

Stop doing UPgiri on FP.

shhiiissshiiiiii.....shoooo shoooo karliya

ohoo haideri bhai naraz hoggayeyy mein to mirza sahab ki tareef kar raha tha...aap nahaq tilmila rahay hein qibla

shishapa bhai, a quick perusal of Mirza Ghulam Sahib's life, views, and objectives can help answer those questions.

Feroz:
I think your premise is wrong to begin with.
How many countries in Africa and Asia are backward which are not Islamic. And still their religion is not at fault. How come Hindu India advanced in some ways and not Hindu Nepal. How come Tamil in Srilanka are backward compared to Tamil in india.
Although few of your points are valid. But not all because of extreme diverse nature of Muslim countries and societies.
As far as priding on past scientists, it just reminds of the greatness of Muslim Empire at one time. It should not be a passport to laziness.
There are 2 aspects.
1- Islamic law or Shariat. Quite a few number of Islamic countries have Shariat Law but their stage of development and education and culture are vastly different. At one extreme is Malaysia and at another saudi Arabia.
Now what were the causes of downfall of Muslims and rise of Europe is a big question, and once we are more acceptable to current thinking and probably these kind of things are rewarded we might be able to do research and prevent future mistakes.
As far as equating adultery with conversation, I think in that para you confused two issues and think both are same.
Although I agree with the notion of Mulah acting as Allah's assistant is wrong. We all are Allah's assistant or "viceroy" on earth. As far as scripture being hollow, I don't know. It is a guide for the pious. There is no such thing as blind faith in Quran or Hadith. It is for understanding. There is absolutely no correlation between stagnation of a society and Islam. As per your own assertion Muslims have been at the peak of science and culture. The reason was not Islam even for Ibn-e-Sina. There is no correlation between Einsteins and Abdussalam's religion and their scientific pursuit.
You can put the question in this way. Do the so called Islamist put a brake to the development of society. It is possible but should not be a big factor.
Does current USA Government hinder and drag back the society and science by not allowing stem cell research etc. As you know there are ethical issues. Have you seen such ethical issues in any Islamic country.
Women emancipation will come with time and within our framework. To give you an example two of the prime minister in Bangladesh have been women and Pakistan a woman has been primeminister. (Although it does not in any way signify emancipation of women and with advancement emancipation will come).
There is debate in western society about the gay being Priest or not, in the same way we will also come to a certain conclusion regarding our outlook.
You are negating your own points by stating large number of women scholars in past.

Re: # 84

I do not know why and how Ahmadiyas put up with
these people! You should strive for you own country.
Look at the the contempt and hatred in the post!
These are vicious and nasty people in human garb.
And you guys prefered these creatures over hinjews
in 47? What were you guys thinking?

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Lila Abu-Lughod has worked on women's issues in the Middle East for over twenty years. She has authored and edited several books on the topic, including Writing Women's Worlds: Bedouin Stories (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), Remaking Women: Feminism and Modernity in the Middle East (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998), and Veiled Sentiments: Honor and Poetry in a Bedouin Society (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986). She is Professor of Anthropology and Women's and Gender Studies at Columbia University in New York.

In this interview with AsiaSource, Professor Abu-Lughod discusses women and Islam in the wake of the American war in Afghanistan.


Following the events of September 11th, the American public sphere has been saturated with discussions of what is unique about "Muslim" societies. To what extent is the character of Muslim societies determined by Islam? How can we begin to think about these societies, and what distinguishes them from our own?

Many aspects of societies around the world cannot be understood without reference to the history and influences of the major religions in terms of which people live their lives. This is just as true for people living in the Middle East, Africa, Southeast Asia and other Muslim regions as it is for those living in Europe and the United States, where Christianity has historically dominated. The point to stress is that despite this, it is just as unhelpful to reduce the complex politics, social dynamics, and diversity of lives in the U.S. to Christianity as it is to reduce these things to Islam in other regions. We should ask not how Muslim societies are distinguished from "our own" but how intertwined they are, historically and in the present, economically, politically, and culturally.

Muslim women have of course figured prominently in this public discussion. You have suggested recently that "understanding Muslim women" will not serve to explain anything. Could you elaborate on this claim?

Many of us have noticed that suddenly, after 9/11 and the American response of war in Afghanistan, the hunger for information about Muslim women seems insatiable. My own experience of this was in the form of an avalanche of invitations to appear on news programs and at universities and colleges. On the one hand I was pleased that my expertise was appreciated and that so many people wanted to know more about a subject I had spent twenty years studying. On the other hand, I was suspicious because it seemed that this desire to know about "women and Islam" was leading people away from the very issues one needed to examine in order to understand what had happened.

Those issues include the history of Afghanistan-with Soviet, U.S., Pakistani, and Saudi involvements; the dynamics of Islamist movements in the Middle East; the politics and economics of American support for repressive governments. Plastering neat cultural icons like "the Muslim woman" over messier historical and political narratives doesn't get you anywhere. What does this substitution accomplish? Why, one has to ask, didn't people rush to ask about Guatemalan women, Vietnamese women (or Buddhist women), Palestinian women, or Bosnian women when trying to understand those conflicts? The problem gets framed as one about another culture or religion, and the blame for the problems in the world placed on Muslim men, now neatly branded as patriarchal.

The British in India and the French in Algeria both enlisted the support of women for their colonial projects (i.e., part of the colonial enterprise was ostensibly to "save" native women). Do you think the current rhetoric about women in Afghanistan suffers from the same problem? Is there something about the colonial/neo-colonial context that lends itself to this kind of representation (which would explain why such rhetoric cannot be employed for, say, African American women in this country)?

Yes, I ask myself about the very strong appeal of this notion of "saving" Afghan women, a notion that justifies American intervention (according to First Lady Laura Bush's November radio address) and that dampens criticism of intervention by American and European feminists. It is easy to see through the hypocritical "feminism" of a Republican administration. More troubling for me are the attitudes of those who do genuinely care about women's status. The problem, of course, with ideas of "saving" other women is that they depend on and reinforce a sense of superiority by westerners.

When you save someone, you are saving them from something. You are also saving them to something. What violences are entailed in this transformation? And what presumptions are being made about the superiority of what you are saving them to? This is the arrogance that feminists need to question. The reason I brought up African American women, or working class women in the U.S., was that the smug and patronizing assumptions of this missionary rhetoric would be obvious if used at home, because we've become more politicized about problems of race and class. What would happen if white middle class women today said they needed to save those poor African-American women from the oppression of their men?

You mentioned that the veil or burqa has been spoken of and defended by Muslim women as "portable seclusion" and that veiling should not be associated with lack of agency. Can you explain why this is the case?

It was the anthropologist Hanna Papanek, working in Pakistan, who twenty years ago coined this term of "portable seclusion." I like the phrase because it makes me see burqas as symbolic "mobile homes" that free women to move about in public and among strange men in societies where women's respectability, and protection, depend on their association with families and the homes which are the center of family lives.

The point about women's veiling is of course too complicated to lay out here. But there were three reasons why I said it could not so simply be associated with lack of agency. First, "veiling" is not one thing across different parts of the Muslim world, or even among different social groups within particular regions. The variety is extraordinary, going from headscarves unselfconsciously worn by young women in rural areas to the fuller forms of the very modern "Islamic dress" now being adopted by university women in the most elite of fields including medicine and engineering. Second, many of the women around the Muslim world who wear these different forms of cover describe this as a choice. We need to take their views seriously, even if not at face value. Beyond that, however, we need to ask some hard questions about what we actually mean when we use words like "agency" and "choice" when talking about human beings, always social beings always living in particular societies with culturally variable meanings of personhood. Do we not all work within social codes? What does the expression we often use here "the tyranny of fashion" suggest about agency in dress codes?

You argued that the interesting political and ethical question that the burqa raises has to do with how to deal with difference. You ask if it is possible for us to think of Afghan women being free in ways different from our own conception of freedom, i.e., can we only free Afghan women to be like us?

Yes, I think we need to recognize that even after "liberation" from the Taliban, Afghan women (and one can't presume any uniformity of views even within this category), might want different things than we (Westerners, of course also a diverse category) might want for them. What do we do about that? I don't think we need simply be cultural relativists, advocating respect for whatever goes on elsewhere and explaining it as "just their culture." I've already talked about the problem of "cultural" explanations in my criticism of the focus on the category of "Muslim women." And it should be recalled that Afghan or other Muslims' "cultures" are just as much part of history and an interconnected world as ours are.

What I think we need to do is to work hard to respect and recognize difference-as products of different histories, as expressions of different circumstances, as manifestations of differently structured desires.

We might still argue for justice for women, but consider that there might be different ideas about justice and that different women might want, or choose, different futures from what we envision as best. Among the most difficult things for American feminists to accept is that these futures might involve women in developing within a different religious tradition, or traditions that don't have as their primary ideal something called "freedom."

Reports that came out of the Bonn peace conference in late November revealed that there were even differences among the few Afghan women feminists and activists present. Some, like the representative of RAWA, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, refused to be conciliatory to any notion of Muslim governance. But others looked to Iran as a country in which they could see women making significant gains within an Islamic framework-in part through an Islamically oriented feminist movement that is challenging injustices and reinterpreting the religious tradition. The situation in Iran is itself the subject of great debate within feminist circles, especially among Iranian feminists in the West. It is not clear whether and in what ways women have made gains and whether the great increases in literacy, decreases in birthrates, presence of women in the professions and government, and a feminist flourishing in cultural fields like writing and filmmaking are because of or despite the establishment of a so-called Islamic Republic. The concept of an Islamic feminism itself is also the subject of heated debate. Is it an oxymoron, or does it refer to a viable movement forged by women who want another way? Still, the representatives at the Bonn peace conference thought it was more realistic to look to the Iranian model than to a secular Western one if they wanted to have any appeal to local women and to have a chance of transforming women's lives and gender relations from within.

The last point I would want to make about "difference" is that even if we have strong convictions about what might be the best path for Afghani women, wouldn't we do better to keep our sights trained on what we can do, sitting here in this part of the world? We might do better to think how to make the world a more just place rather than trying to "save" women in other cultures. Of course we can ask ourselves how to support those within different communities who want to, and are working toward making women's lives better-here the concept can be that of alliances. But we can also ask ourselves, living in this privileged and powerful part of the world, what our own responsibilities are for the situations in which others have found themselves. We don't stand outside the world, looking over at those poor benighted people elsewhere. How might we make the world a place where certain kinds of forces and values can have an appeal? How might we help create the peace necessary for discussions, debates, and transformations to occur? We need to ask what kinds of world conditions could we contribute to making such that popular desires won't be determined by an overwhelming sense of helplessness in the face of forms of global injustice. Or where those who can point to rich powers swaggering around the world can sway people to their hatreds. Those seem like more productive lines of thought and action. Let's leave the 19th century missionary work of saving Muslim women behind, where it belongs.

Interview conducted by Nermeen Shaikh of AsiaSource.

A'ishah's legacy: Amina Wadud looks at the struggle for women's rights within Islam - Islam: Women

by Dr. Amina Wadud

I converted to Islam during the second wave feminist movement in the 1970s. I saw everything through a prism of religious euphoria and idealism. Within the Islamic system of thought I have struggled to transform idealism into pragmatic reforms as a scholar and activist. And my main source of inspiration has been Islam's own primary source -- the Qur'an.

It is clear to me that the Qur'an aimed to erase all notions of women as subhuman. There are more passages that address issues relating to women -- as individuals, in the family, as members of the community -- than all other social issues combined.

Let's start with the Qur'anic story of human origins. 'Man' is not made in the image of God. Neither is a flawed female helpmate extracted from him as an afterthought or utility. Dualism is the primordial design for all creation: 'From all (created) things are pairs' (Q51:49).

Therefore, when the proto-human soul, self or person (nafs) is brought into existence, its mate (zawj) is already a part of the plan. The two dwell in a state of bliss: the Garden of Eden. They are warned against Satan's temptation but they forget and eat from the tree. When the Qur'an recounts the event in the Garden, it uses the unique dual form in Arabic grammar showing that both were guilty. The female is never singled out and chastised for being a temptress.

Ultimately, the two seek forgiveness and it is granted. They begin life on earth untainted by a 'fall' from grace and with no trace of original sin. On the contrary, in Islam the creation story for humans on earth begins with forgiveness and mercy as well as a most important promise or covenant from God. He/She/It will provide guidance through revelation. Adam is the first prophet.

Furthermore, the Qur'an is emphatic that since Allah is not created then He/She/It cannot be subject to or limited by created characteristics, like gender. That Arabic grammar carries gender markers has led even the best Arab grammarians erroneously to attribute gender to the thing referred to. Modern feminist studies have analyzed this gender bias in language.

Islam brought radical changes regarding women and society, despite the deeply entrenched patriarchy of seventh-century Arabia. The Qur'an provides women with explicit rights to inheritance, independent property, divorce and the right to testify in a court of law. It prohibits wanton violence towards women and girls and is against duress in marriage and community affairs. Women and men equally are required to fulfill all religious duties, and are equally eligible for punishment for misdemeanors. Finally, women are offered the ultimate boon: paradise and proximity to Allah: 'Whoever does an atom's weight of good, whether male or female, and is a believer, all such shall enter into Paradise' (Q 40:40).

In the period immediately following the death of the Prophet, women were active participants at all levels of community affairs -- religious, political, social, educational, intellectual. They played key roles in preserving traditions, disseminating knowledge and challenging authority when it went against their understanding of the Qur'an or the prophetic legacy.

The Prophet's favorite wife A'ishah, from whom the prophet said we should learn 'half our religion', was sought after as an advisor to the early jurists. In the famous 'Battle of the Camel' she was an army general. The prophet even received revelation while resting his head on her lap. Unfortunately, this period passed before it could establish a pattern sustainable as historical precedent. And the name of A'ishahs cannot erase what was to happen to the status of women in the following thousand years.

During the Abbasid period, when Islam's foundations were developed, leading scholars and thinkers were exclusively male. They had no experience with revelation first hand, had not known the Prophet directly and were sometimes influenced by intellectual and moral cultures antithetical to Islam.

In particular, they moved away from the Qur'an's ethical codes for female autonomy to advocate instead women's subservience, silence and seclusion. If women s agency was taken into consideration it was with regard to service to men, family and community. Women came to be discussed in law in the same terms as material objects and possessions. (This is today reflected in Pakistan's rape laws which treat the offense as one of theft of male private property with no consideration for the woman's rights).

Not until the post-colonial 20th century would Muslim women reemerge as active participants in all areas of Islamic public, political, economic, intellectual, social, cultural and spiritual affairs.

Today Muslim women are striving for greater inclusiveness in many diverse ways, not all of them in agreement with each other. At the Beijing Global Women's Conference in 1995, nightly attempts to form a Muslim women s caucus at the NGO forum became screaming sessions. The many different strategies and perspectives just could not be brought to a consensus. On the Left were many secular feminists and activists who, while Muslim themselves, defined Islam on a cultural basis only. Their politics was informed by post-colonialist and Marxist agendas of nationalism. Concrete issues of women's full equality: standards of education, career opportunities, political participation and representation were understood in Western terms. The cultural imposition of veiling was to them a symbol of women's backwardness; for them full entry in the public domain and other indicators of liberation were reflected in Western styles of dress.

On the far Right, Muslim male authorities and their female representatives, known as Islamists, spearheaded a reactionary, neo-conservative approach. They identified an ideal Islam as the one lived by the Prophet's companions. and followers at Madinah. All that was required today was to lift that ideal out of the pages of history and graft it on to modernity adopting a complete shari'ah state, unexamined and unquestioned and opposed to modern complexity. Then life would be perfect. There were no inequities towards women because the law was divine and the matter of patriarchal interpretation was irrelevant. Female Islamists representing this viewpoint handed out booklets (written by men) with titles such as 'The Wisdom behind Islam's Position on Women'. Although the arguments were not intellectually rigorous or critically substantial they held a substantial sway. Ironically, these arguments would also form part of the rhetoric used by secular feminists to discredit human-rights and social-justice advocates wh o were in the middle ground, who insisted on fighting from within an Islamic perspective, or who happen to wear hijab.

As the term 'Islamic feminism' gained currency in the 1990s through scholars and activists, it would clarify the perspective of a large number of women somewhere between Islamists and secular feminists. While they would not give up their allegiance to Islam as an essential part of self-determination and identity they did critique patriarchal control over the basic Islamic world-view. Islamic feminism did not define these women, and many still reject the term. However, the term helped others to understand the distinction between them and the two 'dominant approaches for Muslim women's rights.

Today more women are active in the discussion and reformation of identity than at any other time in human history. By going back to primary sources and interpreting them afresh, women scholars are endeavoring to remove the fetters imposed by centuries of patriarchal interpretation and practice. By questioning underlying presumptions and conclusions they are creating a space in which to think about gender. Drawing upon enduring principles of human rights, enshrined in the text, they extract meanings that can interact with the changing moral and intellectual circumstances of the reader. And women scholars and activists are also busy constructing a system of legal reforms that can be implemented today for the full status of women as moral agents at all levels of human society.

This moral agency is a mandate of the Qur'an and cannot be restricted by any amount of historical precedent, social custom or patriarchal aspiration. The long-term success of this project lies in the fact that it is all happening within Islam. And the rationale for change comes from the most trustworthy and reliable source of Islam itself -- the Qur'an.

Amina Wadud is an Islamic Studies Professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University.

COPYRIGHT 2002 New Internationalist Magazine
COPYRIGHT 2002 Gale Group

"Current Islam is as hollow in substance as the scripture (can be) in logic (logic not being a requirement in scripture writing classes)."(writer)

With that sentence Feroz miaN -- you said everything -- that needed to be said about the immutability of Islam and its scripture -- and its effect on immutable Muslims roaming around as Neanderthal men and women all over the globe as 14 hundred years old medieval worn out, outsized squares sticking out awkwardly -- unable to fit in the 21st century round world.

You don't have to be a Tasleema to publish every year a new edition of Qoran as a medicine book -- or as the most current manual on how to connect nitroglycerin-plastic mix with the detonator in the shalwar's cummerbund -- but use it like a nitro patch for ischemic hearts aching for soul-nourishing spirituality.

Re: # 83

Massadi Mian:

I will, once you start using your beautiful mind, rather than for abusing others and me.

hahahahahahaha...another bitter qadiyani who is pissed of cause ghulam sahab is as irrelevant as Brittany spears (to be fair mirza sahab had bigger boobs)

Anil you have made a total damn fool of yourself. Now give it up...