Decline of Science in the Muslim World

Jai Shri Hamidm2,

Shri 108 is Maharaj or Emperor, Shri 1008 is Bhagwan or Ishwar or Paramatma or Wahe Guru we can make you Shri 08 Hamidm2 and reccomend u for Shri Bharat Ratna.

Jai Shri Ram
Sanatani

There is an interesting saying that humans cannot help worshipping something, be it God, gods, nature, pop idols, celebrities, an ideology, one`s own self, almost anything, and at least something. We cannot not have an idol to prostrate before it.

Gill, I liked your `religious` homage to the new `scientific` deity, if you know what I mean.

#177 teshah

Dear Mr. Shah,

Kindly accept my sincerest apologies for any inadvertent wrong implications that I may have wrongly communicated that the circle of time holds a monopoly on butter. I firmly believe that it is a sub continental trait – and people from Lahore are by no means to be considered novices at this fine art – for all I know, they might even be considered connoisseurs – some of whom may even have reached considerable heights of accomplishment due to experience over a longer kaal-frame than the (comparatively speaking) young bucks.

Wishing you well,

Sincerely,
Beej.

Re: # 176

kaalchakra

Thank you dear kaal for the defence which was, however, hardly of any avail against a man like BJ. Ther was no question of malice or lack of taste for BJ type of humour. It was merely a question of lack of `aql`. Just see his use of the word `butter` about you as well. I may tell you that I am a Lahori and has ample sense of humour which unfortunately
also lends me often in trouble. So `mitti paao`.

BJ

Again I recite a famous couplet from Faiz Ahmad Faiz which he had said in repentence some time after the birth of Pakistan:

Yih daagh daagh ujaala yih shab gazida sahar
Tha jis ka intizaar yih woh sahar to nahein

#175 Kaal

Kaal, clearly you are another one of those experts on butter!

Fear not, it worked. You are off the hook on this one. So is Mr. Shah!

If at all it is necessary, there was no personal malice against Mr. Shah – my comments were mostly an expression of outrage at the folly that many from his generation committed – and have yet to acknowledge. Somebody needs to tell these people like it is – or they will not get it and others won’t either!

I am aware that the follies of young age are not to be held against the more seasoned of the present, but until such people acknowledge their foolishness – and as long as they keep defending it by referring to some pipe dreams they were sold – there is always the chance that others like them will follow them!

LOL

BeeJay, your sense of humor, your way with words, your thinking are all unique. I just love, and marvel at, how you cut and thrust with words and snippets of ideas. :)

But some others, including teshah, may not have the same taste.

Nobody here needs anybody else`s defense, but you may want to consider what kind of a man, after all, would acknowledge and write the following -


``We forget that the pre-Islamic Arab society was an extremely religion-ridden one. It had also `Blasphemy Laws` which had made the prophet of Islam run for his life. But it had also great men like Abdulmutallib and Abutaalib who believed truth and ethics above faith (Aqeeda, to be exact). They shine out even in the Islamic literature which otherwise paints the pre-Islamic society all blackish. It was in fact religion against religion and not religion against secularism or irreligiocity (disbelieve or kufr). All we know today about the conflict between the Islamic and the pre-Islamic religion is the islamic version of it alone. Nothing from an independent source.

In fact, the people in power with fascist tedencies can use any religion to terrorize its opponents with its sword of blasphemy. But truth is truth. No sword can obliterate it.``

Best regards.

And while certain loose ends are being tied up here…

In #166, the terms which actually are meant to refer to testicular fortitude (or its absence) should not be misconstrued as referring to the gender!

I believe the recipient had already figured it out – and demonstrated “her” level of the same, by not responding!

#172 Kaal

O great circle of time (unless you are just a-round time), how DARE you classify yourself as anything BUT “better than us”?!

There is absolutely no misunderstanding on my part! I decided to give the great Shah a little break and stop at “beginning to like” him! My capabilities are far too inadequate at doing the level of service that would be needed to do even a modicum of justice to those in throes – who are known to have been in the noon of “janoon” – whether or not considered worth a dime in their prime by the circle of time!

As you may have realized (or not) I place “like” only a notch below “love” – that term of adulation I reserve for the select few – “S3” for example!

I certainly hope you are not feeling “left out” – a situation which can be addressed in a jiffy!!

(I did not think so!!!)

teshah and BeeJay

It`s reassuring for us lesser creatures to see the best and the brightest of Chowk lock horns. We like to know that even people better than us are given to misunderstanding each other :)

Re: # 170

Oh dear BJ who are you and what are you? Zara saamne to aa o chhalie, chhup chhup chharkane mein kia baat he. Being perhaps a half aql middle-sex creature you are presumptuously attacking windmills like Don Juon. A man with reason and intellect but no aql is like a poisonous snake a very dangerous creature indeed.

Excuse me, Chowk is not a place to be personal unless one is introduced.

So sorry and bye bye!

#169 by TEShah

Dear Mr. Shah,

Hai Allah! Lagta hai kee aap hum-se rooth gaye hain!

Aaap khamkhwah gussa ho rahe hain! Theek hai – maan liya hum-nein ke aap Hindustani naheen hain! (Psst: Main bhee nahin hoon!)

Maamla aisa hai ki:

(1) You (and a few others (YLH comes to mind)) are totally convinced that I belong to a “Hindu of extreme type”, whereas there are others (“S3”, for example) who just want me to move to Pakistan! And of course, we also have Ms. Hindvi, who simply wants me to move to wherever canines move to. I sometimes feel like singing – “…jayen to kidhar jayen…”. There was a certain amount of rhetoric in my questions to you. If it “bit” you a bit – feel free to join the ranks of “Bit-by-Beej Anonymous” – you will have a lot of company! Having said that, I think the fact that you had a “.in” domain would indicate to most reasonable people that you are from India – and the rest follows!

(2) The reason I make no apology to you for (1) is because I want to remain honest! I have a special reserved type of “love” for people who displayed the “junoon” which you are so proud of – those smart-asses who divided a living country, one which perhaps could by now have turned into one of the greatest countries in the world, if only by just adding up the statistics – the smart-asses who let their prejudices ride rough-shod all over any long-term vision – the smart-asses who could not learn to live with each other, who set a precedent that if people are not similar – no big deal, just break-up! – and did not have the brains to see what the logical extension of that thinking would be – even if the results hit you on the head – you have no clue, sir! I feel NO sympathy for your types – I certainly do so for those who are carrying the burdens of the sins of YOUR kind – whether it be the following generations of Pakistani lads who get stigmatized throughout the world today, or those Indians and Pakistanis who lost ancestral homes and were kicked out bags and baggage and lost it all, many times their lives – or the Indian Muslims who keep paying the interest payment for YOUR sins to this day! Plain and simple! Therefore, if you are looking for someone to feel sorry for you, please go find a mirror!

[…a lot of ‘reason’, ‘intellect’, etc., of meanish dalit type (I was tempted to use a more explicit Punjabi word for it), …]
I have no clue what you would you consider as “dalit type”? If the reference is to the person using that nick on this site – I have nothing against that person, but I like to be in “a type of my own” (as in – all by myself)!

[…unlike Goras whom I hold in great esteem especially the English-speaking ones of U.K. ]
Your words speak for themselves. What can one say – “keep licking those boots, but don’t complain if someday they crush you”?! The bottom-line is – it is dumb to make statements about a whole class of people – but those who do it here (YOU in this case), seem to have a LOT of company.

And there is a reason I speak these long paragraphs on the board of this article – a very simple reason – individuals like you are active namoonas of non-original thinking – those Iqbal-wallahs – the “follow the crowds” junoon-ites – and as long as this type keeps replenishing itself, there is little possibility of ANY original thinking from the land – scientific thinking to gayee bhaar mein!

Beginning to like you,
BeeJay.

#97 by BeeJay

Thank you dear BeeJay for taking so much interest in my post so as to go to my profile and make some sarcastic remarks about my person. My God, you were so flared up by mention of my ‘janoon’ for Pakistan during my boyhood that you could not conceal your extreme hatred for my person on that account. This made me also to look into your profile but could not find much except an inkling that you might be a Hindu of extremist type who compelled even a man like Jinnah to strive for the partition of India. We as young boys in Muslim majority areas who were inspired by the ideal of Pakistan as envisioned by Jinnah never thought it to be an anti-national or anti-Hindu communal movement but took it only as a separation of two sons of mother India like two brothers. We had no taste of extremism either of Hindu or Muslim type which is now showing up on both sides despite the show of friendship at the government level.

“Out of curiosity, after Pakistan did get created, (and since you still seem to have an e-mail address from India) what was it that held you back in India so you were unable to “follow your passion?”

I wonder how you presumed from my email address that I ‘held back in India’. I may inform you that I have so far never been able to set foot on that part of India which came to be called Bharat, however I wished to do so. As far my email address from India I may tell you that it was not intentional and I got it only because I being a novice at computering did not know what it implied. My son once pointed it out but I did not consider it necessary to change it. Now I have changed it when you pointed it out just to please you. It is now ‘talawat_bokhari@yahoo.com’. I hope you will have no objection to it now.

As for the meaning of the Arabic word ‘aql’, to explain it I would say that you are devoid of ‘Aql’ though you have a lot of ‘reason’, ‘intellect’, etc., of meanish dalit type (I was tempted to use a more explicit Punjabi word for it), unlike Goras whom I hold in great esteem especially the English-speaking ones of U.K.

So far as the word ‘Janoon’ is concerned I did not mean it as suspension of ‘aql’ but only ‘passion’ as Faiz Ahmad Faiz had said:

Janoon mein jo bhi guzri bakaar guzri he
Agarchih dil pih kharabi hazaar guzri he

kamath:

Thanks for your perceptive feedback. There is very little self-scrutiny and constructive self-criticism in the Muslim world. I appreciate that you elucidated the raison d`etre of my essays and articles. I wish you well,

Mohammad Gill

Mohammad:

I like your intellectual honesty and your writing which is free of bitterness , anger , sarcasm, rabid nationalism and religious bigotry ,blaming others etc. Of course I may not agree with everything you express!

Recently Dr. Abou Al-Fadl , a leading Muslim intellectual in N.America said in a radio interview in Canada, that These are the darkest period of Islamic history. I agree with him.
Muslim inteleectuals have immense responsibility to engage in a frank , critical rexamination, introspection , - good, bad, beautiful and also the ugly in Islam. It is happening and it is good for Islam. Otherwise world of Islam will never come out of its slumber, sloth and mideval mindset and will be in perpetual confrontation with ideas modernity, humanism and universalism of human thoughts etc.

You may be under attack by your friends and community at large, but I strongly believe you are on the right side of history and will give great courage to other thinking Musalmans.
Peace
Kamath

Re#161 Hindvi

Dear Ma’m:

I just got back from my janitorial duties and was extremely concerned to see your interact#161 – which has something to do with the affliction entitled “Rabies”. I absolutely assure you can relax – not only I promise not to give you that disease, I promise to absolutely guard you against all enemies – real, imaginary, potential and virtual – if at all any – who may be lurking somewhere in this shady neighborhood with vials of that blasted germ – with the sole intention of springing upon you when you are least prepared (perhaps at “that time” of the month (assuming you fit the age profile for “that time”)) and against your sternest objections – penetrate your being with those vile microbes. Ya Allah – kaise, kaise loag yahan aate rehtein hain!

I have absolutely nothing but the absolutest of absolute respect for ladies like you. Absolutely! (Plus, I would like to stay in the good books of T-bhai (no relation) who REALLY cares for respect to ladies!)

At this time, I would like to turn the attention back to the article at hand a bit. I believe when you vigorously attack a perfectly well-intentioned article – and attack it in a sneaky way – by pointing out inane trivialities which are not germane to the thrust of the article – even a lowly janitor like I pauses in wonder and exclaims – “I wonder why she did that!” and try as I might, the only conclusion this trivial being can form is that you just wish to bust this article without having to actually face up to the very real problem of “religious blasphemy laws” which hang around the necks of many a well-meaning but scared Muslims of the subcontinent – a real serious problem that you are determined to look AWAY from – now THAT gets the janitorial dander up! Therefore, when you have the time, kindly lift those slits of your burqa just a teensy, weensy bit – and try to look at things from the other side, too!

Thanks ma’m for you kind attention.

Sincerely,
BeeJay.

re: Hindvi # 158

That`s a pretty good understanding of the cultural and historical evolution of Hinduism.

Despite the 1947 local uprising in/pushing of Pakistani irregulars into Kashmir, relations between India and Pakistan continued to be cordial upto 1965. Travel was easy. Of course, all this is relative to the situation today.

But as Nur Khan`s memoirs suggest, this relative cordiality was based on totally false assumptions. Just as Vajpayee`s visit to Pakistan, in which he too was welcomed by Pakistani prime minister, was based on false assumptions.

Should Nehru have compromised? Depends on whether one sees the mutual relationship as one of compromise or of repeated attempts at blackmail.

Re: # 163

Here is the reference

http://www.dawn.com/2005/09/06/nat2.htm

Let me repeat what Nur Khan has to say about the lies regarding the so called `1965 aggression by India and how Indians almost lost the war because they ran out of ammo` before the sponsorers of official Paki lies churn out some more lies in order to support their myths:-

``...
“The performance of the Army did not match that of the PAF mainly because the leadership was not as professional. They had planned the ‘Operation Gibraltar’ for self-glory rather than in the national interest. It was a wrong war. And they misled the nation with a big lie that India rather than Pakistan had provoked the war and that we were the victims of Indian aggression”, Air Marshal Khan said.

When on the second day of war President Gen Ayub wanted to know how we were faring, Musa informed him that the Army had run out of even ammunition. That was the extent of preparation in the Army. And the information had shocked Gen Ayub so much that it could have triggered his heart ailment, which overtook him a couple of years later.

This in short is Nur Khan’s version of 1965 war, which he calls an unnecessary war and says that President Ayub for whom he has the greatest regard should have held his senior generals accountable for the debacle and himself resigned.

This would have held the hands of the adventurers who followed Gen Ayub. Since the 1965 war was based on a big lie and was presented to the nation a great victory, the Army came to believe its own fiction and has used since, Ayub as its role model and therefore has continued to fight unwanted wars — the 1971 war and the Kargil fiasco in 1999, he said.

In each of the subsequent wars we have committed the same mistakes that we committed in 1965.

Air Marshal Khan demanded that a truth commission formed to find out why we failed in all our military adventures. It is not punishment of the failed leadership that should be the aim of the commission but sifting of facts from fiction and laying bare the follies and foibles of the irresponsible leaders in matters with grave implications for the nation. It should also point out the irregularities committed in training and promotions in the defence forces in the past so that it is not repeated in future.
....``

Re: # 160

The official Paki position on partition is that Nehru`s stubbornness caused the ``inevitable`` partition on communal lines.....................the other official position is that the 1965 war was started by India and they almost lost it because they ran out o the ammo...........

I am sure our Indian version of Romair is listening because there is an expose from his old guard which spills the beans out of this myth making:

Nur Khan reminisces ’65 war


By Our Special Correspondent

ISLAMABAD, Sept 5: Air Marshal (retired) Nur Khan, the man who led the airforce achieve complete superiority over the three times bigger Indian airforce on the very first day of the 1965 war, had all but resigned the post the very day that he took command of Pakistan Air Force on July 23, 1965.

“Rumours about an impending operation were rife but the army had not shared the plans with other forces,” Air Marshal Nur Khan said. Sharing his memoirs with Dawn on the 40th anniversary of 1965 war, Air Marshal Khan said that he was the most disturbed man on the day, instead of feeling proud.

Air Marshal (retired) Asghar Khan while handing over the command to Nur Khan had not briefed him about any impending war because he was not aware of it himself. So, in order to double check, Nur Khan called on the then Commander-in-Chief, General Musa Khan.

Under his searching questions Gen Musa wilted and with a sheepish smile admitted that something was afoot. Nur Khan’s immediate reaction was that this would mean war. But, Gen Musa said you need not to worry as according to him Indians would not retaliate. Then he directed a still highly skeptical Nur Khan to Lt-Gen Akhtar Hasan Malik, GOC Kashmir, the man in-charge of “Operation Gibraltar” for further details. The long and short of his discussion with Gen Malik was, “don’t worry, because the plan to send in some 800,000 infiltrators inside the occupied territory to throw out the Indian troops with the help of the local population”, was so designed that the Indians would not be able retaliate and therefore the airforce need not get into war-time mode.

A still incredulous Nur Khan was shocked when on further inquiry he found that except for a small coterie of top generals, very few in the armed forces knew about “Operation Gibraltar”. He asked himself how good, intelligent and professional people like Musa and Malik could be so naive, so irresponsible.

For the air marshal, it was unbelievable. Even the then Lahore garrison commander had not been taken into confidence. And Governor of West Pakistan, Malik Amir Mohammad Khan of Kalabagh did not know what was afoot and had gone to Murree for vacations.

It was at this point that he felt like resigning and going home. But then he thought such a rash move would further undermine the country’s interests and, therefore, kept his cool and went about counting his chickens — the entire airforce was too young and too inexperienced to be called anything else then — and gearing up his service for the D-day.

The miracle that the PAF achieved on September 6, to a large extent, is attributed to Nur Khan’s leadership. He led his force from up front and set personal example by going on some highly risky sorties himself. But then no commander, no matter how daring and how professional, can win a battle if his troops are not fully geared to face such challenges and that too within 43 days of change in command.

The full credit for turning the PAF into a highly professional and dedicated fighting machine goes to Air Marshal Asghar Khan who was given charge of the service in 1957. Thank God, unlike the other service no darbari or sifarishi was given the job. And by the time he left on July 23, 1965, Asghar Khan had turned the PAF into a well-oiled, highly professional and dedicated fighting machine and had trained them on the then best US made fighters, bombers and transport planes. Those who flew those machines and those who maintained them on ground worked like a team, and each one of the PAF member performed beyond the call of duty to make a miracle.

The PAF performance had crucially allowed the Army to operate without interference from the Indian airforce.

“The performance of the Army did not match that of the PAF mainly because the leadership was not as professional. They had planned the ‘Operation Gibraltar’ for self-glory rather than in the national interest. It was a wrong war. And they misled the nation with a big lie that India rather than Pakistan had provoked the war and that we were the victims of Indian aggression”, Air Marshal Khan said.

When on the second day of war President Gen Ayub wanted to know how we were faring, Musa informed him that the Army had run out of even ammunition. That was the extent of preparation in the Army. And the information had shocked Gen Ayub so much that it could have triggered his heart ailment, which overtook him a couple of years later.

This in short is Nur Khan’s version of 1965 war, which he calls an unnecessary war and says that President Ayub for whom he has the greatest regard should have held his senior generals accountable for the debacle and himself resigned.

This would have held the hands of the adventurers who followed Gen Ayub. Since the 1965 war was based on a big lie and was presented to the nation a great victory, the Army came to believe its own fiction and has used since, Ayub as its role model and therefore has continued to fight unwanted wars — the 1971 war and the Kargil fiasco in 1999, he said.

In each of the subsequent wars we have committed the same mistakes that we committed in 1965.

Air Marshal Khan demanded that a truth commission formed to find out why we failed in all our military adventures. It is not punishment of the failed leadership that should be the aim of the commission but sifting of facts from fiction and laying bare the follies and foibles of the irresponsible leaders in matters with grave implications for the nation. It should also point out the irregularities committed in training and promotions in the defence forces in the past so that it is not repeated in future.

Mr Khan believes that our soldiers when called upon have fought with their lives but because of bad leadership their supreme sacrifices went waste. And after every war that we began we ended up taking dictation from the enemy — at Tashkant, at Simla and lastly at Washington.

He said at present Pakistan is engaged in another war, this time in Waziristan. This war can also end up in a fiasco and politically disastrous for the federation if it is fought with the same nonchalance and unprofessionally as we did the last three wars.

He, therefore, called for an immediate change of command at the GHQ insisting that President Gen Pervez Musharraf should appoint a full-time Chief of Army Staff and restore full democracy in the country. He suggested appointment of an independent chief election commissioner in consultation with all the political parties.

“Look at India. There a religious party comes in power and nobody cries foul and it goes out of power and nobody alleges rigging. We can also do this,” he added.

And we must make unified efforts to restore the country in the vision of the Quaid-i-Azam. Turn it into a non-theocratic and truly democratic state. And all the three forces should model themselves on the lines set by Asghar Khan when he was commanding the PAF, he suggested

beejay please dont give me rabies.

Re#157 by hindvi

[But apart from the gruesome horrors of partition what further and artificially sealed the borders was kashmir and for this Nehru shares the blame both for the initial cause and for the inability to strike a compromise, for of the sage leaders of Pre-Partition India he alone survived long enough to have settled the issue and he alone had enough political capital on both sides of the border to have done so.]
Absolutely! It was all due to Nehru’s fault! All he had to do was to have turned Kashmir over to India’s most benevolent neighbor and – presto – all the problems that the Muslim societies the world over of not producing scientific thought over the last millennium or so would have DEFINITELY got solved! Not a shred of doubt about it! You see, India is the ONLY non-muslim country that Pakistanis would have ever interacted with – and not getting Kashmir (or at least all of Kashmir) broke Pakistani hearts so much they took wholesale sanyas from scientific thought and things have never been the same since, ever! Alas! Khair! At least something is new here – we at long last have in our very own hands the “smoking gun” – that (so far) missing link in this debate – that forever-unavoidable connection to Kashmir – that “root cause” to this and ALL the other problems of the world!

[…when he once went to Pakistan in the 50s, such was the reception accorded to him, that on his return he told his friend that he felt he was the most popular politician in Pakistan.]
A feat so unique that it would not be repeated for the next fifty years or so – until a certain “not so run-of-the-mill” politician would pay a visit from the same country. (S3 smugly pipes in from his safely ensconced position among tree branches – “Yes, send that descendant of Lord Krishna to solve the problems of the descendants of Lord Rama – Allah-darn!”)

Re: # 154

Obviously you are talking about Deism.

Deism was a well founded theory to ``save the scriptural metaphysics`` which were in direct conflict eith the material sciences. This was supplamented by the Christian reform movements such as the Renaissance Humanism, Lutheranism, Calvinism etc which were all secularising forces within Christianity, purging faith and practice of immanentist conceptions of deity, progressively applying the canons of reason to doctrine, and reducing mystical, miraculous, sacramental and sacerdotal claims. This progression has never happened with Islam and we need to throw away the propoganda by the LITERALIST schools which have ensured that no DEIST concept of God can survive in Islam..........only when we have an Islamic Deism can we ensure that muslims reject the historical determinism (the essentialistic conspiracy theories about Americans, Jews and their collaborators) that gets propounded by every mullah on the street as a nice cover up of their own incompetences to explain the world rationally.................

In India hindus too had costs due to a lack of diversity, especially in the north but India due to its size has varieties of caste, religious beliefs and virtually of civilizations, since the East and the South have geater differneces in ways of life and attitudes than those between north west India and pakistan, suffered far less. Also hinduism never had a core set of permanent inviolable beliefs, (though the cast system came close). This combined with their previous history of adjustment to different sets of foreign rulers allowed them to be better placed than muslims.

Christianity, which had a core set of inviolable beliefs had a more institutionalised religous authority whose distinctiveness worked in many ways, not excluding revolt against repression, which islam never had.

An incepient modernised middle class and intelligentia had begun to develop among the muslims of south asia in the first half of the 20th century in areas such as Academia, the press, films, radio, the all india services, in the professions etc which might have formed the kernel of reform and enlightenment for their community but it was artificially cut along with the cultural, economic, social and political ties which made the subcontinent whole. And the cleavage Partition created, Kashmir sealed.

If one takes a look around at those countries which have a large muslim population, it becomes quickly apparent that it is the ones that have large non muslim populations or a high degree of interaction with non muslims (either due to colonialism or otherwise) that are the most developed be they in South East asia, the Ex Soviet Central Asia, Turkey etc.

One of the tragedies of the inability of our leaders to come to an acceptable compromise in the first half of the twentieth century was that Pakistan and bangladesh were cut of from the muslim periphery and became part of the core with this they lost contact with their non muslim bretheren.

Nehru understood this and told Jinnah, Jinnah infact implicitly understood it himself for most of his close friends were Parsi and hindu. But apart from the gruesome horrors of partition what further and artificially sealed the borders was kashmir and for this Nehru shares the blame both for the initial cause and for the inability to strike a compromise, for of the sage leaders of Pre-Partition India he alone survived long enough to have settled the issue and he alone had enough political capital on both sides of the border to have done so. when he once went to Pakistan in the 50s, such was the reception accorded to him, that on his return he told his friend that he felt he was the most popular politician in Pakistan.

(Enter the lion. The janitor appears incredulous.)

J: Didn’t I ask you to keep a low profile?!
L: Did you really expect me to?
J: (Sighing) Do you have to keep risking your neck so? You keep at it like you are doing now, and rest assured, sooner or later, good old CC – the chowk censor – will have to come and chop it off.
L: CC will?
J: (In strident voice) You realize you are a different nick belonging to the same user – a nick which is being used for harassing this user - ME! Don’t you realize its SO much in violation of chowk guidelines?!
L: But I am not using my own nick to post this – just yours! Shouldn’t they really chop off YOUR neck!
J: A sad commentary on life – the victim always gets the blame!
L: You mean the Muslims?
J: That’s not the message of this article – Muslims are not just the victims here – many of them are also the victimizers!
L: WHO are the victimizers?
J: You want me to get a fatwa issued in my name? Didn’t you read the part about blasphemy laws?
L: It’s not blasphemous to criticize individual Muslims – no matter who they are!
J: You obviously don’t get it. The problem is not with the laws per se – their exact reason and reasoning and even merits are not the issue. The problem is with their implementation, and who decides to invoke them, and what their motives are, etc.
L: So, the problem is that the laws of God are being implemented by simple human beings – or perhaps not so simple human beings – even convoluted human beings!
J: I think you just alienated a big chunk of the chowk crowd! Say goodbye to your five stars!
L: You are SO jealous!
J: (After pause) Why don’t you read the article yourself?
L: Lions don’t read. (A scared S3, hiding among branches, pipes in – “they only breed!” Nobody pays him any attention.)
J: Let me try to explain it in a way even a lion can comprehend – have you ever seen a cage?
L: I am familiar with the concept – I meant to talk to you about it – you have been keeping me in one for quite a long time now!
J: (Ignoring) You see Lion, we the people also build our own cages – and those are sometimes much stronger than anything that’s ever used to cage lions and the like.
L: And you humans then walk in and lock yourselves – and don’t have a clue on how to get out. Why not just break out of it!
J: It’s not that simple, my feline friend!
L: (offended) Insulting me again! I’ll simply ignore that.
J: Sometimes we have thrown away the key – or never had one to begin with, because we thought that the cage was the destination and there was no reason to have an exit strategy!
L: Are we talking the Gill or Iraq?
J: Don’t be flippant with me – I still have you by the tail! The point is, people – all people – sometimes need help – somebody needs to help them get out of that cage.
L: A locksmith, perhaps, or just a muscular guy with a sledgehammer (Temporal explodes – “Just another desi mindset … women occupying the lowest rung of the totem pole”!) (Lion hastily corrects himself) …or a muscular woman with a sledgehammer!
J: And one person’s key could be another person’s hammer in this case. I got to think it over.
L: Not again, isn’t that how you ALWAYS end up in trouble?
J: (Cornered) Lion, haven’t you realized this ain’t your domain?
L: It’s not?
J: Just take a look around you – see all the smarties - not to mention the smartipants! Do you see a single animal? Not even a donkey in sight – and you a lion – for Pete’s sake!
L: I feel so sad – I thought it was an equal opportunity forum.
J: But conversations with a lion are just not intellectually stimulating – or fulfilling! Believe me, I know what I am talking about!
L: As if your conversations with Dr. Gill are! Have you even tried to look at the issues from HIS point of view?
J: I agree that the use of transplanting for ‘supplanting’ was an honest mistake.
L: You are being facile, as usual – making low quality janitorial wisecracks regarding his age and his impending retirement. Even Hamidm took the trouble to wish him a “happy retirement” – but you couldn’t do even that! Shame on you!
J: I personally think Hamidm is loosing it – becoming too narcissist (S3, hiding in the tree branches, pipes in –“narcissism is caused by unconscious deficits in self-esteem as a result of the beating we recieved at the hands of Bihari class mates in fifth grade”)
L: The bottom line is you didn’t!
J: Don’t be foolish – you think he’s the type that retires? Just look at this face.
He has a LOT of mileage left. He even has a full head of hair.
L: You are jealous again, aren’t you! What makes you so sure it’s his own?
J: (Ignoring) Did you get the part that AlephNull explained.
L: I got the second part.
J: You mean where one speculates whether a civilization with a different central paradigm might have been stimulated to discover the laws of physics in the form of ‘conservation laws’, rather than in the dynamical form that Newton chose as his primary representation?
L: No, I mean the “Null”!
J: You are hopeless!
L: Really? So was it ME who made all those non-constructive comments while rubbing Dr. Gill’s nose in the dust?
J: (Trying to hide embarrassment) Just scram.
L: (Sighs) So what’s new!
J: (after afterthought) Wishing you well!

(Exit the lion)

AlephNull:

The use of transplanting for `supplanting` is an honest mistake. I had framed that sentence around the word `supplanting` but somehow I typed transplanting by mistake and didn`t catch it in time. A similar mistake had occurred once before. I wanted to use `archetype` in a sentence but instead typed stereotype. I had submitted the article for posting but detected this error before the paper was posted. So I was able to correct it in time. Supplanting fell through the cracks. Thanks very much for pointing it out. It is too late for me to make this correction in the text now.

Use of Islamic occasionalism was loose in the text. It referred to the text more appropriately that I had used as the frontispiece. I am pleased that some readers like you read my articles more critically than many others, and make some constructive comments without rubbing my nose in the dust. Wishing you well,

Mohammad Gill

From the article:

{{Muslims … in as much as the creative and natural sciences were concerned and at times, they became irrational in minimizing the importance and relevance of these sciences to humanity. They regressed more and more into the religious shell and ascribed the cause of their decline in the world power (hence in science and the creative arts also) as due to deviation of the ummah from the straight religious path that Islam had prescribed. … they tried … to find reasons and rationale for every thing in religious terms. This mode of thinking which some like to call Islamic occasionalism is part of the collective psyche of the orthodox Muslim world and has existed from the very beginning of Islam.}}

I think Gill sahib is mistaken in his notions of what Islamic occasionalism entails. The term does not refer to the generic ‘attempt to explain everything in religious terms’; still less to the belief that the causes for Muslim defeat are to be found in having strayed from the straight path.

‘Occasionalism’ denotes something far more specific, namely the doctrine that Allah taala is the sole causative agent in the universe and that he ‘occasions’ each event in the natural world, i.e. causes it to occur by an exercise of divine will. It implies a rejection of causality in nature – regularities that we observe in natural phenomena can be ascribed to mere divine habit, and can be suspended whenever Allah in his divine omnipotence desires an anomalous (or ‘miraculous’) event to occur.

If taken seriously, this doctrine would discourage the search for laws governing natural phenomena, since these can be violated at divine whim. A different doctrine - that of a divine lawgiver who lays down the causal laws governing the mechanism universe, sets the clockwork of the universe in motion, and then retires beyond space and time - would encourage investigation into what exactly the laws are – for instance, ‘Laws of Motion’ a la Newton. This view seems to have animated many of those who laid the foundations for natural science in the West.

It is interesting to speculate whether a civilization with a different central paradigm – that of a universe in ‘balance’ – might have been stimulated to discover the laws of physics in the form of ‘conservation laws’, rather than in the dynamical form that Newton chose as his primary representation.

{{…. They believed Islam had transplanted them and the Bible and Torah were replaced by the Quran, which is the final word of God. …}}

Perhaps ‘supplanted’ is the word for which Gill sahib is groping.

Re: # 142
Hamidm: I too enjoy reading Bertrand Russell. Anil

Romair:

A tragedy is as likely to turn a believer into a non-believer than the other way around. Haven`t you seen those Bollywood films where the hero runs to the temple and shouts ``tu pathar hai bhagwan nahin``?

And what answers does religion provide anyways? ``Trust me because I am God`` or ``trust me because God whispered into my ears``. Let`s face it. Religion only pretends to answer the questions science does not. But those answers are based on very shaky foundations, indeed!

``“believeing in ``nothing`` is a lot less complicated than speculating about all kinds of weird things

True. The less complicated a person is, the happier he is. That’s why a philosopher is never happy.``

Actually, I think it is the other way around. The happier and (and luckier) more empowered - materially, socially etc. - a person is, the more of a luxury he/she has to not believe in anything. The only athiests I have met were quite well-off materially, and generally talented enough to get ahead in life, on their own, without anyone`s help - including God`s.

The poorer and more disenfranchised a person is, and the more tragic and thus unhappy a person happens to be, the more they have a tendency to believe in something. Otherwise, life becomes extremely unfair for them. And they really have no reason to keep on living.

As they say, you can take God (religion etc.) away from yourself or you can keep it, but never take it away from a poor man, because that is all he has...........

I would add a corollary to that..........Never take it away from an inquisitive man, looking for answer, also.........Because for certain questionns, that is all he has, as well...........

Re: # 149

Hamid

“don`t you think contemplating the question of ``life after death`` is an exercise in futility because we know that we cannot answer it untill we are dead?”

Some people are just very curious. They want to know, and they want to know NOW.

“wouldn`t it be a better use of time to work on reviving dead people so that they can answer that question ?”

That’s where the problem is. Once dead, they don’t come back and tell us what happened to them; hence, the speculation.

My solution: be indifferent either way. I’ve got more pressing worries in this life.

Re: # 147

godot,

...... but don`t you think contemplating the question of ``life after death`` is an exercise in futility because we know that we cannot answer it untill we are dead?........ wouldn`t it be a better use of time to work on reviving dead people so that they can answer that question ?

anil/dost-mittar/hamidm mian #

Interesting discussion........

I am a scientist by education, a soldier by training, a small businessman by profession, and a Muslim by faith. Probably a practicing religionist by Western standards, and a non-practicing one by Pakistani standards, and perhaps even an apostate by some Pakistani standards. During the past twelve years of my life, I have been to the mosque, once. Yet I read about my religion (and to some extent other religions) extensively. Second only to what I read about science and computers. At the moment, I cannot imagine my life without my science and my faith. I would probably go nuts, without either.........And contrary to what seems to be the opinion, on this site regarding these two, I have never had any problem associating and separating the two. Perhaps much like Abdus Salam never did..........

Every inquisitive mind, at some stage of their life, goes through the questions I mentioned earlier. Each reacts to it differently. But every inquisitive mind will demand an answer. In my experience, the only people who can gloss over them, are individuals who are quite well off and content in their material surroundings. At the same time, I have seen some of the most athiestic people, turn to God, when they have had a huge unexpected tragedy, i.e. death of a child, death of a spouse etc. I would add physical handicaps to that. Because, all the science in the world cannot satisfy them......All the theories about microbiology will not satisfy a father whose six year old daughter dies of cancer. And all the laws on Newtonian physics will not satisfy a husband whose wife dies in a car crash...They will ask, ``Why.`` And when science cannot answer, where will they go?

One can call that metaphysics or faith or religion or anything else. But it is an inhernet belief in a superior concept of creation. Something that goes contrary to pure scientific thought. Since science refuses to recongnize anything, which cannot be proven. It demands searching for answers, not a blind acceptance of answers.

But what about the answers that science can never ever give us. The anomolies I mentioned. That is where religion comes in. Or faith comes in.....It starts where science stops........So what should happen if science contradicts religion? Easy. One should go with science. The religion then becomes incomplete. That to me is the litmus test for religion.

But what to do, when science just cannot give the answers, yet one is anxious for the answers. You go with religion, in that case. Not just any religion. But the one that stands up to the test of science. Or at the very least, one goes with the metaphysics or the concept of faith.....How else can someone satisfy this curiousity?

I think too many people try to map religion into local events and politics, etc. That is a very limited view. They should, infact, study it as a philosophy. Forgetting about the time and space, they are in at the moment. It should be a journy of discovery. Much like science is a journey of discovery. It should not be a blind acceptance of absolute truths. But, at the same time, it should not be a stubborn denial of questions, which have no alternative answers in science.

I will become an athiest the day, science can answer the two questions I mentioned (along with why certain tragedies occur in life, of certain poeple for no reason). If someone has the answer, I am all ears.......Other than that, I think perhaps I am just too curious, and cannot suppress my desire to have some kind of answer to that. Not out of fear. But out of inquisitiveness..............

Re: # 146

Hamid

“believeing in ``nothing`` is a lot less complicated than speculating about all kinds of weird things”

True. The less complicated a person is, the happier he is. That’s why a philosopher is never happy.

Re: # 145

godot,

....... believeing in ``nothing`` is a lot less complicated than speculating about all kinds of weird things ......... personally i think we will be reunited with our parents in a parallel universe - kind of like in the movie ``contact``............ it is a soothing thought unless your father was charles manson ...........

Re: # 144

Hamid

“What will happen after death...nothing (is that such a difficult concept to grasp ?)”

Yes, it’s a very difficult concept to grasp. Science, because of its analytical and factual nature, cannot verify what will happen after we die. Hence, it’s all speculation. Believing that “nothing” will happen after we die is as speculative as saying “something” will.

romair mian,

..... you have lived up to your reputation by asking yet more profoud questions......... here are the answers :

1. What is the meaning of life
A: monty python answeed this question years ago : ``Uh, try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations, and, finally, here are some completely gratuitous pictures of penises to annoy the censors ......... ``

2. What will happen after death
B: nothing (is that such a difficult concept to grasp ?)

hamidm2#140:

I would tend to include metaphysics also as a legitimate branch of philosophy, although some would prefer to think of it as a science. See, for instance, the Epicuran riddle in ballukhan`s post.

Re: # 138

dost-mittar,

here is what betrand russell, my favourite philosopher (because he is the only one i can understand ), has to say about the contributiion of religion to mankind :

``I regard it as a disease born of fear and as a source of untold misery to the human race. I cannot, however, deny that it has made some contributions to civilization. It helped in early days to fix the calendar, and it caused Egyptian priests to chronicle eclipses with such care that in time they became able to predict them. These two services I am prepared to acknowledge, but I do not know of any others. ``

re: 139

Great post, ballukhan. There is a sharp conflict between Christianity and Greek thought. Christians in the West pay lip service to Christianity but have clearly shifted their allegiance to their Greek heritage. So, today no child is raised in the West without some exposure to Greek classics.

Without access and return to this heritage, European might not have broken free from the shackles of medieval Christianity.

re: godot # 137

Not fair, godot :)

True, Indians probably spent more time thinking about philosophical issues than most (except perhaps the Greeks), but they, like the Chinese, were very curious about many other issues as well.

But we may be more in agreement than seems apparent. In India, the intellectual focus (and the prestige associaed with it) was certainly and decisively on advances of the mind than of advances in dealing with material things. The main areas of contribution being philosophy, grammar and linguistics, logic, mathematics, symbolics, astronomy, and music and dance (our caste system could be partly to blame.)

The European civilization may have most sharply focused on systematically studying and analyzing the MATERIAL world and its properties.

Talking about ancient scientific materialism.............amongst the greek atomists the Epicurians were one of the most intelligent of the lot............let me restate the dilemma that he so succinctly put regarding the concept of an omnipotent god:

``The Riddle of Epicurus
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?``

No wonder, unlike us the Western civilization has been so politically correct in tracing its rich intellectual traditions to the ancient greeks............only if we could move out of the ``theologically correct`` historiagraphy of and exclusive ``MUSLIM`` intellectual tradition and start accepting the influence of the Greeks, Romans and Christian thought.......

Anil#132:

Thanks for another post with useful and original information.

I believe that the examples of Hindu contribution to mathematics that you mentioned all took place in the pre-Buddhist period. It is not that Buddhism discouraged idle curiousity but that this curiousity was directed at the questions man has always faced and referred to by Romair in his post to you. I think that Buddhism – which I find most satisfying for personal contentment – goes further than even Islam in negating the significance of this life. While Islam emphasised that the purpose of this life should be to secure a comfortable, permanent place in the afterlife, Buddha went further and called this life miserable, and our desires the reason for this miserable cycle of life and death. I think that this essential message of Buddhism was also accepted by the Brahminism which followed Buddhism. Therefore, while the Indian contributions to physics disappeared after Buddha, its contributions to metaphysics continue to this day (e.g., Theosophical Society, Aurobindo, J. Krishnamurti).

Romair#133:

The question is not whether religion is important for man but whether it is important for science, or rather if the scientist should be constrained by any religious boundaries? Although the questions you mentioned in your post to Anil cannot be answered by science, the human need is met not necessarily by religion but by faith and there could by any number of faiths providing any number of answers. Religions, especially those which calim to have a monopoly over The Truth, are indeed more of a hindrance than help as far as science is concerned. The questions you raise could be called belonging to metaphysics, which greatly exercised the minds of ancient Greeks and Indians, and is not to be confused with theology: Metaphysics does not depend upon revelation, theology does; while theology merely discusses and debates the nature of the answers provided by revelations, metaphysics can challenge the very core of those answers.

Re: # 132

Anil

``Rig Vedic hindu thought is full of idle curiosity that according Carl Sagan it is the only ``religious`` which poses a question ``Is Man the Best Creation of the God, or is the God the Best Imagination of Man?````

I rest my case.

Well, culture/religion is only one of the factors determining the progress of science. So culture-based explanations have their limitations. But a point that Anil has made needs to be emphasized: the impact of diffusion.

Cultures, ideas, philosophical constructs flow from place to place over time. And science builds on pre-existing building blocks.

So later civilizations have an advantage.

This flow of knowledge shouldn`t be misinterpreted as `copying.` Rather, it is the absorbing up of ideas floating around, heard in snatches, and then building on those ideas.

Time also impacts in many other, profound, ways.

---

IMO, the author has done a great job of highlighting some possible factors behind the decline of Science in the Muslim World. Such ``within-civilization` analyses are very useful. But it is much harder to draw precise lessons by studying different civilizations that rose and fell at widely varying points in historical time AND interacted with one another.

Re: # 133
Romair:

``The day science answers these two questions, is the day either religion will, depending on the answer, either disappear, or it will be universally established, throughout the world. However, I cannot see how science can answer these two questions. It is an anomoly. A problem that requires its solution to occur first, to solve the problem. The ultimate Catch-22.``

Not so fast, Romair. I have full faith that there shall never be finality of human thoughts. Therefore, as long as human race lives, there will be new unanswered questions and the quest will go on through both ends - belief system - a la religion, and probe and question system- a la science.

So was Einstein (``God does not play dice`` - Albert Einstein), so was Newton, and so many scientists who were and are religious. They reconciled their thoughts quite well, I will say that.

Regards.
Anil

Re#126 FreeThinker

Dear Dr. Gill:

I was not aware of the cases that you mentioned in that post. I went and did some research and am just AMAZED at how much worse the problem of blasphemy laws is than what I had thought. I truly appreciate this eye-opening information.

It also increases my admiration – by over an order of magnitude – for the members of intelligentsia who actually have to live in such authoritarian setups and balance their act between maintaining integrity and survival. These are true heroes, and I will NEVER make light of those individuals again. Things which have been around for over 800 years are unlikely to go away on their own without an external stimulus. All of us in the west must make sure that our countries stay engaged – otherwise there is little hope.

Regarding the individual cases you mentioned, the news from Pakistan and Iran is not all bad, but that from Egypt is not so good. Based on googling, below is a sort of update:

[There was one Dr. Sheikh in Pakistan who was sentenced to death on a blasphemy charge. I don`t know about his fate now. The last that I heard of him was that he was still in prison under the death sentence. ]

As per the web-site of the Committee on Human Rights he has been released.

Pakistani Medical Doctor Younis Sheikh Released from Prison, January 23, 2004
Following a second trial, Pakistani medical doctor Younis Sheikh was acquitted of blasphemy charges and released from prison on November 21, 2003. Given that a number of former prisoners acquitted of blasphemy charges in Pakistan have been targeted by Muslim extremists when released—and in some cases killed—Dr. Sheikh accepted an asylum offer from the Swiss government. He arrived safely in Switzerland on Monday, January 19, 2004. We did not post this article on the CHR’s website until now at the request of his friends, who did not want his release to be publicized until he was safely out of Pakistan.


[A history professor (a Ph.D.) in Iran was sentenced to death on blasphemy charge because his comments were taken out of context by the theocratic government. His death sentence was relaxed but he was still in prison when I last heard of him.]

I believe he is also free now.

[There was another scholar similarly condemned in Egypt; I am forgetting the details of that case.]
The news from Egypt is not so good. I found the following five cases on the web.
Naguib Mafouz (world-famous Egyptian author and Nobel Laureate. Mafouz, physically and mentally traumatized by a knife attack, no longer writes.)
Farag Foda (An Egyptian writer and human rights defender. Foda was shot dead by militants from an Islamic fundamentalist group after being branded as an apostate by officials at Al-Azhar, the leading Islamic educational institute in the world.)
Nasr Abu Zaid (Egyptian Quranic scholar. He escaped to the West in fear of his life as a convicted apostate, where he reunited with his wife, but remains a target for assassination from Islamic fanatics.)
Rashad Khalifa (Islamic reformer, an Egyptian immigrant to the USA. Declared an apostate in a fatwa issued by 38 Islamic scholars in Saudi Arabia, Khalifa was murdered in 1990 in Tuscon, Arizona.)
Nawal El-Saddaawi (Egyptian feminist and author of many books. Once imprisoned for her outspoken feminist views, El-Saddawi courageously remains in Egypt although clearly a target for assassination from a radical Islamist.)

Thanks again for your patience in explaining this to me!

Anil #132: ``Religion at its core prevents you to question its foundation. The foundation of Science is to probe and question everything. One is based on belief and faith, the other is based on probe and question.``

I have always felt that things that last for a long long time have something inherent strength built into them, which makes them last. Religion, of some sort, has been around for a long long time.There are two unanswerable questions due to which religion has survived, and will continue to survive. These are:

1. What is the meaning of life
2. What will happen after death

The day science answers these two questions, is the day either religion will, depending on the answer, either disappear, or it will be universally established, throughout the world. However, I cannot see how science can answer these two questions. It is an anomoly. A problem that requires its solution to occur first, to solve the problem. The ultimate Catch-22.

In my opinon, any inquisitive mind will, thus, continue to be bothered by these questions. It will demand answers. And when it cannot get them, and realizes that it may never get them, it will do something to satisfy itself. This is why animals do not have religion and humans do. Animals are not inquisitive.

While evolution is being proved through science. Science, so far, even outside of the above two questions (which it may never answer) has not been able to answer the questions regarding the creation of a human cell. I read an interesting reply on this site, which explained how scientists are completely clueless on how a living cell occured. The tornado running through a junkyard creating a 747 theory........

This curiousity and inquisitiveness, at its core, is what keeps people in some sort of a religion, with the concept of some sort of a Creator. People mistake this for rituals and cusoms. Those are only the by-product of this inquisitiveness.

Thus, at its core, religion is popular due to the fear of the unknown. Can science replace that fear of the unknown? Can it explain to us what will happen to us after death? Can it gaurantee that we will just turn into carbon? And most of all, can it tell us the meaning of life. Why and how we were created in the first place? And who created us? Or the monkeys before us, or the amphibians before them.........

One can, at best, disassociate one`s self from religion by suppressing this curiousity. One can never eliminate it all together............

Along with this, I would like to add one more factor which adds to the curiosity. Why are you very wealthy. And me, kind of wealthy. While there are handicapped poor souls dying of starvation. What if I go blind tomorrow? Why did that happen to me? How do I answer these questions. Can science answer them? If it is just a random roll of the dice, then the world is an extremely unfair place. And in such a place, only the well-off can afford the luxury of not worrying about the meaning of life, and subsequently, religion......

Perhaps when there is universal prosperity, and we run into the aliens who created us, and continue to create us, will science and life become independent of religion. Until then, most sceintists will themselves have some sort of, ``faith`` which they, themselves, will never be able to prove or disprove scientifically...........

On the whole, if one keeps the attitude that religion starts, where science stops (or cannot answer the questions), one can relate to both quite easily. An attitude that I have always had. Dr. Abdus Salam, a top scientist, and quite religious, has written on this subject, quite well..............

Dost Sahib:

Ancient hindu thoughts developed quite well.

Interesting thing is that Al-Baruni and other Arabs took concepts to the West but put down ancient hindu thoughts in their writing. The Chinese scholars learned and glorified them. Some of the best write-ups on old Indian thoughts still exist in scrolls in South China and Tibet. Chairman of Tatung a very large Taiwanese electronic company, a few years ago showed me some of his personal collections of old Sanskrit and Pali scrolls.

After creating mathematical, geometrical and trignometry (trikone-miti) abstractions, Ancient Hindu thoughts moved into clausal logic whereas the Arabs took these abstractions, zero, decimal system to the west. The West evolved powerful and more concise mathematical tools to study and express scientific thought.

Whereas Indians uses 80 old grammar meta rules of Sanskrit laid out Panini. MIT`s computer science department in 70s and early 80s had done very interesting research on this aspect. No doubt Sanskrit has a very prescie grammar, and its applications in romance to court, to scriptures. But the ``rishis`` started becoming very lazy and started dropping the context of their expressions and that created confusion. If you read Sanskrit literature whether it is Kalidasa`s Meghdoot or even Geeta you can see several meanings. With Sanskrit, precise grammar, about 25 years ago, a couple of my American colleagues who were quite expert in computer language and Sanskrit, we tried to write a simple program in Sanskrit to see how difficult will be to express solution simple algeraic identities as against thru algebraic notations. The amount of steps involved was exponentially different.

Interestingly, especially South Indian brahmins have carried the tradition of remembering Sanskrit Gardhaan and Shlokas, which are like the foundation of Computer language notations and abstractions too. While Chinese build a vocabulary of 20,000 character recognition, like Geshtalt. Such pattern recognition in Chinese is so amazing, that they obviously became some of the best chip designers, while Indians thru clausal logic became good in software. Indeed if you talk to some these Indian software engineers they will readily tell you that they visualize a complete fabric of the software like symphony in their mind. There is very interesting book written on Godel, Escher and Bach about this phenomena in human intelligence.

Dost Sahib, it was not Buddhism that destroyed the old traditions in India. In fact Nalanda and Taxila are indeed examples to the contrary. It started with subsequnt Brahmin revolution that four Shankaracharyas started to reassert Hindu authority in India, the slide later continued with the arrival of Muslim thought of believing in one absolute power, one book and one institution that caused further decline very contrary to the ancient hindu thoughts.

Godot Sahib:
Rig Vedic hindu thought is full of idle curiosity that according Carl Sagan it is the only ``religious`` which poses a question ``Is Man the Best Creation of the God, or is the God the Best Imagination of Man?`` Such tradtion of questioning and evolving was called ``Shashthrarth``. Jews have similar tradition of question. Any upcoming scholar could challenge even his Guru, if the Shishya prevailed, the Guru was supposed to retire and leave for Vanprasth.

Gill sahib:
I beg to disagree, religion and science cannot mix. Infact they are two opposite sides of the same coin. As humans we may need both. But their can never be Muslim Science, Christian Science or Hindu Science to mean anything other than implying application of probity to study religion.

Religion at its core prevents you to question its foundation. The foundation of Science is to probe and question everything. One is based on belief and faith, the other is based on probe and question.

Anil Kapuria

Re: # 121 Freethinker

Gill sahib,

Very good post.

I agree that non-separation of state and religion is one of the major impediments.

I will submit that there are at least two additional reasons that I can think of for the stagnation.

1. Oil money – Saudi Arabia has been a major contributor to retardation of scientific thought processes due to its financial stranglehold on Ummah. You see, India and other poor countries had to earn survival money and the only way to do it was technology and hard work. Saudis have used their petrodollars to keep muslim orthodox strain in control of decision making authorities in many of the muslim countries. If the Saudis had the modern outlook, they could have used their 800 pound gorilla power to seed science and technology farms rather than madrassas.

In addition, muslim civilization has really not touched the bottom in terms of defeat and humiliation which forces introspection and brings to power new voices that were ignored and suppressed before (Turkey did suffer that fate in 1917 and they came out better from that experience. Pakistan suffered the 71 debacle but unfortunately the defeat was just rationalized away without any revamping of the system). I will say that Oil money has again repeatedly cushioned serious shocks throughout the last 50-60 years that perhaps would have forced any ordinary people to face the hard facts.

2. Coward intellectuals - I also think that muslim intellectuals have not shown courage like Chinese and Indians in facing their orthodox compatriots in a sustained manner. Chinese of course followed their Commie model and executed as many people as they had to and outlawed the religion. Indian reformers ridiculed and taunted the orthodoxy and/or outlawed what was necessary. This reform process started at least 100 years ago and is a work in progress with no doubt about its direction. Question is why there are no muslim real liberal leaders who are willing to take the matters in their hands, and suffer personally and physically if necessary, in order to ensure prouder future for their children.

May be Chinese and Indians got lucky that those gutsy folks were not allowed to immigrate at that time like now, and they didn’t have corrupt super rich saudi cousins who co-opted the “troublemakers” way ahead of time.

Regards.

godot:

``My point being is that while the Chinese and the Indians worried about life, death and God, the West was most curious about the mundane, why was it the way it was and how it worked.``

You have summed up very well the reason for the lack of scientific progress in India. It`s not that they did not have idle curiousity, but that it was not directed towards ``mundane`` matters. The question is why? My speculation is that Buddhism may have something to do with it. It seems that most of the progress in India in the scientific, mathematical, medical (ayurvedic), even statecraft (arthshastra) was done up to the Gupta period. And then came Buddha who de-emphasised attachment to materialistic pursuit of life. Buddhism was not so much defeated by Hindu religion in India as absorbed by it. Not only was Buddha made into a Hindu avtar of God, his message of renunciation (Vaanprasth, Sanyas), vegetarianism, etc. became an integral part of the Hindu religion and society.

I am quite ignorant about the Chinese civilsation; though Buddhism affected China, too, it was a different strand of Buddhism that went there but if the Tibetan Buddhism is any guide, the effect could have been similar. Moreover, the colonial influence may also have dampened the entrepreneurial spirit of a people who lay claim to almost every original invention from ink to paper to noodles.

The case of Islam is probably easier to study. Dr. Gill seems to grope in the right direction but is not willing to make the logical conclusion. Yes, blasphemy is a big hurdle; but once blasphemy is removed, the effect will not only be to question Darwin`s theory but the very basis of the quran itself. Is it a coincidence that Muslims who contributed most to scientific advancement also questioned whether quran was revealed or created?

The thing about the ``idle curiousity`` is that it doesn`t stop with the study of natural phenomenon. Some Hindus may start to question whether Ram and Krishna were reincarnations of God, ordinary mortals or even fictional characters. The same would be true of other religions. I think that christians succeeded because they were allowed to question the deepest held beliefs of their religion. It did not end the faith, those who believe in virgin birth still do and jews who believe that Moses got tablets of ten commandments still do. But those who pooh-pooh such concepts are allowed to express their opinions freely. In case of Islam, it would mean that the whole concept of blasphemy would be blasphemous, not merely whether it is in conformity with ``true`` Islam.

Godot,

That a plausible explanation, and certainly a possibility.

My chief objection to assigning uniqueness to European culture is that we ignore the effects of time: we compare the most recent European phenomena with those of much earlier periods in human experience - over a thousand or two thousand years ago.

Re: # 125

Kaalchakra

My point being is that while the Chinese and the Indians worried about life, death and God, the West was most curious about the mundane, why was it the way it was and how it worked. Idle curiosity, if you will. They not only thought about it, they documented their thoughts, the ducmented knowledge upon which the future generations could build. The Chinese or the Indians did neither. That`s the basis in their difference, that`s what made the West what it is today.

re: Science in Pakistan
There is not much honesty in any scientfific endeavour in Pak. It only seems to prove that it is better than India, so it goes to the extent of pilfering nuclear secrets from abroad to build a nuclear arsenal, and missile technology from China. It never acknowledges that it has borrowed from outside. A nation that has no scientific institutions of any repute is able to build cruise missiles? The world knows and perhaps hopes that this pathetic country will go the way Prussia and many countries of soviet block went: into oblivion and as it does, it hopefull wont leave a stench around it.
When u believe in a book written many centuries ago for basically bedouin population and try to find some scientific truths in that book, then u have gone too far. It is the scientific spirit that is important. The rest follows.
Sridhar

BeeJay:

I wrote ``sail through`` in reference to loss of power by the Church after its debacle with Galileo. That was a great milestone in the history of western science. The Muslim world is still entangled in that intellectual trap.

There was one Dr. Sheikh in Pakistan who was sentenced to death on a blasphemy charge. I don`t know about his fate now. The last that I heard of him was that he was still in prison under the death sentence. A history professor (a Ph.D.) in Iran was sentenced to death on blasphemy charge because his comments were taken out of context by the theocratic government. His death sentence was relaxed but he was still in prison when I last heard of him. There was another scholar similarly condemned in Egypt; I am forgetting the details of that case.

I was asked to write articles for a reputed Pakistani newspaper. In one of my articles I had quoted some verses from the holy Quran very respectfully and made some references to the Biblical text. All those references were deleted and the truncated article that was published lost its continuity. The editor explained to me that they had received violent threats for a similar article and that he couldn`t take the risk. My references were quite general and did not discuss any contentious theory or concept; they were simple, truthful, and matter of fact quotations.

The blasphemy threat in the Muslim world is real. Probably Islam is okay and it can be reinterpreted in harmony with the existing realities but the way the fundamentalist orthodox are adamant to adhere to the words and not the spirit is the root of the problem. And this is not new. Ibn-e-Rushd some 800 years ago had developed a doctrine of double truth to avoid this conflict between reason and Islamic revelation. His doctrine did not lead anywhere; the Muslims stuck to the letters and not to the spirit.

Mohammad Gill

godot

I didn`t have specifically you in mind regarding the bias. I was thinking, most importantly, of Max Weber, some of whose writings I had read a few years ago.

Regarding the rest, the whole point is that various claims are assertive. It is difficult to evaluate them for their accuracy. In your example, not everyone in the West wondered about the apple. And Indians and Chinese could have wondered about many other things.

Again, the point being, that we do not have sufficient information (at least I don`t about Chinese culture, history, or scientific advances).

Re: # 120

Kaalchakra

“Are we confident that China and India did not have idle curiosity, while the West did?”

Did the Chinese or the Indians ever wonder why an apple falls to the ground from the tree? If they did, did they document it for the future generations to ponder?

“Is `idle curiosity` the driving force in advancing civilizations on the path of science?”

Yes it is.

“Most such statements are made without an adequate knowledge of the cultures and the histories involved, and carry a certain degree of bias.”

Whatever.

#121 by freethinker

[These hurdles are simiar to the ones through which the Christian world has managed to sail through.]

Dear Dr. Gill, I would not myself rate 2,000 years exactly a “sail-through” time-frame. The reality is that at the time of Galileo, the Roman Catholic church was just as much rigid on every dogma as any ``beauties`` the present day Mullahs can serve us with. (For example, I would respectfully submit that gently lowering tied up bodies into boiling liquids is just as much in a league of its own as the chopping off of errant hands.)

It’s true that, as you say, the perils of debate of reason vis-a-vis revelation are more real and palpable than many readers realize – at least at this time – and for the society. However, perhaps it’s also the first time that intellectuals (from the INSIDE) are also showing the necessary guts to question that rigid mindset. Therefore, the picture ought not to be considered so bleak.

How widespread (across Muslim countries) is the blasphemy law (or analogous laws)? Do you believe that real, grassroot introspection of such rigid barriers are already starting, are aound the corner, or are even at least likely to occur in our lifetime? Or in our children’s?

Also, what about the “contemporary editions” of what the likes of Iqbal represented? Will that lot ever shape up? Are there steps which can be taken to address such backtrackers - who are perhaps mere opportunists?

re: freethinker # 121

That is the nub of the problem: is science allowed to question, even displace, religion, or is science mandated merely to serve/confirm religion?

In # 18, this is the point I too was trying to make (more than pointing out the outright lying by Samirfs). Does a society encourage the investigation of truth for its own sake? Or, is truth collectively held hostage to maintaining an imagined glory of religion?

For instance, a single statement like ``there was no quest for knowledge in the pre-Islamic Arabia,`` if left uncontested, would be sufficient to demolish years of efforts at inculcating scientific temper among people.

And, as far as I know, few individuals dare question these assertions publicly.

The problems impeding the progress of science in the Muslim world, in my opinion, are different from those in other societies. These hurdles are simiar to the ones through which the Christian world has managed to sail through.

The perils of debate of reason vis-a-vis revelation are more real and palpable than many readers realize. At individual level, it`s no big deal; at the level of the whole society, it is. The progress of science in general is impeded by the blasphemy law which remains in force in the Muslim world. It is usually nothing more than a fatwah by a mullah who even may not understand at first hand what he is ruling against. Once a mullah has ruled that a certain concept is blasphemous, it becomes nearly impossible to roll it back.

For example, there is no chance for a healthy discussion on Darwin`s theory of evolution in the Muslim world. You can say and write whatever you want against it but nobody is allowed to assert it`s a worthwhile theory. Even if the theory turns out to be wrong in the long run (of which there is little chance; it has been reinforced rather than weakened during the last one hundred fifty years of its lifetime), it should be allowed space to live like any other scientific theory. Nearly all scientific theories are adjudged on religious grounds. If there is even a hint that it might falsify a divine revelation (or a part of it), it together with its formulator are doomed. Science does not prosper in such an apocalyptic ambience.

Ghazli had ruled that anybody believing in the eternity of the universe is kafar and punishable by death. I don`t know if any body was so punished but then nobody asserted that the universe was eternal. Nobody in the Islamic world has ruled against him.

The other factors that were hinted in the article and are outlined in more detail in hindvi`s feedback are also real but none of them is so threatening as the blasphemy law. The intellectual impediment (reason versus revelation) remains difficult to overcome in the Muslim world unless the hold of religion on the societal psyche is released. Religion and state need to be separated. The blasphemy law should be deleted from the constitution. The religious authority should not be ubiquitous.

Mohammad Gill

Godot, just to highlight the kind of pitfalls I was speaking of in #117,

Suppose we define something called `idle curiosity.` Then,

Are we confident that China and India did not have idle curiosity, while the West did?

Is `idle curiosity` the driving force in advancing civilizations on the path of science?

Most such statements are made without an adequate knowledge of the cultures and the histories involved, and carry a certain degree of bias.