Islamic Education, Madrassah Reform, Rationality and Dawkins I am so happy that at last Daniel Pearl`s ghost can safely travel in intersteller space and collide Moon and bounce happily back and fall on earth into Jameson Hall passing its protective roof non-invasively and noiselessly and hope to live in the Hall for ever after in peace without fear of being caught and its ghostly head chopped off.

Islamic Education, Madrassah Reform, Rationality and Dawkins ``Thus I came to know that whatever is known without this kind of certainty is doubtful knowledge, not reliable and safe, that all knowledge subject to error is not sure and certain.``

From wikipedia website`s entry on Ghazali:

Ghazali`s influence has been compared to the works of St. Thomas Aquinas in Christian theology (he has been called the ``Thomas Aquinas of Islam`` by some), but the two differed greatly in methods and beliefs. Whereas Ghazali rejected non-Islamic philosophers such as Aristotle and saw it fit to discard their teachings on the basis of their ``unbelief,`` Aquinas embraced them and incorporated ancient Greek and Latin thought into his own philosophical writings.

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einsteinwallah says: Apparently Ghazali was incoherrent to his own view of rejecting any ``knowledge subject to error`` because such knowledge ``is not sure and certain``. He just knew that he was right in rejecting non-Islamic philosophers because of their unbelief. Never mind that concept of unbelief with what was going to be ``revealed`` to a psychotic at a future date is total non-sense. May be Ghazali had a time travel machine. Or, may be he had developed a sure fire test of non-belief.

One more para from the wikipedia entry:

``In the next century, Averroes drafted a lengthy rebuttal of Ghazali`s Incoherence entitled the Incoherence of the Incoherence; however, the epistemological course of Islamic thought had already been set.``

No wonder Islam is so much in trouble. If Islam had such friends, philosophers and guides then it does not need enemies.

India-Pakistan talks: the endless cycle Problem is ISI. It is almost a government by itself, govt within govt. Army and intelligence should be under an elected govt`s control not other way.

Indian Muslims [#323 by nauman72 on November 12, 2006 7:00am PT
No one heard about Islamic terrorism before 9/11. ]

Really! So why was OBL a wanted man before 9/11? US may not have openly acknowledged Pak-sponsored Islamic terrorism problem India faced for various reasons. But BEFORE 9/11 US very much faced Islamic terrorism. That is why Iraq war was engineered by US. That is why ongoing Afghanistan war. That is why Pakistan unabashadely plays bounty hunter to capture and hand over suspected Pakistani terrorists to US without much ceremony.

Wahabism in Centers of Learning Higher education like education at other levels was born with congenital defect in India. I would not be surprised if a great education centre will arise from some sort of renaissance movement which does not cower under mainstream or popular alternative systems. You cannot go on doing same thing again and again and hope for a new thing suddenly born out of it.

Indian Muslims [#21 ]

{Getting involved in aFGHANISTAN has given calamities and permission for foreign powers to lob missiles and to cover that we have have to we did. Kashmiris are also oppressed but help has not helped just giving vicious Indian woman to dissect Pakistan violating international treaties and invading other country and no body shed tears for regression and dimunition of pakistan. }

Sorry I do not understand this.

Indian Muslims ``The Sachhar Committee report, to be released in end-November, states that the condition of the majority of Indian Muslims is worse than that of even the Dalits. It recommends, among other measures, an allocation of 15% of all government funds for schemes aimed at benefiting Muslims.``

My question is: Why single out Muslims for such studies? Indian constitution recognizes 22 Indian languages. If it is found that speakers of a particular language constitute X percent of total population and but they have access to only X/2 percent of jobs, would then a ``Committee`` recomend X percent of all government funds for schemes aimed at benefiting speakers of this language? Or for that matter if a similar study shows that Jains hold disproportionately lower percent of jobs compared to their population then would it be valid to recommend special funding of schemes targeting Jains?

Pakistan\'s Afghan Policy [#289]

Are you familiar with the character of Napoleon the Pig in Animal Farm?

I read AF long back and I do not remember details. But you can still make your point and then make reference to chapter and verse in AF. I should be able to find a web site with an online version of AF. But I prefer that you make your point in a secular way. By ``secular`` I mean without appealing to my or your knowledge of a specific book. I am lowQ on literature.

Pakistan\'s Afghan Policy If Gandhi is deified then it is not Gandhi`s fault.

And his advice to minority to earn goodwill is a truism. Surely you cannot expect a person like Gandhi to say sugar coated words just to please Hindus or Muslims.

If someone unearths contexts in which he gave `earn thy goodwill` advice you would practically find all communities including Hindus. He did not mean his advice to a tiger about to devour lamb that he should proceed with his meal because lamb did not earn goodwill. He meant it for lamb about to be devoured by tiger. A lamb better persuade tiger to not to eat him. That is what Gandhi meant. If you are in middle of raving crazy mob of a community X who is out to kill you because you are from Y, then your last chance is making these people of X see that both X and Y are humans. I understand he gave same advice to Punjabis left behind in Pakistan at partition.

Veil for vendetta Islam is a jinxed religion. Born with congenital defects. Too bad it cannot be reformed. Pakistan is a jinxed country because it was created with idea that Indian Islamists will always be second class citizens. West proves that they will be second class citizens anywhere in the world.

Musharraf’s Coup - Seven Years Later If Islamic revolutionary government takes over Pakistan why would India attack Pakistan and do America`s dirty job of killing the Jihadi monster that CIA created to fight socialism and communism?

Why would India be so stupid? It would let Pakistan self-destruct or let US do its own dirty job. Unless if there is broad consensus. In that case it is no more only only US`s dirty job, it is allied powers` dirty job. India will happily participate in a broder effort.

Sau Baat Ki Ek Baat ... Islam as you and I knew is going. Aakhri Saans Hai Islam Ki. Ab Marne Ko Taiyyar Hai. Either it reforms, or it goes.

Hang Guru, if that helps [#185] From Washington Post article pasted in this:

...White House spokesman Tony Snow said the president, like his predecessors, ``lies awake nights asking himself the question: How can I get this done and get our people home?`` ...

My question: How can Mr. Snow know that Bush lies awake nights asking himself blah blah ..., unless next day morning he speaks on this to Mr. Snow or somebody? As per the article Bush does not do that. Bush does not speak, discuss, show etc his private feelings. I dont know why such articles are accepted for publication in papers like Washington Post? What exactly WP is trying to prove? That their readers are all chutiyas? If there ever was a war which was ``engineered`` it was this Iraq war. Why sensible people have to delude themselves into believing otherwise?

Hang Guru, if that helps Death sentence by hanging is civilized as it is practiced in India. An example of uncivilized death sentence would be stoning a woman to death for committing adultery whereas it is clear that she was victim of rape.

Another example of uncivilized killing would be beating up a girl who wanted dance in a wedding of her relative. The girl was Muslim and some of her senior male relatives thought that she was being unislamic. Poor girl had no idea. Otherwise why would she start dancing in the first place? After all who wants to die at wedding of a relative? In all probability may be she was told by older women of house that during wedding you have fun: Mithai, Good Clothes, Singing, Dancing et al. She probably did not understand when she was asked to stop dancing. May be she delayed by a few minutes. May be her mother said it was alright to dance and ignore the old men who thought otherwise. So her hands were chopped off and she was beaten so hard that she died.

Another example of uncivilized killing would be a mother bringing her brother along to kill her own daughter because she violated honour of house. Trusting daughter went to meet mother thinking that worst thing that may happen is a verbal duel with mother. But she realized that it was setup, so she starts running. Uncle chased the niece on street and caught up with her and put a bullet through her head.

Wow. Pakistanis preaching Indians what civilized punishment should be for a person who waged war against India and killed many people. What a sick people! People whose dictator president says Pakistani women get raped deliberately! Who is Khasi? Bloody these people cannot get rid of a dictator who is so unpopular. Who has sold out their country to west? Who is using army against its own people? All because same president is playing a double game of sustaining ISI in its anti-India activities while making a show of helping west in ``war against terrorism``. Are western people so stupid? They know exactly what Pakistan`s game is. They know what is end game of this dangerous double talk. This is beginning of end of Islam. Islam had chance to civilize itself. It lost that chance. Like I have said many times: Crusades never stopped. They will never stop. They will be named differently. But it will go on. Till this confused religion is completely obliterated from face of earth.

Save this Cultural Heritage As you become old you tend to think that the type of music and movies young people like are of ``inferior`` taste. Nostalgia is a natural phenomenon. Wanting to preserve old is natural. If bullying of religious leaders is causing good music and dancing disappear from Pakistan then Pakistani people are partly to blame because they are the ones who prefer non-democratic governments who are contantly buying their time by giving free rein to religious leaders.

Let\'s Kill All The Moslems From Baby Bottle story:

``But the reality of life is that this is a new world order and nobody`s got an easy fix solution to this. We`re all dealing with it.``

There is an easy fix solution -- that is the title of this article. Kill `em all! Yes, holocaust is coming! Only very stupid Muslims do not acknowledge it. If you can go to the extent of using a child in a suicide mission, then may be already planners of holocaust are on the job.

Let\'s Kill All The Moslems May be future biotechnology will be able to grow sperm in test tube by extracting genetic code from a sample of a man`s blood. Then at last we will have solution to testosterone sodden hateful men. We can just neuter all men at young age before they become hateful. Later when they are ready to father children they can go to a sperm growing clinic.

Seriously: If Koran has subversive text about which most cultured Muslims remain in dark then another solution would be to regulate instruction in Koran.

Apparently education is not a solution. But that has more to do with what and how you teach essential stuff. Our education puts premium on rot memory in contrast to creative original thinking and logic. It is not important what Newton’s Laws are. More important is the process by which they were found. Education does not emphasize the logic and rationales of scientific discoveries made possible by long winding and engrossing thought. But rather it emphasizes the end-result only. And so we have educated people who have gone astray. They have absorbed all scientific facts and confused these with science. Science is not scientific facts, science is scientific process.

Of course, this problem is found in all communities. Western men have not remained free from this scourge of semi-education. They like all other need worker-bees who would be code coolies and such other workers. As long as there is income differential between east and west there will always be western vested interest in getting cheap skilled labor supply by letting our universities work in old ways. So why not innovate education in Madrassas? After all Madrassas are ``outside`` university system. They are least likely to be influenced by western vested interest. Why not inject a strong tradition of logic and reasoning in Madrassa curriculum? Why not teach history of scientific discoveries in our schools? This can be part of Science or History paper. In History a chapter on what led to Industrial Revolution.

Regulating Koran instruction is impossible in most Muslim dominant countries. But Madrassas may let some curriculum change and allow instruction is logic and science. Initially they may be enticed by the idea of glorifying Muslim contributors to these. But gradually textbooks can be changed to include serious study of these topics.