Re-Imagining Pakistan
manto:

``All I had said in 40 was that he ought not to be called a professor of science because he is as much a professor of science as Dr. Farhat Hashmi is a scholar ofI slam... (Farhat Hashmi has as many similar ``impressive`` credentials and ``papers`` and TV syndications as Dr. Hoodbhoy. )

The remaining discussion is in response to your posts 40-44 in which you claimed that Hoodbhoy`s credentials were sterling...

But the fact of the matter is that Hoodbhoy does not have any groundbreaking achievements in his field.... and I have asked you fellows to name one. You guys have been putting up papers and citations and abusing me and telling me that I have no right to comment because I don`t have a Physics degree (forget the mockery a certain self proclaimed physicist/mathematician who calls himself Alephnull but should be called A`null made of himself on unplugged when I raised some very elementary questions vis a vis like Lie Algebra and Lie Group Models which he had no clue about ...)

Instead of abusing me and attacking me personally feel free to produce this ground breaking achievement that you (IronMask) claimed the great ``Professor of Science`` had under his belt.``

First of all I`d say that Hoodbhoy speech was long-winded. It could have been shortened. But I love the gist of the speech, because it runs against the conformist grain of ours ociety. But I don`t have time to do that behes right now.

I`d just say this:
Hoodbhoy is quite a competent Physicist, and manages to have a fairly decent research output, (as evidenced by a pretty steady stream of publications) despite his other activities. He is not a hack, as you keep insisting that he is. Very few people break ground in any science, and the title ``Professor`` is not and should not be restricted to ``ground breakers`` only. By that measure, in Americanu niversities, 95% of the professors are hacks. Only 5% are true professors of physics.

Second: since when did Manto become the judge of what is ground breaking and what is not? Manto gadhay you keep calling yourself an economist. What ground-breaking work ine conomics or law have you done? You came to a second tier undergrad school with your baap ka paisa, (Hoodbhoy went to MIT for basically free, by the way) and then went back home to teach at a school where you`d be considered khuda by 15 year olds. In any place worth its salt, your stupid bakvaas would have been shred to pieces and thrown in the garbage bin a long time ago.

Third: I am fairly certain that you don`t know your elbow from your ass in Group Theory. (I don`t know either, but did in a previous lifetime.) You picked up the term ``LieG roup``, and ``Lie Group Model`` from some website and decided to quiz people on it. By the way, I wouldn`t ask people about Lie groups if I wanted to test their ``rudimentary`` knowledge. There are many things that come before that. Buto oops..the website didn`t talk about those!!! And thus Manto got caught with his pants down.

Stick to criticizing Hoodbhoy`s opinions like Faisal did. You have a bad habit of attacking people`s credentials and achievements every time you get into an argument. And what boils my blood is the chutzpah of all this: a dimwitted mediocrity questioning the achievements of far far superior people.

Infallibility No guard Against Stupidity “In the beginning was the logos [literally, “the word”; loosely, Reason], and the logos is God.”

This is really the same as saying that the word ``islam`` and ``salaam`` both have the same root which means peace. Therefore, Islam is a peaceful religion. This kind of bullshit only appeals to madrassah students and choir boys, not to reasonable people carrying more than a gram of brain.


I read the whole speech too. The attack on Mohammad came early, and quite gratuitiously, and I am quite convinced that the Pope did that to spark exactly the kind of reaction that it did. Because now he can point his finger and say oh...look ...I was right all along. I for one have nothing but utter contempt and hate for all those who wear the cloak and claim to have greater proximity to the divine than the common man; let alone those jerks who make it their profession to do so. Joseph Ratzinger is the worst of that sort, in that he just doesn`t use this whole canard to live a life of luxury; he actually uses it to incite wars and hatred, all the while with despicable shamelessness, claiming the mantle of the very tradition which the Catholic church has relentlessly opposed.

Muslims and Modern Banking: A Rejoinder Re: # 89
It is kept alive by fear of illness and high medical costs, and their relentless lobbying makes sure that over 47 million in America will have no health insurance and there will be no guaranteed health care for all. Many die every year as a result. Is that moral? Is that allowed Quranically? Of course not. There are verses in the Quran where it quotes the ``shaitan`` offereing people false hopes and assurances that he will be their guardian, and such assurances are condemned by the Quran. Specifically consider this verse, one out of several that exists, about fear that keeps this industry and the capitalist system going:

[3:175] It is the Shaitan`s way to instill fear into people of those that keep its affairs. Do not fear them and fear Me instead, if you are believers.

There are others that deal with such ``fear`` as well, like the fear of poverty etc. That said, this paper was not about insurance, but about interest. When I write one about insurance, we can discuss it.


Asadi, you cannot pull a verse about ``fear`` without context and claim that it refers to all fears. Here is the context, from Yusuf Ali`s translation:


Men said to them: ``A great army is gathering against you``: And frightened them: But it (only) increased their Faith: They said: ``For us Allah sufficeth, and He is the best disposer of affairs.
And they returned with Grace and bounty from Allah: no harm ever touched them: For they followed the good pleasure of Allah: And Allah is the Lord of bounties unbounded.
It is only the Evil One that suggests to you the fear of his votaries: Be ye not afraid of them, but fear Me, if ye have Faith.


Asadi this verse is about the fear of invading armies in the time of battle, and people telling other people to turn tail. It has nothing to do with insurance, automobile insurance, credit insurance, buying insurance for a lost cell phone or any such thing. I am even tempted to think that you hid the context on purpose, which would of course mean that to you your general angst against the capitalist system (which has its faults, but from what I can tell, you don`t really understand it) is a lot more important. You just use religion as a useful platform to condemn it.

Now please don`t go on another diatribe against exploitative insurance agents and bond salesmen, because that is an argument in a SECULAR context to which I will be happy to reply elsewhere, and others are doing a fair job of it already. We are discussing Islam and Qur`an. So far you have produced one verse about people thinking of turning tail in battle. You have dishonestly obfuscated the context to show that the fear in any way relates to the kind of ``fear`` (I`d say forward planning) that motivates insurance buyers.

The reason I brought up insurance is because insurance and interest are closely linked.

If you have nothing else to show from the Qur`an, then I`ll take it to mean that your aversion to insurance -- all insurance -- is motivated by your general contempt for what you see as an exploitative capitalist system. It is a view that makes you feel good, though I doubt you have given it any deep thought. Then you pick out bits and pieces out of context from your religion to justify this angst.

Muslims and Modern Banking: A Rejoinder #82, Insurance, and profitability that feeds on people`s fears and uncertainty is immoral in my opinion, and part and parcel of this same capitalist system. You cannot detach one part of an immoral system and then ask for a judgment on it.

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MAsadi:
Now you are in a rant mode. :)

To put your own rejoinder to you, I did not ask what you think is moral or immoral, or part of the capitalist system. I asked you if Islam outlaws insurance. Please explain where it is outlawed; what kind of insurance is outlawed; and why. Allah`s opinion -- not your own -- is relevant.

I will wait for your enlightened response. Thanks.

Muslims and Modern Banking: A Rejoinder Re: # 74
MAsadi:

Is purchase of insurance allowed in Islam? Please share your thoughts.



HP:
Somewhere I think you mentioned that interest is halal but compounding is not halal. What I do not understand is, how banning compounding of interest will solve anything.

I think that in order to have a useful discussion we have to isolate the issue of ``unfair lending practice`` from the issue of interest itself. When people talk about IMF, Credit Card Companies, Mortgage issuers, they are really talking about ``loan sharking``.

Muslims and Modern Banking: A Rejoinder Re: # 42
Hamdim:
That is not the point. You are one of a long list of chowkies who, when they run out of arguments start disparaging people for their perceived lack of wealth.

Let`s look at your retarded and idiotic line of reasoning. MAsadi writes an article arguing that Islam disallows interest, and according to him, Interest is bad anyways. If you want to argue with him you should either argue that Islam does not forbid interest, or argue that Interest is necessary and Islam is wrong. No, you don`t do either. YOu get personal right at the outset.

First you ask him if he has a mortgage, obviously trying to ensnare him into an admission of hypocrisy, which has no bearing on the argument itself. When that fails, you just get viscious and disparage him for his supposed lack of wealth.

All this shows that you yourself are a dimwit whose only argument is ``You are poor therefore you are wrong``.

Muslims and Modern Banking: A Rejoinder #40
Hamdim2:

There`s a two-word invective abbreviated A.H. that should be used for people like you. Unless you`re bill gates, there`s someone who does better than you who can turn around and say the same thing that you said to MAsadi.

Muslims and Modern Banking: A Rejoinder Asadi:

Just read your article. One thing that struck me in your article is that you consider debt servicing cost as being bad for any business, and that equity investment is always preferable to debt. But if I am the owner (equity holder) of a company, raising additional equity means that I am diluting my own returns; the extent of that dilution is usually a lot more than what I`d pay in debt servicing. That`s why companies borrow money in the first place. They pay a limited payment ``interest`` in exchange for the fact that the equity holder will eat losses before the debt holder does.

I will write more later.

Islamic Banking – a Sham Then we have these Hindu extremists on here who want to bend and convert all topics into an attack on Islam. As often as they present these attacks, they are ruined revealing the ignorant bigoted nature of their mode of thinking, yet they don`t give up, repeating their falsehood with bared fangs, so that they can somehow ``ruin`` Islam.

This is absolutely true, and all reasonable folks can see these characters for what they are. This is an interesting topic that should be discussed seriously, but we have the usual band of bigots using it as an opportunity to launch their childish and idiotic attacks on Islam. It is possible to attack Islam in an intelligent and reasonable way, but looking at Arjun, chaltahai, sadna and others, one wouldn`t think that is possible.

For the sake of full disclosure I admit to being an unbeliever. I gave up religion in my early adulthood. There are many things that could be called ``Islamic`` which I find unreasonable, and in some cases repugnant and revolting. However, according to my understanding, interest, as it works in the capital markets today, cannot reasonably come in the rubric of ``riba``. I was always looking to have this discussion with someone who thinks otherwise.

So MAsadi, if you are interested, I`d like to take up this dialogue with you right here on interact. I hope you do not consider this invitation as a hostile one, because there is no hostility intended in it.

My own understanding was that interest was forbidden because the investor earns a risk-less return. That is clearly not the case as many holders of Enron and WorldCom bonds found out a few years ago. Why then, is an interest bearing bond treated differently from common stock? I`d like to know your answer, and we`ll proceed from there.

Assessing Pakistani Science Re: # 151

During my high school days, only those who were not able to get into Engineering would enter into side subjects like Physics, Chemistry, Maths, etc. And so what is the BFD to get a PHD from MIT. As we all know it is more about money than about brains. I think that Dr. Hoodbhoy is hiding his own inadequacies by attack, attak, attack, of Pakistani education system.

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Where to begin?

First: Pervez Hoodbhoy did get a bachelor`s in Electrical Engineering from MIT. He switched to Physics in graduate school.

Second: there are quite a few people out there who actually make the choice of studying basic science, even though they could just as well study engineering. Pervez is certainly one of those people. I know a few more.

Third: While in Pakistan it is true that GENERALLY engineering is the first choice of FSC graduates, this is certainly not true for the rest of the world. MIT is an international institution with students and faculty coming from all parts of the world. And in most places, mathematics and physics (especially theoretical physics and mathematics) are supposed to be much more difficult compared with applied science disciplines.

Fourth: Feel free to attack the article itself, but I don`t see a point in your ad hominem attacks on the author -- especially when they make you look very foolish.

Assessing Pakistani Science By the way, I find the article to be very specific and well-substantiated in its criticism, and the critical responses are vaguely articulated complaints. Oftentimes it is not even clear if the ``interactor`` has read the article. For example, one interactor has decided to blame British plunder for the current deplorable state; ignoring the fact that the article points to adecline in standards even in the last 30-40 years. Another ``jiyaala`` cuts right to the chase and lashes out at the article for it`s ``anti-religion`` bent, where the most remote reference to religion (as ``superstition``) is made in the very end. (The only valid point that interactor has made is that authoritarianism probably has no relation to scientific achievement.)

It seems that people are just annoyed that someone gave them a good doze of unvarnished truth that they don`t like. Others have a beef with this particular author for his relentless critique, which has spilled over into this discussion; and still others don`t like this ``dehriya`` but they are embarassed to say that.

If Robert Fisk were Rameez Farooq… [i]But how many Muslim reporters will be considered “neutral” even by Ladenesque standards? How many Muslims who voice these sentiments are looked at with respect? The few who do have to show how much Left they can swing and how comfortable they are in smoky pubs and Western garbs. The rest will be dubbed jihadis if they speak about the “19 men who boarded the planes”. We aren’t kidding anyone if we believe otherwise. [/i]

The reason Robert Fisk is blindly worshipped among the Muslim intelligenstia is precisely because he is seen as one of a handful of ``un-biased`` Western journalists. On my way to work this morning I heard a report by Linda Gradstein of NPR about an Israeli settler family evicted by the government, trying to bring up a family of six in a hotel. The reaction in the Muslim world to a reporter who humanizes settlers the way Gradstein did, will be met with as much, if not more hostility and scorn, than to someone in the West, who dares to humanize Islamists.

Yes, Fisk is celebrated in the Muslim world because he is White, Christian, English-speaking, a part of The Other who is on ``our`` side. Conversely, people like Ibn Warraq play to the peanut gallery here by trashing Islam and Muslims. If your point is, that Fisk been a White Uncle Tom of sorts, and that his popularity in the Muslim world is as much due to his race as it is due to his reporting, then okayyyyyyyyy....that`s a bit too trivial a point to waste 5000 words.

Dr Abdus Salam - The ’Mystic’ scientist I will not comment on the rest of the article, but two errors are especially egregious and should be corrected:

1. It`s ``Dirac`` (pronounced ``Dye-rack``) not Derek.

2. The Nobel prize was awarded to Salam, not for the ``Grand Unification Theory``, but for the electroweak theory: a unified description of the electromagnetic and weak interactions.

A Guide to the Street Language of Karachi Abay yeh baRa bumbaaT artikal market meiN aaya hai (T) ..(do thumbs up ikaans vurk here? ) ...

Is Physical Science Socially Constructed? Fuzair:

I do not want to make this a personal fight. But FYI:

1) You do not have the faintest idea of what I studied or didn`t study, besides speculation.

2) You have no clue where my opinion falls on this issue.

Is Physical Science Socially Constructed? I am waiting for Samina Shah and MniPhirSay to jump in here and rip Sokal and M. Gill to shreds for daring to suggest that their life`s study is pointless!


It is great that you found out what my life`s study was. I`d have loved to take part in this discussion if I had time. And I refuse to make time to talk with people whose primary motive is not to discuss, but to insult and deride.