The Necessity of Teaching Science & Technology in our Madaris: Science & Sectarianism

 

In the name of Allah the most Beneficent and Merciful.

Science & Sectarianism

Sectarianism is a big issue in Pakistan, and I don’t want to go into its negative ramifications, we are all aware of it. I, along with few other people, started a yearlong software development course for ulema (graduates of our seminaries) in 2017. Details of this course are available at www.isdp.info  During these years I became acquainted with hundreds of ulema from all over Pakistan belonging to different sects and madaris (seminaries). The program requires a certain level of English and math. My initial presumption was that since these ulema deal with complex calculations involving laws of inheritance they will have the required math skills necessary for our program. But I was disappointed to find out that a good portion of them could not calculate the average of the two numbers.

Capitalism, Environment and Sharia

 

In the name of Allah the most Beneficent and Merciful

Capitalism, Environment and Sharia

Our beloved Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) said

"If the Final Hour comes while you have a shoot of a plant in your hands and it is possible to plant it before the Hour comes, you should plant it." “The believer is not he who eats his fill while his neighbor is hungry.” “There is a reward for serving any living being.” “If a Muslim plants a tree or sows seeds, and then a bird, or a person or an animal eats from it, it is regarded as a charitable gift (sadaqah) for him.”

The above, and many more similar hadith, clearly require us to be guardians of nature, be conservators of resources, and strive towards sustainable living not just for us but for the entire earth.  Unfortunately, the world we are living in is going in the opposite direction. I won’t waste your time in detailing the environmental disasters that we are all witnessing on a daily basis but will go straight to the fundamental reason for it : Capitalism.

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan vs Taliban

Honorable Recep Tayyip Erdoğan,

President of Turkey,

Majority of us, Pakistanis, hold you and Turkey in very high regard. To keep this writing short I won’t go into historical details because the mutual love and affection between our two great nations is as obvious as sun on a clear day. Moreover your stands on different issues regarding Muslim Ummah are of great pride and joy for us. We regard you as defender of Ummah. On a personal level your excellent recitation of Quran, the attire of your wife etc gives us the feeling that Islam holds central position in your personality.

Unfortunately some of your recent statements regarding Afghanistan are causing great anguish to us. We know that as president of Turkey you have to guard national interests of Turkey. It is in this background we understand your position regarding Cyprus, S-400 anti-aircraft missiles, Libya etc. But attempting to get these issues resolved by siding with Americans is not a wise move. Please consider the following:

1. Taliban did not attack Turkish forces during 20 years of conflict out of respect for Turkey being a Muslim country.
2. If all the combined power of NATO was not successful in defeating Taliban in 20 years what gives you the confidence that Turkey alone will be able to do it?
3. Your claim that Taliban are grabbing power by force and should not do that, is very shallow. Power was taken from them 20 years ago by force. When your own military tried to take power from you, what did you do? Did you just sit back? We are glad that you took back what was rightfully yours. Similarly Taliban were ruling Afghanistan when it was forcefully taken from them.
4. Dostum is a known war criminal, supporting him brings us to a very painful conclusion that deep down your ethnic affiliation override your Islamic affiliation.

If you continue on your stated course of action we are very very afraid that this ethnic motivation will engulf other Muslim states like Turkmenistan in this conflict and it will start a war in which possibly hundreds of thousands of Muslims will die. Forget about Cyprus, S-400 anti-aircraft missiles, Libya etc, think about your own self as a Muslim what future awaits you. On the Day of Judgment all those dead will come with blood dripping from their served heads and ask you why did you kill them? There will be no Turkey, no Cyprus, no oil or gas fields but you and only you, facing all those souls asking for justice. Please think really hard about it before firing the first bullet.

Regards Your brother in Islam

Nadeem Ghafoor Chaudhry

 

Time to Replace Materialism?

 All science and scientists works on models of understanding. These models of understanding change over time when new evidence comes about which contradicts the current model or the current model cannot fully accommodate the new knowledge. It does not matter how many or how powerful the followers of the previous model are.  For example for many centuries model of blood circulation proposed by Galen, a Greek physician was considered to be the truth. “According to the Galenic system, Blood flows through invisible pores from right side into the left side of the heart. Such an authority was Galen that the practice of medicine was built around his defective understanding of physiology for the next 1500 years. Galen's findings were first challenged in the 1200s by an Arab physician, Ibn-al-Nafiz, who insisted there were no

Coronavirus is a sheep dog

“Markets to open five days a week from sehri  till 5pm” was the news regarding relaxation in COVID-19 related lock-down in Pakistan. In a very ironic way this virus is acting as a sheep dog and compelling people to

Why should Allah take coronavirus away from us?

Why should Allah take this calamity away from us? Just because maulana Tariq Jameel made an emotional prayer on TV, because we give collective azan at 10pm every night etc? Question is what we, as a nation are going to pledge to Allah if HE lifts this calamity from us? I am not asking for interest free economy or implementation of sharia laws etc because I know it is beyond us at the moment. It would be a huge blessing if we can simplify our weddings to a nikha in mosque and a one dish walima. No mehndi, barat, oil etc. Can we, especially our females, make this pledge to Allah that not only we would not arrange such functions but we will not even attend such functions? Can we do this minimum?

America China conflict is not about economics

Famous Harvard University historian Professor Graham Allison introduced the idea of Thucydides Trap to explain the current conflict between America and China. Thucydides is considered to be one of the first, if not the first, historian. In his explanation of war between Sparta and Athens he wrote “What made war inevitable was the growth of Athenian Power and the fear which this caused in Sparta”. In other words war was started by the then resident power, Sparta, out of fear of a rising power Athens, because Spartans were afraid that Athenians would take over as the dominant power. In current scenario you can replace Sparta with America and Athens with China. Professor Graham presents about a dozen historical cases to support his theory of Thucydides Trap. There are other scholars, like Arthur Waldron who refute his theory. But the fact of the matter is that there is an economic war going on between US and China which might lead to actual war. Surely both America and China are fully aware of Thucydides Trap. So what is going on?

Alaqsa mosque caught fire.

Alaqsa mosque survived a fire almost at the same time that the world was fixated on Notre Dame cathedral ( https://www.newsweek.com/notre-dame-fire-aqsa-mosque-1397259?amp=1 ) fire. Forget about international news media, this was not reported by majority of our own news media, why? Because majority of our news media is a “For Sale” item. What people don't realize is that most likely the Alaqsa fire was a test run by Zionists to see the reaction of Muslim ummah. And the result of the test run, to the satisfaction of Zionists, is that the Muslim ummah is not bothered about Alaqsa and what happens to her. As I have written in my previous article ( http://nadeemchaudhry.blogspot.com/2019/04/jordan-next-country-to-get-american.html ) Netanyahu is hell bent on rebuilding the third temple and for that Alaqsa mosque has to be destroyed. Some people may think it is stretching it too much but I think that the suspected Israeli pilot in the Indian attack on Pakistan earlier this year is related to this broader scheme. Zionists and RSS minded Hindus collaborated but Allah helped and PAF was able to stop the aggression. Now they will try the financial battle and for that they have sent Dr Abdul Hafeez Sheikh, a known economic hitman as our next finance minister. When the economic situation will become terrible than who will care if Alaqsa burns to ground or not.

 

P.S: If you don’t know who is an economic hitman then watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btF6nKHo2i0

Aleppo, Syria: A Shia Sunni fight?

Now a days our social media is full of news regarding the atrocities being committed in Aleppo, Syria. This reminds me of October, 1990 and a 15-year-old Kuwaiti girl named Nayirah. Before reading any further you should spend just four minutes and watch Nayirah to get the full impact at

Nayirah was not who she was presented to be. She was the daughter of Saud

مادیت اور ھمارا نظام تعلیم

This is a multi-part presentation dealing with the issue of how current education, especially our higher education system, is promoting a materialistic world view and what should we do about it. The slides are in English but the narration is in Urdu. Here is first part

This is part-2

Here is the last part

Secularism, Capitalism and our Education System

A few weeks ago two of our students stole a multimedia projector. They were eventually caught and punished. Referring to that incident, the Director of our campus, Dr. M. A. Bodla said, “what are we teaching?” Following article is my response to his question.

Ukraine: Next Jihad in making and why should Pakistan care?

The results of the Crimean referendum planned for March 16^th by Putin & Co is a foregone conclusion. It will be decided that Crimea wants to join Russia and Russia will accept Crimea with open arms. What happens after that should be of great interest to us because it will most likely involve some of us. Why I say that?

Merging of Islamic and Pakistan Studies in Institutions of Higher Learning in Pakistan

A move is afoot in all institutes of higher learning to merge Islamic and Pakistan Studies into one course. Currently these two are being taught as two separate courses each being a 3 credit hour course. In the merged scenario there will be one 3 credit hour course. There are several reasons given for this move, I will present some of those reasons that I came across during my discussions with faculty members from different institutes of higher learning. But before I do that I would like to present a possible background/explanation that I think is the driving factor behind this move.

Freedom of ownership: the freedom to oppress, persecute and enslave

We are living in the era of industrial feudalism. Large capitalist corporations own and control almost everything on which the society depends. Building blocks of economy like oil, gas, electricity, sources of industrial raw materials and metal ores as well as human intellect are privately owned by large capitalist corporations.

What good can we expect when such basic things are monopolized in a few hands? This freedom of the capitalist to own whatever suits his profiteering transforms bulk of the society into a peasant worker class.

Islam does not allow this freedom to enslave the whole society. The Messenger of Allah (S.A.W) provided comprehensive guidance about who can own what. Sharia rules of ownership protected Islamic society against feudalism for more than ten centuries, until European powers colonized and enslaved Muslim ummah into the clutches of both agrarian and industrial feudalism.

How controlled is Tunisian "revolution"

AoA,

Below is a NY Times link about how the president of Tunisia fled from country. The interesting line in the article was

"For the first time in the month of protests, large numbers of young women joined the crowd, almost none wearing any form of Islamic veil."

Add the following about Ghannouchi the new man who took over from Ben Ali

In a secret US cable in 2006, recently released by Wikileaks. "A technocrat and economist, Ghannouchi has served as prime minister since 1999. Is rumored to have told many he wishes to leave the government but has not had the opportunity. Length of his service as PM also suggests Ben Ali [president until resignation] does not view him as a threat and he is unlikely to be viewed as a qualified successor. However, average Tunisians generally view him with respect and he is well-liked in comparison to other GOT and RCD [ruling party] officials." Then US ambassador William Hudson said: "Given the fact Ben Ali has a dictatorial hold, it is hard to believe he'll voluntarily step down." Even so, "the mere fact an increasing number of Tunisians are talking about the end of the Ben Ali era is remarkable."

I am glad that the jerk is gone from Tunisia but the relative ease with which western powers allowed this to happen makes me think that it is a controlled implosion experiment. If it succeeds (meaning it does not produce veils and beards) in Tunisia it might be repeated in other "friendly" Arab countries.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/15/world/africa/15tunis.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&ref=global-home

What do you think?

AH

Nadeem