Some Thoughts on the Interview of Dr Umar Faruq abd-Allah
[Podcast Summary: Happy New Year! Starting 2016 strong with our latest episode! We are truly honored to be joined by one of the foremost Muslim scholars in America, Dr. Umar Faruq Abd-Allah. Dr. Umar takes us on a riveting journey as he shares his personal story, with stops along the way reflecting on America, metaphysics, Islam in America and the modern world, to name just a few. Listen to the show via the embed below, or via iTunes or Stitcher Radio. As always, please hit "like" on our Facebook page, and send any comments or questions to DiffusedCongruence@gmail.com]
* Very intriguing that the Shaykh did his PhD under Fazlur Rahman. When he was talking about the patronage and collaboration of all the great scholars, including Qardawi, it reminded me of Feyerabend, who was at the center of the Physics world: Bohr, Popper, Lakatos, among many.
This proves the age old maxim of "Standing on the shoulders of the giants". Giants are the products of their environment. Not books. This should be emphasized because somehow in Bangladesh knowledge is primarily correlated to studying. Yet all you have here is the conceited flexing their derivative works. Today its Science and modernism, tomorrow its Islam and histrionics. Everyday, a charade of infinite regression towards mediocrity.
* Urdu is Islamically very enriched. But the Shaykh's preference for learning Urdu over Turkish begs me to ask: in terms of Islamic literature how does they compare against each other? Which one is more voluminous Islamically?
As an Islamic language Urdu is self-sufficient. Meaning one can learn literally everything on Islam in Urdu. Urdu is also a language of great political influence. Great empires and dynasties used it as their official language. But I had no idea of how enriched the Ottomanly Turkish language was until very recently. I knew of Risale-i-Nur and that was about it.
* It fascinates me how the dots get connected miraculously. I hope this is the same Gunnauri that Shaykh Umar mentioned. That he also wrote particularly on Usury caught me by surprise and evoked enthusiastic memories:
The above is actually a cross reference from a paper by some Mohammad Omar Farooq. Albeit a Bangladeshi "Scholar". I'm not sure what's the agenda behind him proselytizing against the normative understanding of Riba and what he is trying to get out of it. And I'm not very happy with his work specially since his paper confused me to no end. Its only utility was to push me to clear up all the confusions regarding Riba it instilled in me. To recapitulate, there is a consensus among the scholars, and the Ummah as well, that modern day Interest is Riba. Even more so, there is a consensus among the entire humanity on the perils of Usury. And don't play Shylock differentiating Interest and Usury. Its so trite.
* That clap at the end when he quotes Ibn Rushd saying: "Here Imam Malik's use of 'amal is cognate to Abu Hanifa's use of ʿUmūm al-Balwā", speaks of epiphany, of bodhi, of joy of the Aha! moment. Bestowed a grin on my face.
* Couldn't get the name of that rigorous PhD supervisor who had him rewrite his dissertation. That guy showered some words of wisdom, when he advised to undersell any assertions and instead consolidate them by rigorously working on their weaker links. To quote: You don't say anything you don't prove. Understate everything and prove it.
* The Shaykh's observation of certain Sūfi circles' apolitical tendencies, a complete apathy for the world around them and then his later bad experience with those that are not real Darqawis, is a relatable experience for the common Muslim. The great Islamic tradition of Sūfi Mystics, who includes Rabia Basri, Uways Qarni, et al., has been hijacked by some wackos in the west completely detached from the factual world and by certain religious frauds in the Muslim world milking the Ummah for their worldly gains.
* Its ironic that the Shaykh finds beauty in blackness but at the same time he is not at ease with the word 'white people'. Is that a leftist, black movement impression from his early life? Why is he so apathetic towards his own race?
* He spoke highly of Ahmad Shah Masud. Unsure if that's from his intimate knowledge of Masud or an influence of the Western Media. For I have seen the Taliban raising some serious allegations again Masud. How do these allegations fare against each other?
As a side note, I find it hypocritical of the Taliban to ex-communicate Masud for collaborating with the West, while they threaten to reinstigate the Indo-Pak war. This 'do as I say, not as I do' has been plaguing the Ummah far and wide than perhaps we would like to admit.
* That not only the Qur'an but a good translation of it can have a great impact on a person. I remember how it moved me and sparked a lot of interests and questions when I read the Bengali translation of the Holy Qur'an published by the Islamic Foundation.
* His desire to engage against Scientism at a scholarly level is noteworthy. No doubt he is one of the few that are capable of this dire task. May Allah ﷻ give him long and beneficial Ḥayāt. I first became aware of Scientism and its peril from Carl Sagan's COSMOS. Where he quoted Christiaan Huygens proclaiming 'science is my religion'. Sagan provides anecdotes of Astrophysicists' conviction of life on Mars. How Lowell mistook Martian craters for intricate tunnels built by ET.
The way Science has been dogmatised as the sole arbiter to Truth is the problem of our time. Its the ideological underpinnings that's what its antagonists are concerned about. Besides the idea of a scientific method, its objectives and purpose, is as varied as its following. The main work of Feyerabend centered around the question of defining the scientific process itself.
For Feyerabend there is not a single definition but rather an umbrella of definitions for the scientific process. Which directly contradicts with Popper's Falsification Principle. That's why according to Popper Darwinism is not Science. And so is not String Theory according to some Physicists. In the end, people have predispositions which impacts or corrupts their judgments. For Herr Hitler 'scientifically' proved the intellectual superiority of the 'Nordic Race'.
Speaking of scientism, I noted earlier the depravity of the Bangladeshi intellectual ethos. This depravity is observed across the board; theists, atheists, and what have you. The product of this superficiality is a confused blob of mass harboring contradictory beliefs with a peculiar ease. Be it religion, scientism, any societal or national issue, the Bangladeshis are not interested in any discourse that is intensive. Everything is a phase. Emotional uproar and momentary disturbance are our only forte.
In fact, Sukumar Ray, had written a poetry exhibiting this hodgepodge (Khichuri) nature so prevalent among the people here:
Khichuri
Sukumar Ray
Was a duck, porcupine (to grammar I bow not)
Became Duckupine, but how I know not.
Stork tells turtle, “Indeed it’s a delight--
Our Stortle shape is exactly right!”
Parrot-Head Lizard feels decidedly silly:
Must he spurn all bugs for a raw green chili?
The goat now hatches a plan to wed--
Mounts scorpion’s neck--body unites with head!
The giraffe’s reluctant to wander nearby
With his grasshopper wings, he longs to fly.
Says the cow, “What disease has entered the pen
That my rear belongs to a rascally hen?”
Observe the Whalephant: whale wants the sea;
Elephant says, “It’s the jungle for you and me.”
The lion has no horns, that’s his woe--
He joins with a deer; and now antlers grow!
The situation that surrounds us, overwhelms us. When one has so many problems to deal with, its hard to decide where to focus. Perhaps we should begin by identifying certain perversions:
Narcissism: Muzzie reversion videos capitalizing on religious sentiment are abound on YT. Pay close attention and you'll admit that there is no line of contention, except for the vlogger's self-aggrandizement. The self-proclaiming story line follows this common pattern:
- The top of the class talent leaves Islam.
- Wins all debates against Islam.
- Then something happens and they revert back to Islam.
- Now they are here to win all debates against Atheism and rescue Islam.
I personally do not understand how Muslims can turn away from Islam except for the extremity of their worldly tests or the hypocrisy of their coreligionists. For non-Muslims however Atheism is better than their corrupted religions.
Superficial Discourse: One needs not be an expert to participate in an ongoing colloquy. But at least they should not come off as an expert, then blatantly expose their incompetence. One may not be a trained Philosopher. But if one intends to engage in a Philosophical discourse, at least have them learn the very basics. A medical graduate turned media personality blathering on about philosophy sounds very cuntian - pun intended.
Galling Hypocrisy: We are all hypocritical. Its to the degree to which we stoop down to. Engaging in moral policing at one end and whoring around exposes oneself more than one is ready to introspect. How can one be so stern on classical and therapeutic music and yet go along with crappy hip-hops? How can a Muslim man nitpick on the women's covering and yet drool over those filthy Bollywoody jello jiggling?
Contrariety: People who spent their entire life acting against Islam, seeking and advocating remedy to our abysmal condition in other than Islam, do tawbah in one fine morning and expect the rest of us to rally behind them? The Baathist, the communist, the secularist, from among us, expect that we accept their leadership after they have ruined our communities and destroyed our countries? After all their materialistic achievements through Islamically impermissible means it is time for them to secure the hereafter and we should abet?
No! Not at all. We don't accept the godless, the ignorant, the criminal, among us, taking up duty to implement Sharia. We have not forgot what they did to us and our countries. Nor do we forgive. Hakkımızı helal etmeyiz.
If, however, they sincerely repent, then they should know that Allah ﷻ is always accepting and forgiving. But that does not qualify them to lead us. Allah ﷻ has blessed this Ummah with a lot of qualified people to lead, who spent their entire life and sacrificed everything for this Dīn.
These Muzzies act like caged beasts in the Zoo. Gorillas thumping to impose themselves, monkeys circle jerking to safeguard the bayan retails and chimps throwing feces at each other over munāzara. A perfect sordid state for the vultures to devour. Mawlana Sayidee puts it elegantly:
Just a few months ago we had a public outrage, when the un-elected government tried to introduce 'Evolutionism' in the school curriculum. The committee responsible for this is headed by some "Physicist", who writes child fiction, reportedly by plagiarizing Roald Dahl. The crux of what he had to say in support of 'Evolutionism' is that, majority of the scientists voted for it. Such a hypocritical stance to save his fascist overlords and so retarded a claim that science is now subjected to popular opinion.
In fact there is a discussion on how competing ideas overshadow one another, not necessarily based on their merit but on various other factors, most notably political by Dr. Umar himself:
Adding salt to the wound, people burst out when they realized that the main scheme was to promote 'Hinduvta' ideology in the name of secularizing the education system.
Islamist thinkers have failed as well to lay out an updated Islamic curriculum. They have been busy converting every contemporary ideology to an Islamic one. You have Modernism? We've have Islamic Modernism. You have Science? We prove that Islam is scientific. You have computers? We claim that the computers testify the correctness of the Qur'an.
If we are not yet passed the scientific flexing of Rashad Khalifa, a murtad, and Harun Yahya, a womanizer dāʿī, perhaps a reverse incarnation of Andrew Tate, when shall we? Growing up I remember the confusions and challenges we went through regarding the 'scientific evidences' in the Qur'an. For if every major scientific discoveries were coded in the Qur'an why did the majority non-Muslims discovered it? Besides, if Qur'an requires scientific approval, who is the real arbiter here?
To circumvent this we started thinking about the Qur'anic evidences in science. Meaning, for a scientific discovery we re-oriented our thought to claim that the theory was in fact in the Qur'an all along, science merely discovered it recently. Of course it didn't took us long to notice that although this approach freed Qur'an from scientific control, it calls for a continuous paradigm shift. Meaning, if we claim that certain contemporary scientific theorem was coded early in the Qur'an, what would we do, when decades later it might be disproved or revised? Conversely, what about the previous ages who are considered to be scientifically backwards? Do we claim to understand the Qur'an better than al-salaf al-ṣāliḥeen?
I'm glad that personally I'm over it. Anyone that uses science to prove faith has not understood science nor faith. For if you claim to have evidential or first hand proof for al-Ghaib, you end up disproving your claim. How about claiming to see The Unseen and to know The Unknowable?
Understand that Believers know al-Ghaib from logical or second hand evidences. And it is time for Muslims to retrospect as to why our earlier generations were adept at both religious and scientific methodologies while we cognize neither.
