Naseer Ahmed's Contributions to New Age Islam

By Ghulam Mohiyuddin, New Age Islam 9 September 2024 Naseer Ahmed Saheb, a highly qualified engineer and a devoted student of the Quran, has been a frequent contributor to NewAgeIslam and an active discussant in its 'Comments' section. I have been a regular reader and a critic of his articles for almost ten years. Although I am impressed by his intelligence and knowledge, I have ben sceptical of his claims of finding things in the Quran that no one else before him had found, his deep involvement in areas that have no practical application or utility, his proclivity to assert claims without any proof other than his faith, his amateurish resorting to psychological and technical jargon to put down his critics, and lately posing as a therapist, again to put down his critics, without having any known qualifications to do so. To add to these problems, he has the habit of totally ignoring all criticism and to hold on firmly to his beliefs without producing any proof. He can also be ferocious in his attacks on those who tell him he is wrong and he would do anything to defame them. He claims that the Quran is way ahead of science and that science has a lot of catching up to do. As an example he produces a verse from the Quran which he believes shows knowledge of the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe. I have pointed out several times to him that the verse in question has a totally different meaning when considered in context. Similarly he takes another verse and claims that it refers to pre-Adam humanoids. I have told him again and again that there is no mention at all in the Quran of any pre-Adam humanoids, but to him his unproven beliefs are the gospel truth. He also sees some verses describing the shape of the universe. There are no such verses in the Quran. Here are some of his pursuits that have no practical application or utility for present day Muslims. He has said that there is no mention of the soul in the Quran and that on the Day of Judgment our physical bodies on earth will be resurrected. He has even figured out the exact scientific technique by which God will do that. He also persistently holds that man is not capable of developing moral rules and that all moral rules came from above. I have explained to him several times that man had to develop such rules in order to survive on this planet and I quoted a world renowned child psychologist, a psychoanalyst and a psychologist (Piaget, Freud and Skinner) on the subject of how a child develops moral sense, but to no avail! He demands proof, as if I have not offered proof, but he never offers proof for any of his outlandish beliefs. He claims that there are no errors in the Quran, but when I presented him with the following article, he got annoyed with me but did not offer even a single comment on the article! Contradictions and Inconsistencies in the Qur'an He is so convinced of the validity of his bizarre views that he threatens his critics with verses from the Quran and he has several times designated me to be a suitable candidate for Hell. He calls me an apostate in order to invalidate my criticism of his articles. Well, I am not his kind of a Muslim, but anyone who thinks that in this day and age there is only one way of being a Muslim needs to wake up and be more open-minded. He brings with him his faithful acolytes who add to the harassment of his critics with rudeness and personal attacks. He and one of his disciples have recently couched their attacks in the form of technical reports using psychological and logic-based concepts purporting to be advocates of "critical thinking"! Their credentials in psychology and logic are weak if they do not know that such analytical reports are worthless if done by staunch partisans in a dispute. He has now written an article which pretends to be about psychological well-being but is a not-too-disguised attack on his critics. It consists of stolen passages, with a few changes in phraseology, from several articles easily available on the Internet. Why am I so interested in his work? Sometimes I am surprised myself at my spending so much time on someone who is either delusional or hungry for fame, and who so far has not done much damage. Maybe I feel that spreading misinformation and abuse of science to glorify the Quran is not right. Whatever it may be, I always wonder what he will come up with next! ----- Ghulam Mohiyuddin is a retired psychiatrist. URL: https://www.newageislam.com/the-war-within-islam/naseer-contributions-new-age-islam/d/133151 New Age Islam, Islam Online, Islamic Website, African Muslim News, Arab World News, South Asia News, Indian Muslim News, World Muslim News, Women in Islam, Islamic Feminism, Arab Women, Women In Arab, Islamophobia in America, Muslim Women in West, Islam Women and Feminism