THE DOGMATIC MIND, Spiritual Meditations, NewAgeIslam.com

Spiritual Meditations

THE DOGMATIC MIND

By Tariq Ramadan

Tuesday 29 December 2009

There are various ways of appropriating the universal, claiming to have a monopoly on it and then establishing a hierarchy of values, civilizations and cultures. This sometimes involves forcing it on others without further ado … ‘for their own good’, of course. In the realm of the universal, the most natural, if not the least dangerous, attitude consists in reducing the range of possibilities to one’s own point of view: my truth is everyone’s Truth, and the truth for everyone, and the values that derive from it are, a fortiori universal. In that case, order is imposed from on high and Man adopts, for himself and with confidence, the viewpoint of God or the absolute. All religions or spiritualities run the risk of being distorted in this way: because we look down the mountain from the summit, we deny the very existence of the many slopes that constitute its very essence and give it its human perspective. If we attempt to use the common faculty of reason to elaborate a universal, the phenomenon is markedly different, but the outcome is the same. As we make our way to the common good of Men, we accept, by definition, the existence of a multiplicity of viewpoints, the need for postulates, doubts and even the paradoxical contradictions of analytical reason, irrespective of whether or not we believe in the existence of a truth or meaning. We can establish the principles of immutability and change in the same way as Socrates or Aristotle, or establish a framework of reference and hierarchies of truth as we go in search of the first Reality, like al-Kindî (ninth century) and then Ibn Sîna (Avicenna: 980-1037) We can, like Descartes, determine a strictly rational method and maxims, or begin by observing the truths empiricists like Berkeley and Hume derive from what they call sense-data. We can in fact start out from a thousand philosophical postulates and theses, and construct so many truth-systems that their very number signals their relativity.

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Book on Islam triggers row in Bihar, India, Islamic World News, NewAgeIslam.com

Islamic World News

Book on Islam triggers row in Bihar, India

Patna, January 14, 2009

A bookseller in this Bihar capital was arrested and the publisher was detained after an Urdu book allegedly made objectionable references to Islam, officials said on Wednesday. They had received a complaint last week.

The chief cleric of Jama Masjid in Munger district, Maulana Kari Abdullah Bukhari, had informed Chief Minister Nitish Kumar about the book and demanded immediate action.

Kumar directed Home Secretary Afzal Amanullah, the state minority commission chairman Naushad Ahmad and Patna Senior Superintendent of Police Amit Kumar to look into the matter.

Based on a complaint filed by Bukhari, the police arrested the bookseller and detained and interrogated the publisher of the book Nilofer Yasin, who is the wife of the author of the book, Mohammed Yasin Ahmad.

"A bookseller Sarfaraz was arrested and sent to jail and Nilofer was interrogated. Police are likely to arrest her husband Ahmad soon," Patna Superintendent of Police Anwar Hussain said.

He said that all of them have been charged with hurting the sentiments of the Muslim community.

"The complainant told the police that there are objectionable references to Islam in the book," Hussain said.

Ahmad's book "Islami Surah Ya Beimani Ka Panchnama" raised eyebrows among a section of the Muslim community, particularly clerics.

http://newageislam.com/book-on-islam-triggers-row-in-bihar,-india---/islamic-world-news/d/1118

Massive disinformation campaign to brainwash Muslims for campaign of Terror - IV, Radical Islamism and Jihad, NewAgeIslam.com

Radical Islamism and Jihad

Massive disinformation campaign to brainwash Muslims for campaign of Terror - IV

Arabs, Jesus and Mahdi: The Role of Arabs

3. Narrated by Hazrat Abdullah Bin Masood (raddi Allah anho) that Dear Propher (salallaho alayhay wa sallam) said: A Nation will come from the East with Black Flags and they will ask for some “Khair” (because of them being needy) but the people will not give them, then, they will fight and win over those people (who didn’t give them what they asked). Now the people will give them what they asked for but they will not accept it untill they will hand it over to a person from my progeny who will fill this earth with Justice just as it was previously filled with oppression and tyranny. So if anyone of you find this Nation (i.e. from the East with black flags) then you must join them even if you have to crawl over ice. Reference: Al-Asha-ah الآﺸﺍﻋﺔ Page 240. Also at Pag 108 in the book “Islam main Imam Mahdi ka Tasawwur” by Maulana Professor Muhammad Yousaf Khan from internationally acclaimed Islamic School i.e Jamia Ashrafia Lahore, Pakistan.

http://newageislam.com/massive-disinformation-campaign-to-brainwash-muslims-for-campaign-of-terror---iv/radical-islamism-and-jihad/d/448

NOTES AND REFERENCES: The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam By Dr. Muhammad Iqbal, Books and Documents, NewAgeIslam.com

Books and Documents

NOTES AND REFERENCES: The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam By Dr. Muhammad Iqbal

NOTES AND REFERENCES

Lecture I:

1. Reference here is to the following verse from the mystical allegorical work: ManÇiq al-ñair (p. 243, v. 5), generally considered the magnum opus, of one of the greatest sufi poets and thinkers Farâd al-Dân ‘AÇÇ«r’ (d.c. 618/1220):

2. A. N. Whitehead, Religion in the Making, p. 5.

3. Ibid., p. 73.

4. Cf. H. L. Bergson, Creative Evolution, pp. 187-88; on this intuition-intellect relation see also Allama Iqbal’s essay: Bedil in the light of Bergson, ed. Dr Tehsin Firaqi, pp. 22-23.

5. Allahumm«arin« haq«’iq al-ashy«kam«hâya, a tradition, in one form or other, to be found in well-known Sufistic works, for example, ‘Alâb. ‘Uthm«n al-Hujwayrâ, Kashf al-MaÁjëb, p. 166; Mawl«n« Jal«l al-Dân Rëmâ, Mathnawâ-i Ma’nawâ, ii, 466-67; iv, 3567-68; v, 1765; MaÁmëd Shabistarâ (d. 720/1320),Gulshan-i R«z, verse 200, and ‘Abd al-RaÁm«n J«mâ (d. 898/1492), Law«’ih, p. 3.

6. Qur’«n, 16:68-69.

7. Ibid., 2:164; 24:43-44; 30:48; 35:9; 45:5.

8. Ibid., 15:16; 25:6; 37:6; 41:12; 50:6; 67:5; 85:1.

9. Ibid., 21:33; 36:40.

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