No Religion Can Claim To Possess Absolute Truth, Spiritual Meditations, NewAgeIslam.com

Spiritual Meditations

No Religion Can Claim To Possess Absolute Truth

By Thomas Chillikulam

Divine understanding ...

Religious fundamentalism runs on the engine of arrogance. A religious fundamentalist claims to possess absolute knowledge and truth about God. The basic teachings of religions regarding God prove such claims to be false because all religions perceive God as an inexhaustible and indescribable mystery that cannot be grasped fully. The Bible affirms that the ineffable mystery of God eludes understanding - "Can you penetrate the designs of God? It is higher than the heavens; what can you know?" (Book of Job 11:78).St Augustine, an early Christian thinker, warned those who hold absolutist claims: "If you know God,it is not God". For St Thomas Aquinas, Christian theologian of all times, the greatest of all knowledge about God is: "To know that one does not know God".

Upanishadic sages were aware of the incomprehensibility of the divine mystery. The mystery of God is so ineffable that, "The eye does not reach it, or speech, or the mind. It is not understood by those who understand it; it is understood by those who do not understand it," says the Kena Upanishad (1.3.4).The Absolute is anirvachaniyam or indescribable. Hence, after every description of God, the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad (3.9.26) adds "neti, neti" - "not so, not so". Sufi Muslim saint Sarafudddin Maneri acknowledges: "A hundred thousand intellects cannot comprehend Thee, O, You who lie hidden from the gaze of eye and soul". Khwaja Abu Sa'id, another Sufi saint, declares: "No one knows the full story, hold your tongue, hold your tongue".

http://newageislam.com/no-religion-can-claim-to-possess-absolute-truth/spiritual-meditations/d/2740

Eight years later, slew of fascinating books on 9/11, Books and Documents, NewAgeIslam.com

Books and Documents

Eight years later, slew of fascinating books on 9/11

By Suhasini Haidar

September 15, 2009

The next great read is Nicholas Schmidle’s to Live or Perish Forever, the title taken from one of partition’s great proponents (and the man who coined ‘Pakstan’) Chaudhury Rahmat Ali’s description of the choices before Muslims pre-1947. You can be sure most Pakistanis are horrified to see Schmidle use it in a more current context. If Gul gives you information on militant groups and leaders, Schmidle’s is a real inside look at the fundamentalist idealogues who inspire jihadi militancy in Pakistan. His friendship with Abdul Rashid Ghazi, the cleric of the Lal Masjid, who was killed inside, and his description of the man and that movement is riveting. Equally so, descriptions of the militant Sunni Sipah-e-Sahiba group, and meetings with more mainstream leaders of the MMA and the Jamaat-e-Islami. His two year stint in Pakistan was cut short when Schmidle’s work got too ‘interesting’ for the Government, and he was deported.

Next for a book I confess I got to too late — journalist Murtaza Razvi’s description of Musharraf: The Years in Power, completed shortly after he resigned in August 2008. Straight journalism, fact over opinion, this is a great event-by-event record of Gen Pervez Musharraf’s coup and presidency. Pakistan has shown, that through the turmoil and exile, bans, and imprisonment its leaders face, its choice of leadership doesn’t change.

http://newageislam.com/eight-years-later,-slew-of-fascinating-books-on-9/11/books-and-documents/d/1753