Tagheyyur.

A Person Disenthralled from Fear How might a man or woman actually act if s/he were truly emancipated from fear?   Is this even imaginable?  How might this manifest as solidarity, equality, and freedom?   What might this look like, in the everyday concrete world?   What might it look like, in the world, if, as Allama Iqbal has shared, people were to discover God in themselves?   What sorts of so-called personal qualities would appear as a result of a new actualization of Tauheed?  What qualities would (naturally) manifest through/across humanity as a result of a living Tauheed?    What I offer here are some ideas - certainly not definitive - as an example of what this might look like.  I also offer this as a follow-up on the excellent post by Noor.   I can offer only what my thimble-of-a-mind can comprehend of this potential range of possibilities and human evolution.   As I share...

In South Africa there are two million whites against almost thirteen million native people, and it has never occurred to a single black to consider himself superior to a member of the white minority. –  Frantz Fanon The feeling of inferiority of the colonized is the correlative to the European’s feeling of superiority. Let us have the courage to say it outright: It is the racist who creates his inferior. –  Frantz Fanon (First quote of Fanon really shook our spines to the core. This thought has never occurred to us! We must confess. Ask yourself. The second one is a ‘proven’ psychological fact.) There’s an undeniable existence of self-hatred, self-pity and total disregard for our Way (cultural and above all religious) present in many of us, especially those dazzled by all things ‘western’. Another term for this disease is  Occidentosis.  Speaking of which Jalal Al-i Ahmed writes in his famous  Occidentosis: A Plague from West : “Under [occ...

Image source Colonial Invasion & State Structures. Loss of self-confidence in Muslims is justifiably related to defeats on the battlegrounds at the hands of west. But a military defeat is not enough to enslave hearts and minds, as it can be an impetus for revenge. Today Muslims are envious of West’s power, which proves the fact that the real challenge of west is not of materialism, but of intellectualism (which modernity certainly lacks in the true sense of the world). However, what happened after the first phase of colonial invasion? How did colonials succeed in subduing large populations in vast areas? We’ve partial answers. Realizing the danger that native “monkeys” might overrun them by sheer numbers, colonizers had to play the games of perceptions and mind control. They had to look big and strong. Few in numbers, they developed railway and laid communication systems to travel fast over the huge mass of land to subdue any possible mutiny, which did take place and ...

KARACHI :  Shahzeb Khan Shahzeb Khan didn’t even get time to change the clothes he wore to his sister’s valima. He was in his dark grey dress shirt and trousers when four 9mm bullets pierced through his car – a gleaming blue Swift which was an early birthday gift from his parents, and entered his body, eventually killing this popular 20 year old. The car which had somersaulted after the shooting near Mubarak Masjid in Karachi ’s upmarket Defence area on Tuesday morning, now stands silent opposite the Darakhshan Police Station, a sad reminder of what the spoilt young sons of feudal landlords can do if they or their friends are challenged. Ironically, Shahzeb Khan, the only son of his parents, was shot dead because of a small argument. He and his sister had just returned to their home in the Country Club Apartments from the wedding when a servant living in the building teased his sister. Shahzeb raised his voice against the harassment. But this did not sink in well...

The lecture 'Islam as a Moral and Political Ideal' was delivered at the annual session of Anjuman Himayat-e-Islam in 1909 and published in The Observer, Lahore, and the Hindustan Review, Deccan, in April and December that year respectively. "The eternal proposition regulating the structure of Islam is that there is a fear in nature and the human being must be liberated from fear and thus become conscious of himself or herself as a source of power; there's no mediator since God is the "birthright" of every human being. "A strong will in a strong body" is the ethical ideal of Islam, completely missing in the Indian Muslim; a great personality is needed for ethical revival of a people. An educational system reflecting its national ideals is the next best option.  Democracy is the most important political value in Islam while two fundamental principles regulating its political structures are that (1) the law of God is supreme, since the authority...