Praise, Degrade or Describe? My Reply to the Response on my previous post. November 20, 2014 at 10:42pm In my status I wanted to describe what is eastern culture, western culture, Islam, Muslims, science and objectivity. If they are same, they can replace each other. But if they are different, just the different nature is enough argument to conclude that no one can replace other; there is no need to say who is superior and who is inferior. Still, there seemed to be many judgmental discussions in the response to me. Particularly I noticed Faheem Khurshid defending that east is not inferior in the sense that if east has rigidness, west also has had one. There seemed to be also defenses for Islam. I agree that superiority, inferiority and such defenses are necessary topics and we should someday address these topics. But maybe we can learn from science that first we should describe the situation and only later we should evaluate things for being superior or inferior. If participants agree to this arrangement, in the first phase we should only try to describe characteristics of the eastern culture. By east and west do not necessarily mean any geographical regions, but two different cultures. Japan is highly westernized. Even in Muslims, Turkey is perhaps the most westernized country. Malaysia is more western than Pakistan, and in this sense I agree to Faheem that Being an eastern and Muslim are two different entities. Faheem Khurshid is right in saying that the main characteristic of the eastern culture is not only mental rigidity because this can happen in the western culture as well. And mental rigidity is considered something bad and I suggest at this stage we do not make any judgment of good or bad. A descriptive definition of the eastern culture can be tried by noting that in the western culture (wherever it is), human relations and family bonds are much weaker. An almost equivalent description is that the eastern culture is more emotional than western. Thus when Saad Ahmad Khan says Culture should make people more objective than turning them into zealists, I think this is a character of the present western culture but does not apply to the eastern culture. (Objective means giving importance to what is said and not to who says.) Herein east, as the educated persons are moving away from the eastern culture they are in general becoming more objective and less emotional than uneducated purely eastern zealists in our country. (If educated ones are still emotional and subjective (relying on who says), I would say they that in spite of getting the western education they have managed to save themselves from western education that in itself tends to make them less emotional.) Similarly, a large number of my respondents tried to find if I am praising or degrading Islam or am praising science or reason or praising this or degrading that. And many of them have made very good efforts to defend whatever they undertook to defend. But my topic here is just to describe and categorize things as they are. Just like I want to describe east, not praise or degrade it, I want to describe the dominant trends in present Muslims and try to trace the origin of these trends in their eastern culture and Muslim traditions in known history. But in a discussion it is hard to separate a description from judgment. For example, when Naseem Hashmi says emotions they are just ways to step ahead, I do not know it is description of the effects of good emotions or a praise of emotions. (Prophet (P.B.U.H) may be interpreted to guide us to use emotions to differentiate between good and bad. But in this discussion we are not discussing moral issues but rather how to be scientific and not be foolish.) I think emotions (specially anger) is an energy and flow that must be controlled by observations, logic, objectivity and system-building in social life. Perhaps behind every revolution is an anger, but if that anger is not controlled the revolution fails to deliver. Naseem Hashmi and Shahneela Idrees rightly understood that the purpose of my question was not to deny any role of culture, religion, blind love or anger. But the role may not be exactly as Shahneela says, because at least apparently there are a large number of persons (mostly in west but also in Pakistan) who follow ethics or standard human qualities without (again apparently) any concept of accountability in Hereafter. The issue needs a lengthier discussion, not just one comment. While concluding, I would like to say something like Muhammad Sohails statement that Science and religion cater for slightly different aspects of life (I would not use slightly) and yes to Ali Haider Khans saying that can v say that both aspects r incomplete without each other ? (I attach an article written by me and appearing in the departmental magazine that concludes the same. It is a half-article. I plan to send the full for publication in a Journal.) In this way of concluding there is no need to say who is superior and who is inferior; both Islam and science have their own respective roles to play in our lives. Malik Abdul Rauf Athar and Muhammad Adeel may be trying to say this in their own style when they say Islam is logical and Islam and is free of blind love. At least Raufs ideas are incomplete without accepting the importance of logic, observation and the standard human qualities etc. and he ends at necessarily including Islam in his scheme of thought. If he is comparing Islam and reason and wants to discuss how much they have in common, that is in line with our topics presently. But if his topic is to praise Islam, this is at least not my topic at this stage. But I am not sure if all agree to this recognition of the respective roles of Islam and science without advocating for any superiority or inferiority of any side. This recognition leads to a comprehensiveness, which I mentioned in my status by writing in the end that status was incomplete. I am not sure if the statement of Muhammad Sohail and Tariq Mahmood that Islam in complete and science is not falls in the category of praising or degrading or not. To get an idea, I would like to understand in which sense they take Islam to be complete: do they mean to say that religion is completes in itself (that is, it completely deals with the aspect of life that is different to science as Sohail says above) or a that religion completes science i.e. the same aspect of life that science caters? It is not sure if the following three persons like this comprehensiveness and equal importance of Islam and science: Ahmed Sultan Mirza says Religion in actual is a set of rules on which you can live your life. System Building and logics you will find brillinat examples of these two in religion Islam. My response to Ahmed: I do not mean to oppose you. But still, I think, the matter needs further discussion. Thus it is helpful if Ahmed Sultan Mirza explicitly write examples and/or let us know if these are examples inside religion or with the help of religion. In the later case, examples also had something other than Islam and I want to know what do you think is that OTHER? Ahmed says If you follow science you will be blur in your conclusions and wild in your thoughts. My question on this: Is this blur and wildness limited to some matters or is general. And is it a result of science or you had blur and wildness before reading science and science could not remove these? Awais Mughal says If we are talking about matters of like, I dont think that our religion has missed a single one.... I guessed the meaning of this sentence and brought it here. But I am not sure what does Awais mean by this sentence. So, do not say more on his writing. I am not sure if Muhammad Umer Asif means a coexistence of Islam and science at all. Muhammad Umer Asif says I think that we cannot separate religion from science. They do clash. For a physicist, the drive to find answer of the ultimate questions, (how this universe operates? what makes it go around? how we came to being?) will ultimately lead to the clash of science and religion. My reply: I think there is an artificially generated clash now that Umer is afraid of becoming more and more serious with time. This clash is there because both sides make over-claims about the regime of applicability of their approaches. My philosophy courses discusses many over-claims. If both sides remain in the limits of original teachings, there is no clash. I say that there is no INTRINSIC clash between Islam and science and in this sense I agree to many respondents of mine mentioned above. But if you consider the distorted forms of Islam and science (with all the over-claims and exaggerations) we are actually facing in the present time, practically there is a clash and in that sense I agree to Umer Asif. Umer says As to your questions sir, I would like to see observations, logic, objectivity and system-building be taught as rigorously as Islamiyat in our schools. My reply: It is not my question. But perhaps many pakistanis would say that observations, logic, objectivity and system-building are already taught in our schools. They say that all the subjects other than Islamiyat already teach all this. How you, Umer Asif, would respond to that. And to me and some others (who agree to you here) what steps you would suggest to implement your proposal? Umer says: Then let the children decide what they want to choose. My reply: Umer, logically there is a third possibility: children can choose both. But before making this possibility available to our students, we have to do something about the practical-level clash of the present forms of Islamic and scientific modes of thinking we are facing. Most of my respondents can be interpreted as desiring to have both Islam and science and they have a right to have this desire. But they do need to understand that much needs to be done before this desire can be fulfilled and not become satisfied with the contemporary forms of Islam and science. **********************Miscellaneous: Mudassar Mehar says Empiricism is a major difference between Western and Eastern Scientists and then obviously this difference further integrates towards both the communities. My reply: Before commenting on it, I would like to know what do you mean by empiricism and whom are you are calling eastern scientists?. There may well be a deep thought in your question, but I ask this because with some (may be not clear) definitions, it can be said that every scientist (even eastern) must accept empiricism. So (others can ask) that can there be scientist (eastern) who is different to empiricism....you see what am I saying? Naseem Hashmi also says nature has its own way to explore itself. My reply: It is only we (the humans) that explore, not anything else. But I do understand what you want to say i.e. when scientists explore they should with honesty and without any bias, without any religion to start with (you conclusions in some case may agree with a religion). And that much I agree to.
Posted on: Sat, 22 Nov 2014 18:15:55 +0000
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