Rigid traditionists who make ignorance their capital, and excessive rationalists who misuse logic to encroach traditional wisdom always pose harm within the Muslim community: their misleading rhetoric may confuse people in general as far as the true intention of Traditions (naql) is concerned. Indeed, knowledge concerning faith or ‘ilm al-i‘tiqad should be understood as neither…
Concerning ‘those who forgot God, and He therefore made them forget their own selves’ (al-Hashr, 59:19), commentators of the Qur’an offer these broad explanations. First, in ontology, as God is the only One Real and True Being, how can he who forgets God, Who is the very source of his existence, be conscious of his…
A very important principle of ethics in Islam is that, “he who has no knowledge of an action, can never deliberately intend to act upon it (man la ‘ilma lahu fa-la niyyata lahu).” This fundamental element is stated by al-Tahanawi in his Kashshaf Istilahat al-Funun, arguably the finest dictionary of technical terms relating to Islamic…
The late Fazlur Rahman once remarked: “Obligation and rights are the obverse and converse of the same coin.” To use it as a currency, one cannot cut them into two. Mutually inseparable and indispensable, the one obviously cannot subsist for any length of time without the other. Written in the late 1980’s, his Major Themes…
Recently, on the 15th and 16th of October 2008, IKIM co-organized a Symposium on Islam and Asia with the Japan Institute of International Affairs (JIIA), hosted by the latter in Tokyo. There were approximately 30 senior participants from 11 countries, including 7 delegates from IKIM. The overarching theme, “revisiting the socio-political dimension of Islam” was…
Esther Dyson, who wrote A Design for Living in the Digital Age, specializes in analyzing the impact of emerging digital technologies and of digital markets on societies. However, even this most powerful woman of the computing sciences (as some have called her) was uncomfortably overwhelmed by the present-day information explosion, as there are just too…
Regarding the information explosion in the contemporary epoch of, the late Fazlur Rahman, Muslim scholar and scientist, remarked: “Physical avenues of information may improve vastly but the heart, the instrument of perception and discernment, is dulled.” Written in the late 1980’s, his Major Themes of the Qur’an noted that “The inputs and outputs of computers become ever…
In his profound analysis on the progressive weakening of the Muslim world for the past one thousand years, Prof Dr Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas identified its primary cause with internal elements that created a condition referred to as the loss of adab. In particular, he makes reference to the false ‘ulama’ and the false umara’.…
We have previously mentioned that books alone are not education; books are good only as far as the reader is ready or has the aptitude for them. (See further “A Profound Mind Leads to Avid Reading,” IKIM Views, 10th of June 2008.) In particular, we are referring to great books, which treat the most significant ideas surrounding…
Against those who despise books and reading, Voltaire once remarked, albeit with some exaggerations, that “the whole of the known universe, with the exception of the savage races, is governed by books alone.” Voltaire illustrated his reminder using many witty examples. Among others, this 18th century French Enlightenment essayist pointed out that the Islamic civilization…
