June 4, 2008, 5:15 am
All of us are children of modernity and the thought under which it is hinged, a world view fashioned by the most pervasive intellectual and moral influences of recent European history, an outlook in conformity with the Zeitgeist of the times. Seyyed Hossein Nasr has noted that modernist tendencies fall under four general marks:
a) Anthropomorphism (and by extension, secularism), or homocentrism
b) Evolutionist progressivism
c) The absence of any sense of the sacred; and
d) An unrelieved ignorance of meta-physical principles
Continue reading ‘Modernity and Islam’ »
June 3, 2008, 5:23 am
is a popular statement we quote to delineate that in Islam there is no withdrawal from the world. There is no unnaturalness and synthetic in Islam but only the organic and primordial. True, in the Christian and Buddhist expressions, indeed this may be so, but what this statement does mean is that contemplatives (dhakirun/dhakirat) must not withdraw from the world, but that the world must be withdrawn from them, the intrinsic idea of asceticism and meditative contemplation upon Allah is in no way affected.
Continue reading ‘“No Monasticism in Islam”…’ »