The Energen Power

25 KV

Warranty & Free Service 2 Years
The Energen Power
Today the major problem in Pakistan is the electricity problem, and to overcome this problem by running standby power generators and much more expenses of fuel which costs very high in manufacturing different products and causes in rising of prices in market. Due to this many of small industries and homemade things are going to die.
Introduction:
To overcome this problem for the 1st time in Pakistan the new technology generator is introduced “the Energen Power”. The magna torque technology is using by the Energen Power to provide free electrical energy. This is essentially achieved by utilizing the strength of the magnets within generator. The major advantage for such an energy source is its permanent type, provides clean output, very cost effective and environment friendly nature.

This generator has high efficiency features that provide performance at almost 500% as determined by experts. The energy generated by Energen Power can be utilized throughout the appliances without using any extra installation. To be sure of the generator system running in a sound way, a few diagnostic tests should be performed on a frequent basis.

This generator does not allow any sort of harmful emission to spread into the surrounding atmosphere and prevents the spread of excess heat into the atmosphere. Yet another distinct feature is that it controls the spread of airborne matter into the environment. The generator keeps working without being bothered by any sort of climatic changes happening around it.

The Energen Power is extremely cheap and produces lot more power in comparison with other forms of renewable power generators. This provides a big cost advantage to these generators. In order to bring down your electricity bills and assist in creating an environment friendly future, customers ought to go ahead and purchase these generation devices.

These generators are small and extremely efficient while generating power. Another advantage is that they are made of high efficient material, which does not require lubrication and have less maintenance problems and costs.

Properties
The unique property of Energen Power is produce electricity without any liquid (petrol, diesel) and gas.
The Energen Power is the generator without any noise, vibration and smoke.
The Energen Power ensures that there is no use of:-
• Petroleum (petrol, diesel, gas, kerosene, oil, or any other fuel)
• Hydro power.
• Wind energy.
• Coal or wood.
• Solar system (solar cells or solar heat energy).
• Nuclear power.
• Thermal energy.
• Rubbish/gutter gas /bio fuel.
• Any other electric charging sys...
And there is no microwave or any other harmful frequency emission.
This engine can run alternator to generate electricity from 5 KVA up to 50 KVA as per user’s demands
The Energen Power can run continuously with full load without demanding any lubrication and rest for a long time. The only power that you require is the power needed for turning the disc with 24-36 volts battery pack during the startup. This is the really new revolution in this century….

Hamdulillah the Work in PROGRESS.

I REQUEST EVERYBODY KINDLY WORK ON IT, OR FINANCE US TO PRODUCE SUCH GENERATOR. WE ARE WORKING ON IT TOO. AND HOPEFULLY WOULD BE CAPABLE TO PRODUCE IN SIX MONTHS. IF WE COULD BE FINANCED AND ASSISTED WE ARE SURE WE COULD MAKE IT EARLIER AND CHEAPER ONE. RIGHT NOW WE ARE WORKING ON 25KV GENERATOR ONLY.

THIS GENERATOR WON'T TAKE ANY SORT OF FUEL ONLY TWO NORMAL (TRUCK) BATTERIES PER YEAR.

HAY NA AJEEB BAAT, RATHER GOING TO BE AJOOBA OF THE WORLD.

DANI BHAHI SPECIALLY YOU SHOULD FIND SOMEONE TO ASSIST US IN THIS REGARD. THIS WILL BE GOING TO A GREAT CONTRIBUTION TO OUR NATION.

Is Religion Possible?
Broadly speaking religious life may be divided into three periods. These may be described as the periods of ‘Faith’, ‘Thought’, and ‘Discovery.’ In the first period religious life appears as a form of discipline which the individual or a whole people must accept as an unconditional command without any rational understanding of the ultimate meaning and purpose of that command. This attitude may be of great consequence in the social and political history of a people, but is not of much consequence in so far as the individual’s inner growth and expansion are concerned. Perfect submission to discipline is followed by a rational understanding of the discipline and the ultimate source of its authority. In this period religious life seeks its foundation in a kind of metaphysics - a logically consistent view of the world with God as a part of that view. In the third period metaphysics is displaced by psychology, and religious life develops the ambition to come into direct contact with the Ultimate Reality. It is here that religion becomes a matter of personal assimilation of life and power; and the individual achieves a free personality, not by releasing himself from the fetters of the law, but by discovering the ultimate source of the law within the depths of his own consciousness. As in the words of a Muslim Sufi - ‘no understanding of the Holy Book is possible until it is actually revealed to the believer just as it was revealed to the Prophet.’1 It is, then, in the sense of this last phase in the development of religious life that I use the word religion in the question that I now propose to raise. Religion in this sense is known by the unfortunate name of Mysticism, which is supposed to be a life-denying, fact-avoiding attitude of mind directly opposed to the radically empirical outlook of our times. Yet higher religion, which is only a search for a larger life, is essentially experience and recognized the necessity of experience as its foundation long before science learnt to do so. It is a genuine effort to clarify human consciousness, and is, as such, as critical of its level of experience as Naturalism is of its own level.
As we all know, it was Kant who first raised the question: ‘Is metaphysics possible?’2 He answered this question in the negative; and his argument applies with equal force to the realities in which religion is especially interested. The manifold of sense, according to him, must fulfil certain formal conditions in order to constitute knowledge. The thing-in-itself is only a limiting idea. Its function is merely regulative. If there is some actuality corresponding to the idea, it falls outside the boundaries of experience, and consequently its existence cannot be rationally demonstrated. This verdict of Kant cannot be easily accepted. It may fairly be argued that in view of the more recent developments of science, such as the nature of matter as ‘bottled-up light waves’, the idea of the universe as an act of thought, finiteness of space and time and Heisenberg’s principle of indeterminacy3 in Nature, the case for a system of rational theology is not so bad as Kant was led to think. But for our present purposes it is unnecessary to consider this point in detail. As to the thing-in-itself, which is inaccessible to pure reason because of its falling beyond the boundaries of experience, Kant’s verdict can be accepted only if we start with the assumption that all experience other than the normal level of experience is impossible. The only question, therefore, is whether the normal level is the only level of knowledge-yielding experience. Kant’s view of the thing-in-itself and the thing as it appears to us very much determined the character of his question regarding the possibility of metaphysics. But what if the position, as understood by him, is reversed? The great Muslim Sufi philosopher, Muhyaddin Ibn al-‘Arabâ of Spain, has made the acute observation that God is a percept; the world is a concept.4 Another Muslim Sufi thinker and poet, ‘Ir«qâ, insists on the plurality of space-orders and time-orders and speaks of a Divine Time and a Divine Space.5 It may be that what we call the external world is only an intellectual construction, and that there are other levels of human experience capable of being systematized by other orders of space and time - levels in which concept and analysis do not play the same role as they do in the case of our normal experience. It may, however, be said that the level of experience to which concepts are inapplicable cannot yield any knowledge of a universal character, for concepts alone are capable of being socialized. The standpoint of the man who relies on religious experience for capturing Reality must always remain individual and incommunicable. This objection has some force if it is meant to insinuate that the mystic is wholly ruled by his traditional ways, attitudes, and expectations. Conservatism is as bad in religion as in any other department of human activity. It destroys the ego’s creative freedom and closes up the paths of fresh spiritual enterprise. This is the main reason why our medieval mystic techniques can no longer produce original discoveries of ancient Truth. The fact, however, that religious experience is incommunicable does not mean that the religious man’s pursuit is futile. Indeed, the incommunicability of religious experience gives us a clue to the ultimate nature of the ego. In our daily social intercourse we live and move in seclusion, as it were. We do not care to reach the inmost individuality of men. We treat them as mere functions, and approach them from those aspects of their identity which are capable of conceptual treatment. The climax of religious life, however, is the discovery of the ego as an individual deeper than his conceptually describable habitual selfhood. It is in contact with the Most Real that the ego discovers its uniqueness, its metaphysical status, and the possibility of improvement in that status. Strictly speaking, the experience which leads to this discovery is not a conceptually manageable intellectual fact; it is a vital fact, an attitude consequent on an inner biological transformation which cannot be captured in the net of logical categories. It can embody itself only in a world-making or world-shaking act; and in this form alone the content of this timeless experience can diffuse itself in the time-movement, and make itself effectively visible to the eye of history. It seems that the method of dealing with Reality by means of concepts is not at all a serious way of dealing with it. Science does not care whether its electron is a real entity or not. It may be a mere symbol, a mere convention. Religion, which is essentially a mode of actual living, is the only serious way of handing Reality. As a form of higher experience it is corrective of our concepts of philosophical theology or at least makes us suspicious of the purely rational process which forms these concepts. Science can afford to ignore metaphysics altogether, and may even believe it to be ‘a justified form of poetry’6, as Lange defined it, or ‘a legitimate play of grown-ups’, as Nietzsche described it. But the religious expert who seeks to discover his personal status in the constitution of things cannot, in view of the final aim of his struggle, be satisfied with what science may regard as a vital lie, a mere ‘as-if’7 to regulate thought and conduct. In so far as the ultimate nature of Reality is concerned, nothing is at stake in the venture of science; in the religious venture the whole career of the ego as an assimilative personal centre of life and experience is at stake. Conduct, which involves a decision of the ultimate fate of the agent cannot be based on illusions. A wrong concept misleads the understanding; a wrong deed degrades the whole man, and may eventually demolish the structure of the human ego. The mere concept affects life only partially; the deed is dynamically related to Reality and issues from a generally constant attitude of the whole man towards reality. No doubt the deed, i.e. the control of psychological and physiological processes with a view to tune up the ego for an immediate contact with the Ultimate Reality is, and cannot but be, individual in form and content; yet the deed, too, is liable to be socialized when others begin to live though it with a view to discover for themselves its effectiveness as a method of approaching the Real. The evidence of religious experts in all ages and countries is that there are potential types of consciousness lying close to our normal consciousness. If these types of consciousness open up possibilities of life-giving and knowledge-yielding experience, the question of the possibility of religion as a form of higher experience is a perfectly legitimate one and demands our serious attention.
But, apart from the legitimacy of the question, there are important reasons why it should be raised at the present moment of the history of modern culture. In the first place, the scientific interest of the question. It seems that every culture has a form of Naturalism peculiar to its own world-feeling; and it further appears that every form of Naturalism ends in some sort of Atomism. We have Indian Atomism, Greek Atomism, Muslim Atomism, and Modern Atomism.8 Modern Atomism is, however, unique. Its amazing mathematics which sees the universe as an elaborate differential equation; and its physics which, following its own methods, has been led to smash some of the old gods of its own temple, have already brought us to the point of asking the question whether the casualty-bound aspect of Nature is the whole truth about it? Is not the Ultimate Reality invading our consciousness from some other direction as well? Is the purely intellectual method of overcoming Nature the only method? ‘We have acknowledged’, says Professor Eddington,
‘that the entities of physics can from their very nature form only a partial aspect of the reality. How are we to deal with the other part? It cannot be said that other part concerns us less than the physical entities. Feelings, purpose, values, made up our consciousness as much as sense-impressions. We follow up the sense-impressions and find that they lead into an external world discussed by science; we follow up the other elements of our being and find that they lead - not into a world of space and time, but surely somewhere.’9
In the second place we have to look to the great practical importance of the question. The modern man with his philosophies of criticism and scientific specialism finds himself in a strange predicament. His Naturalism has given him an unprecedented control over the forces of Nature, but has robbed him of faith in his own future. It is strange how the same idea affects different cultures differently. The formulation of the theory of evolution in the world of Islam brought into being Rëmâ’s tremendous enthusiasm for the biological future of man. No cultured Muslim can read such passages as the following without a thrill of joy:
Low in the earth
I lived in realms of ore and stone;
And then I smiled in many-tinted flowers;
Then roving with the wild and wandering hours,
O’er earth and air and ocean’s zone,
In a new birth,
I dived and flew,
And crept and ran,
And all the secret of my essence drew
Within a form that brought them all to view -
And lo, a Man!
And then my goal,
Beyond the clouds, beyond the sky,
In realms where none may change or die -
In angel form; and then away
Beyond the bounds of night and day,
And Life and Death, unseen or seen,
Where all that is hath ever been,
As One and Whole.
(Rëmâ: Thadani’s Translation)10
On the other hand, the formulation of the same view of evolution with far greater precision in Europe has led to the belief that ‘there now appears to be no scientific basis for the idea that the present rich complexity of human endowment will ever be materially exceeded.’ That is how the modern man’s secret despair hides itself behind the screen of scientific terminology. Nietzsche, although he thought that the idea of evolution did not justify the belief that man was unsurpassable, cannot be regarded as an exception in this respect. His enthusiasm for the future of man ended in the doctrine of eternal recurrence - perhaps the most hopeless idea of immortality ever formed by man. This eternal repetition is not eternal ‘becoming’; it is the same old idea of ‘being’ masquerading as ‘becoming.’
Is Religion Possible? (continued)
Thus, wholly overshadowed by the results of his intellectual activity, the modern man has ceased to live soulfully, i.e. from within. In the domain of thought he is living in open conflict with himself; and in the domain of economic and political life he is living in open conflict with others. He finds himself unable to control his ruthless egoism and his infinite gold-hunger which is gradually killing all higher striving in him and bringing him nothing but life-weariness. Absorbed in the ‘fact’, that is to say, the optically present source of sensation, he is entirely cut off from the unplumbed depths of his own being. In the wake of his systematic materialism has at last come that paralysis of energy which Huxley apprehended and deplored. The condition of things in the East is no better. The technique of medieval mysticism by which religious life, in its higher manifestations, developed itself both in the East and in the West has now practically failed. And in the Muslim East it has, perhaps, done far greater havoc than anywhere else. Far from reintegrating the forces of the average man’s inner life, and thus preparing him for participation in the march of history, it has taught him a false renunciation and made him perfectly contented with his ignorance and spiritual thraldom. No wonder then that the modern Muslim in Turkey, Egypt, and Persia is led to seek fresh sources of energy in the creation of new loyalties, such as patriotism and nationalism which Nietzsche described as ‘sickness and unreason’, and ‘the strongest force against culture11’. Disappointed of a purely religious method of spiritual renewal which alone brings us into touch with the everlasting fountain of life and power by expanding our thought and emotion, the modern Muslim fondly hopes to unlock fresh sources of energy by narrowing down his thought and emotion. Modern atheistic socialism, which possesses all the fervour of a new religion, has a broader outlook; but having received its philosophical basis from the Hegelians of the left wing, it rises in revolt against the very source which could have given it strength and purpose. Both nationalism and atheistic socialism, at least in the present state of human adjustments, must draw upon the psychological forces of hate, suspicion, and resentment which tend to impoverish the soul of man and close up his hidden sources of spiritual energy. Neither the technique of medieval mysticism, nor nationalism, nor atheistic socialism can cure the ills of a despairing humanity. Surely the present moment is one of great crisis in the history of modern culture. The modern world stands in need of biological renewal. And religion, which in its higher manifestations is neither dogma, nor priesthood, nor ritual, can alone ethically prepare the modern man for the burden of the great responsibility which the advancement of modern science necessarily involves, and restore to him that attitude of faith which makes him capable of winning a personality here and retaining it in hereafter. It is only by rising to a fresh vision of his origin and future, his whence and whither, that man will eventually triumph over a society motivated by an inhuman competition, and a civilization which has lost its spiritual unity by its inner conflict of religious and political values.
As I have indicated before,12 religion as a deliberate enterprise to seize the ultimate principle of value and thereby to reintegrate the forces of one’s own personality, is a fact which cannot be denied. The whole religious literature of the world, including the records of specialists’ personal experiences, though perhaps expressed in the thought-forms of an out-of-date psychology, is a standing testimony to it. These experiences are perfectly natural, like our normal experiences. The evidence is that they possess a cognitive value for the recipient, and, what is much more important, a capacity to centralize the forces of the ego and thereby to endow him with a new personality. The view that such experiences are neurotic or mystical will not finally settle the question of their meaning or value. If an outlook beyond physics is possible, we must courageously face the possibility, even though it may disturb or tend to modify our normal ways of life and thought. The interests of truth require that we must abandon our present attitude. It does not matter in the least if the religious attitude is originally determined by some kind of physiological disorder. George Fox may be a neurotic; but who can deny his purifying power in England’s religious life of his day? Muhammad, we are told, was a psychopath13. Well, if a psychopath has the power to give a fresh direction to the course of human history, it is a point of the highest psychological interest to search his original experience which has turned slaves into leaders of men, and has inspired the conduct and shaped the career of whole races of mankind. Judging from the various types of activity that emanated from the movement initiated by the Prophet of Islam, his spiritual tension and the kind of behaviour which issued from it, cannot be regarded as a response to a mere fantasy inside his brain. It is impossible to understand it except as a response to an objective situation generative of new enthusiasms, new organizations, new starting-points. If we look at the matter from the standpoint of anthropology it appears that a psychopath is an important factor in the economy of humanity’s social organization. His way is not to classify facts and discover causes: he thinks in terms of life and movement with a view to create new patterns of behaviour for mankind. No doubt he has his pitfalls and illusions just as the scientist who relies on sense-experience has his pitfalls and illusions. A careful study of his method, however, shows that he is not less alert than the scientist in the matter of eliminating the alloy of illusion from his experience.
The question for us outsiders is to find out an effective method of inquiry into the nature and significance of this extraordinary experience. The Arab historian Ibn Khaldën, who laid the foundations of modern scientific history, was the first to seriously approach this side of human psychology and reached what we now call the idea of the subliminal self. Later, Sir William Hamilton in England and Leibniz in Germany interested themselves in some of the more unknown phenomena of the mind. Jung, however, is probably right in thinking that the essential nature of religion is beyond the province of analytic psychology. In his discussion of the relation of analytic psychology to poetic art, he tells us that the process of artistic form alone can be the object of psychology. The essential nature of art, according to him, cannot be the object of a psychological method of approach. ‘A distinction’, says Jung,
‘must also be made in the realm of religion; there also a psychological consideration is permissible only in respect of the emotional and symbolical phenomena of a religion, where the essential nature of religion is in no way involved, as indeed it cannot be. For were this possible, not religion alone, but art also could be treated as a mere sub-division of psychology.’14
Yet Jung has violated his own principle more than once in his writings. The result of this procedure is that, instead of giving us a real insight into the essential nature of religion and its meaning for human personality, our modern psychology has given us quite a plethora of new theories which proceed on a complete misunderstanding of the nature of religion as revealed in its higher manifestations, and carry us in an entirely hopeless direction. The implication of these theories, on the whole, is that religion does not relate the human ego to any objective reality beyond himself; it is merely a kind of well-meaning biological device calculated to build barriers of an ethical nature round human society in order to protect the social fabric against the otherwise unrestrainable instincts of the ego. That is why, according to this newer psychology, Christianity has already fulfilled its biological mission, and it is impossible for the modern man to understand its original significance. Jung concludes:
‘Most certainly we should still understand it, had our customs even a breath of ancient brutality, for we can hardly realize in this day the whirlwinds of the unchained libido which roared through the ancient Rome of the Caesars. The civilized man of the present day seems very far removed from that. He has become merely neurotic. So for us the necessities which brought forth Christianity have actually been lost, since we no longer understand their meaning. We do not know against what it had to protect us. For enlightened people, the so-called religiousness has already approached very close to a neurosis. In the past two thousand years Christianity has done its work and has erected barriers of repression, which protect us from the sight of our own sinfulness.’15
This is missing the whole point of higher religious life. Sexual self-restraint is only a preliminary stage in the ego’s evolution. The ultimate purpose of religious life is to make this evolution move in a direction far more important to the destiny of the ego than the moral health of the social fabric which forms his present environment. The basic perception from which religious life moves forward is the present slender unity of the ego, his liability to dissolution, his amenability to reformation and the capacity for an ampler freedom to create new situations in known and unknown environments. In view of this fundamental perception higher religious life fixes its gaze on experiences symbolic of those subtle movements of Reality which seriously affect the destiny of the ego as a possibly permanent element in the constitution of Reality. If we look at the matter from this point of view modern psychology has not yet touched even the outer fringe of religious life, and is still far from the richness and variety of what is called religious experience. In order to give you an idea of its richness and variety I quote here the substance of a passage from a great religious genius of the seventeenth century - Shaikh AÁmad of Sirhind - whose fearless analytical criticism of contemporary Sufism resulted in the development of a new technique. All the various system of Sufi technique in India came from Central Asia and Arabia; his is the only technique which crossed the Indian border and is still a living force in the Punjab, Afghanistan, and Asiatic Russia. I am afraid it is not possible for me to expound the real meaning of this passage in the language of modern psychology; for such language does not yet exist. Since, however, my object is simply to give you an idea of the infinite wealth of experience which the ego in his Divine quest has to sift and pass through, I do hope you will excuse me for the apparently outlandish terminology which possesses a real substance of meaning, but which was formed under the inspiration of a religious psychology developed in the atmosphere of a different culture. Coming now to the passage. The experience of one ‘Abd al-Mumin was described to the Shaikh as follows:
‘Heavens and Earth and God’s Throne and Hell and Paradise have all ceased to exist for me. When I look round I find them nowhere. When I stand in the presence of somebody I see nobody before me: nay even my own being is lost to me. God is infinite. Nobody can encompass Him; and this is the extreme limit of spiritual experience. No saint has been able to go beyond this’.
On this the Shaikh replied:
‘The experience which is described has its origin in the ever varying life of the Qalb; and it appears to me that the recipient of its has not yet passed even one-fourth of the innumerable ‘Stations’ of the Qalb. The remaining three-fourths must be passed through in order to finish the experiences of this first ‘Station’ of spiritual life. Beyond this ‘Station’ there are other ‘Stations’ know as RëÁ, Sirr-i-Khafâ, and Sirr-i-Akhf«, each of these ‘Stations’ which together constitute what is technically called ‘ÿlam-i Amr has its own characteristic states and experiences. After having passed through these ‘Stations’ the seeker of truth gradually receives the illuminations of ‘Divine Names’ and ‘Divine Attributes’ and finally the illuminations of the ‘Divine Essence’.’16
Whatever may be the psychological ground of the distinctions made in this passage it gives us at least some idea of a whole universe of inner experience as seen by a great reformer of Islamic Sufâsm. According to him this ‘ÿlam-i Amr, i.e. ‘the world of directive energy’, must be passed through before one reaches that unique experience which symbolizes the purely objective. This is the reason why I say that modern psychology has not yet touched even the outer fringe of the subject. Personally, I do not at all feel hopeful of the present state of things in either biology or psychology. Mere analytical criticism with some understanding of the organic conditions of the imagery in which religious life has sometimes manifested itself is not likely to carry us to the living roots of human personality. Assuming that sex-imagery has played a role in the history of religion, or that religion has furnished imaginative means of escape from, or adjustment to, an unpleasant reality - these ways of looking at the matter cannot, in the least, affect the ultimate aim of religious life, that is to say, the reconstruction of the finite ego by bringing him into contact with an eternal life-process, and thus giving him a metaphysical status of which we can have only a partial understanding in the half-choking atmosphere of our present environment. If, therefore, the science of psychology is ever likely to possess a real significance for the life of mankind, it must develop an independent method calculated to discover a new technique better suited to the temper of our times. Perhaps a psychopath endowed with a great intellect - the combination is not an impossibility - may give us a clue to such a technique. In modern Europe, Nietzsche, whose life and activity form, at least to us Easterns, an exceedingly interesting problem in religious psychology, was endowed with some sort of a constitutional equipment for such an undertaking. His mental history is not without a parallel in the history of Eastern Sufâsm. That a really ‘imperative’ vision of the Divine in man did come to him, cannot be denied. I call his vision ‘imperative’ because it appears to have given him a kind of prophetic mentality which, by some kind of technique, aims at turning its visions into permanent life-forces. Yet Nietzsche was a failure; and his failure was mainly due to his intellectual progenitors such as Schopenhauer, Darwin, and Lange whose influence completely blinded him to the real significance of his vision. Instead of looking for a spiritual rule which would develop the Divine even in a plebeian and thus open up before him an infinite future, Nietzsche was driven to seek the realization of his vision in such scheme as aristocratic radicalism.17 As I have said of him elsewhere:

The ‘I am’ which he seeketh,
Lieth beyond philosophy, beyond knowledge.
The plant that groweth only from the invisible soil of the heart of man,
Groweth not from a mere heap of clay!18
Thus failed a genius whose vision was solely determined by his internal forces, and remained unproductive for want of expert external guidance in his spiritual life,19 and the irony of fate is that this man, who appeared to his friends ‘as if he had come from a country where no man lived’, was fully conscious of his great spiritual need. ‘I confront alone’, he says, ‘an immense problem: it is as if I am lost in a forest, a primeval one. I need help. I need disciples: I need a master.20 It would be so sweet to obey.’ And again:
‘Why do I not find among the living men who see higher than I do and have to look down on me? Is it only that I have made a poor search? And I have so great a longing for such.’
The truth is that the religious and the scientific processes, though involving different methods, are identical in their final aim. Both aim at reaching the most real. In fact, religion; for reasons which I have mentioned before, is far more anxious to reach the ultimately real than science.21 And to both the way to pure objectivity lies through what may be called the purification of experience. In order to understand this we must make a distinction between experience as a natural fact, significant of the normally observable behaviour of Reality, and experience as significant of the inner nature of Reality. As a natural fact it is explained in the light of its antecedents, psychological and physiological; as significant of the inner nature of Reality we shall have to apply criteria of a different kind to clarify its meaning. In the domain of science we try to understand its meaning in reference to the external behaviour of Reality; in the domain of religion we take it as representative of some kind of Reality and try to discover its meanings in reference mainly to the inner nature of that Reality. The scientific and the religious processes are in a sense parallel to each other. Both are really descriptions of the same world with this difference only that in the scientific process the ego’s standpoint is necessarily exclusive, whereas in the religious process the ego integrates its competing tendencies and develops a single inclusive attitude resulting in a kind of synthetic transfiguration of his experiences. A careful study of the nature and purpose of these really complementary processes shows that both of them are directed to the purification of experience in their respective spheres. An illustration will make my meaning clear. Hume’s criticism of our notion of cause must be considered as a chapter in the history of science rather than that of philosophy. True to the spirit of scientific empiricism we are not entitled to work with any concepts of a subjective nature. The point of Hume’s criticism is to emancipate empirical science from the concept of force which, as he urges, has no foundation in sense-experience. This was the first attempt of the modern mind to purify the scientific process.
Einstein’s mathematical view of the universe completes the process of purification started by Hume, and, true to the spirit of Hume’s criticism, dispenses with the concept of force altogether.22 The passage I have quoted from the great Indian saint shows that the practical student of religious psychology has a similar purification in view. His sense of objectivity is as keen as that of the scientists in his own sphere of objectivity. He passes from experience to experience, not as a mere spectator, but as a critical sifter of experience, who by the rules of a peculiar technique, suited to his sphere of inquiry, endeavours to eliminate all subjective elements, psychological or physiological, in the content of his experience with a view finally to reach what is absolutely objective. This final experience is the revelation of a new life-process - original, essential, spontaneous. The eternal secret of the ego is that the moment he reaches this final revelation he recognizes it as the ultimate root of his being without the slightest hesitation. Yet in the experience itself there is no mystery. Nor is there anything emotional in it. Indeed with a view to secure a wholly non-emotional experience the technique of Islamic Sufâsm at least takes good care to forbid the use of music in worship, and to emphasize the necessity of daily congregational prayers in order to counteract the possible anti-social effects of solitary contemplation. Thus the experience reached is a perfectly natural experience and possesses a biological significance of the highest importance to the ego. It is the human ego rising higher than mere reflection, and mending its transiency by appropriating the eternal. The only danger to which the ego is exposed in this Divine quest is the possible relaxation of his activity caused by his enjoyment of and absorption in the experiences that precede the final experience. The history of Eastern Sufâsm shows that this is a real danger. This was the whole point of the reform movement initiated by the great Indian saint from whose writings I have already quoted a passage. And the reason is obvious. The ultimate aim of the ego is not to see something, but to be something. It is in the ego’s effort to be something that he discovers his final opportunity to sharpen his objectivity and acquire a more fundamental ‘I am’ which finds evidence of its reality not in the Cartesian ‘I think’ but in the Kantian ‘I can.’ The end of the ego’s quest is not emancipation from the limitations of individuality; it is, on the other hand, a more precise definition of it. The final act is not an intellectual act, but a vital act which deepens the whole being of the ego, and sharpens his will with the creative assurance that the world is not something to be merely seen or known through concepts, but something to be made and re-made by continuous action. It is a moment of supreme bliss and also a moment of the greatest trial for the ego:
Art thou in the stage of ‘life.’ ‘death’, or ‘death-in-life.’ Invoke the aid of three witnesses to verify thy ‘Station.’

The first witness is thine own consciousness -
See thyself, then, with thine own light.
The second witness is the consciousness of another ego -
See thyself, then, with the light of an ego other than thee.
The third witness is God’s consciousness -
See thyself, then, with God’s light.
If thou standest unshaken in front of this light,
Consider thyself as living and eternal as He!
That man alone is real who dares -
Dares to see God face to face!
What is ‘Ascension’? Only a search for a witness
Who may finally confirm thy reality -
A witness whose confirmation alone makes thee eternal.
No one can stand unshaken in His Presence;
And he who can, verily, he is pure gold.
Art thou a mere particle of dust?
Tighten the knot of thy ego;
And hold fast to thy tiny being!
How glorious to burnish one’s ego.
And to test its lustre in the presence of the Sun!
Re-chisel, then, thine ancient frame; And build up a new being.
Such being is real being;
Or else thy ego is a mere ring of smoke!
J«vid N«mah

*. Nigah-e-faqr main shaan-e-sikandari kya hai?
Khiraaj ki jo gada ho, wo qaiseri kya hai?
Falaq nay ki hai ata un ko khaajgi kay jinhain
Khabar nahin rawish-e-banda parwari kya hai?
Kissey nahin hai tamanna-e-sarwari lekin
Khudi ki mout ho jis main, wo sarwari kya hai?
Buton say tujh ko umeedain, Khuda say no meedi
Mujhey bata tou sahi aur kaafri kya hai?

(Meanings: Nigah-e-Faqr main shan-e-sikandari kya hai = What is the worth of kingdom in eyes of a saint?; Khiraj ki jo gada ho, wo qeseri kya hai = Such a rule in which ruler is always worried about keeping it secure, is worthless; Falaq = Nature; Khaajgi = Ruling class; Khabar nahin = Ignored; rawish-e-banda parwari = Sense of serving humanity; tamanna-e-sarwari = Desires to rule; Khudi ki mout ho jis main wo sarwari kya hai = Such rule is insulting to gain which, self respect is required to be sacrificed; Buton = Idols (referring to fellow human beings here); umeedain = Expectations; no meedi = Disappointment; Kaafri = Non Muslim who donot believe in Oneness of God)

*. Aey Tair-e-Lahooti, uss rizq say mout achi
Jis rizq say aati ho, parwaz main kotahi
Aain-e-jawanmardi, haq goi-o-bay baaqi
Allah kay sheron ko, aati nahin rubaahi

(Meanings: Tair-e-Lahooti = Simile, addressing to Muslim youth; Rizq = food/income; Kotahi = Laziness, denotatively and connotatively referring to slavery here; Aain-e-Jawanmardi = Conditions to live with dignity; Haq goi = Honesty; Bay Baaqi = Bravery; Rubaahi = cunningness, hypocrisy)

*. Hai Fikr mujhey misra-e-saani ki zyada
Allah karey tujh ko ata Fuqr ki talwaar
Jo haath main ye talwaar bhi aa jayey tou Momin
Ya Khalid-e-Janbaaz hai, Ya Haider-e-Karrar

(Meanings: misra-e-saani = proceeding verse; Fuqr ki talwar = Strong Faith; Khalid-e-Janbaaz = Khalid Bin Waleed (May Allah be pleased with him); Haider-e-Karrar= Ali Ibn-e-Abu Talib (May Allah be pleased with him))

*. Wo kal kay gham-o-aish per kuch Haq nahin rakhta
Jo aaj khud afroz-o-jigar soz nahin hai
Wo qaum nahin laiq-e-hangama-e-farda
Jis qaum ki taqdeer main imroz nahin hai

(Meanings: gham-o-aish = thick n' thin; khud afroz-o-jigar soz = A person with motivation and determination; Laiq-e-hangama-e-farda = worthy to survive anymore; imroz = Present)

*. Paani paani ho gaya sun ker Qalander ki ye baat
Tu jhuka jab ghair key aagey, na tann tera na mann
Apney mann main dub kay pa ja suragh-e-zindagi
Tu agar mera nahi banta, na ban, apna tou bann

(Meanings: paani paani ho gaya = ashamed of oneself; Qalander = Saint; Ghair = Stranger (British here); tann and mann = Body and Soul; suragh-e-zindagi = Connotatively referring to secrets to live prestigious life)

*. Ho terey bayaban ki hawa tujh ko gawara
Iss dasht say behter hai na Dilli na Bukhara
Jis simt main chahey, sift-e-sal-e-rawan chal
Wadi ye hamari hai, wo sehra bhi hamara
Ghairat hai bari cheez jahan-e-tag-o-dou main
Pehnati hai derwaish ko taj-e-sir-e-dara
Afraad kay haathon main hai akwaam ki taqdeer
Her fard hai millat kau muqaddar ka sitara
Deen haath say dey ker agar azad ho millat
Hai aisi tijarat main Musalaman ka khasara
(Dr. Iqbal is addressing British here)

(Meanings: Bayaban = referring to Britain here; gawara = acceptable; dasht = Desert denotatively (India connotatively); Simt = Direction; sift-e-sal-e-rawan = Continuous flow; Wadi = Valley; Sehra = Desert; Ghairat = Self Respect; Jahan-e-tag-o-dou = World of struggle; Derwesh = begger here; Taj-e-sir-e-dara= Royal crown; Afraad = People; Akwaam = Nations; Fard = Individual; Millat = Nation; Muqaddar = destiny; Deen = Islam; Tijarat = Deal/Trade agreement; Khasara = Loss)

*. Kabhi aey, Naujawan Muslim! taddabur bhi kiya tu ney?
Wo kya gardon tha tu jis ka hai ik toota hua tara
Tujhey uss qaum nay pala hai aaghosh-e-mohabbat main
Kuchal dala tha jis nay paon main taaj-e-sir-e-dara

(Meanings: Taddabur = To think; Gardon = Sky (Simile, group of Prophet (PBUH) and his companions here); Qaum = Nation (Muslims here); Aaghosh-e-Mohabbat = Caring protection; Kuchal = Trample; Taj-e-sir-e-dara = Royal crown)

*. Hawa-e-byaban say hoti hai kaari
Jawanmard ki zarbat-e-ghaaziyanan
Paltna, jhapatna, jhapat kay palatna
Lahu garm rakhney ka hai ik bahana
Parindon ki duniya ka derwesh hon main
Kay shaheen banata nahin aashiyana

(Meanings: Hawa-e-byaban = Deserts (referring to challenging tasks here); Kaari = Influential; Jawanmard = Brave man; Zarbat-e-Ghaziana = Daring strike; Lahu = Blood; Bahana = Excuse; Derwesh = Saint; Shaheen = Falcon (Muslim youth here); Aashiyana = Permanent residence)

*. Utha mat khana-e-shesha-e-farang kay ihsaan
Sifaal-e-Hind say meena-o-jaam paida ker
Hazar chasshmey teri sang-e-rah say phootey
Khudi main doob kay zarb-e-kaleem paida ker

(Meanings: Khana-e-sheesha-e-farang = Referring to British here; Sifaal-e-Hind = Referring to former united India (sub contient) here; Meena-o-jaam = Referring to necessities of life here; Chasshmey = Denotatively means fountains but connotative meanings here, referring to obstacles; Sang-e-rah = Track/path; Phootey = Emergence; Zarb-e-Kaleem = Powerful Strike)

*. Nahin tera nash-e-mann kasr-e-sultani kay gumband per
Tu Shaheen hai basera ker paharon ki chatanon per

(Meanings: nash-e-mann = home; kasr-e-sultani = denotatively, it stands for royal palace but here, it means ease and laziness; Basera = Shelter; Chatanon = Rocks)

*. Aghyaar kay ufkaar-o-takhayyul ki gadai
Kya tujh ko nahin apni khudi tak bhi rasai?

(Meanings: Aghyaar = Referring to British; Ufkaar = Policies; Takhayyul = Theories; Gadai= to beg; rasai = access)

*. Khudi ko ker buland itna kay her taqdeer say pehley
Khuda bandey say khud poochey bata teri raza kya hai

*. Ghulami main na kaam aati hain shamsheerain, na tadbeerain
Jo ho shok-e-yaqeen paida tou cut jaati hain zanjeerain
Koi andaza ker sakta hai iss kay zor-e-bazu ka?
Nigha-e-mard-e-momin say badal jati hain taqdeerain

(Meanings: Ghulami = Slavery; Shamsheerain = Swords; Tadbeerain = Plannings; Shok-e-yaqeen = Sense of self respect; Zanjeerain = restraints; Andaza= Guess; Zor-e-Bazu= Strength; Nigah-e-Mard-e-Momin = Glare of a Muslim (connotatively referring to strength of a strong faith Muslim); Taqdeerain = Destiny)

Iqbal, Quran and Muslim Unity
By Dr. Mansoor Alam
Muslims are supposed to work together towards a common goal set by the Quran and shown by the Prophet (PBUH) through his Sunnah. They are brothers and sisters because they are bonded by the common ideology of the unity of God and the unity of humankind.
These are the foundational principles of Islam. The Quran and the Sunnah of the Prophet (PBUH) require Muslims to work for the unity of the Ummah. Muslims are required to be merciful towards each other (The Quran (48:29)) and be like the body where if any part hurts the whole body should feel the pain (Hadith). But, are Muslims practicing this injunction of the Quran and the Sunnah of the Prophet (PBUH)? Muslims and various Islamic organizations are working hard but it is frustratingly obvious that the above goals are ever so illusive. Instead of Muslims being united in mercy towards each other, they are, on the whole, far from it. Instead of feeling the pain and misery of other Muslims (Chechens, Palestinians, Kashmiris, for example), most of us are happily enjoying our material comforts of life. Is Muslim unity only a dream that cannot be fulfilled? Many argue that all this talk of Muslim unity is out of date. Islam may have once united Muslims but present reality makes it impossible. They say it is nice talk, which makes Muslims feel good but an unrealistic goal that cannot be achieved. Muslims spend (and have spent) a lot of their time and emotional energy debating this issue.
We will come back to this fundamental question- is Muslim unity possible, and if it is, then how to achieve it? But first, let us find out the present state of Muslims and compare it with the Iqbal’s visionary diagnosis of their problems.
Muslim misery and suffering is as common today as it was in the days of Iqbal. Every day that passes brings more death and destruction to Muslims, only at a much wider scale. It is sad to see Muslim governments collaborating with non-Muslims to inflict damage and suffering against fellow Muslims. Many Muslim groups are also engaged in fighting against each other in many parts of the Muslim world. And in some countries where Muslims are in minority, their condition is even worse. As a minority they are systematically being subjected to discrimination, humiliation, persecution, torture, and rape. One wonders: is it ever going to end?
When Greeks attacked Turkey in 1923 (at the behest of the British) Iqbal’s heart started crying. He knew that it was not just an attack on Turkey, but it was an attack on Islam itself. He tried to free the Muslim mind from the prevailing colonial mentality and from Muslims’ own narrow self-interests. He wrote the poem "Tolu-e-Islam" which later became one of his classic works. [Copies of this poem were sold and all proceeds were sent to Turkey.] He said:
"Hawas ne tukre tukre kar diya hay na’u insan ko
ukhuwwat ka bayan ho ja mohabbat ki zaban ho ja
ye Hindi, wo Khurasani, ye Afghani, wo Turani
tu ay sharmindayeh sahil uchhal kar bekaraan ho ja"
"Greed has torn apart humankind. You (Muslims), become role models of love and brotherhood. Get beyond the narrow boundaries of nationalities (like Indian, Khurasani, Afghani, and Turkish) and jump into the limitless ocean (of Islam)."
Observing the present situation in which Muslims find themselves today, Iqbal’s soul must be feeling extremely restless. Alas! There is no Iqbal today among Muslims who can guide the Muslim Ummah against the forces that are bent on its destruction. But the Muslim Ummah can also be torn apart due to internal conflicts.
In fact, this is what is happening to Muslim Ummah today. Probably, there are no people in the world today who have been as divided as Muslims. They are divided along religious, political, ethnic, cultural, racial, linguistic, and sectarian lines. These divisions extend further into subdivisions. Status, wealth, fame, and fortune have also created social differences among Muslims.
Muslims are divided at the root into Sunnis and Shias. Sunnis are further divided into Hanafi, Maliki, Shaafai, and Hanbali. Shias too are divided into Kesania, Zaidia, Imamia or Ithna ‘Ashari, Ismalia, etc. Sunnis are also divided into Ahle-hadith and Ahle-fiqha. In the Indian subcontinent (at least) Ahle-fiqha are further divided into Deobandis and Barelwis. Similar differences exist in other places as well. Are all these divisions and differences schools of thought as many Muslims claim? Whether or not we admit it, these differences and divisions do create physical, emotional, and psychological barriers amongst us. Iqbal says that these differences create prejudice in human beings:
"Shajar hay firqa arayee, ta’assub hay samar iska
ye wo phal hay jo jannat se nikalwata hay adam ko"
"These divisions are the branches of a tree; its fruit is prejudice. This is the fruit which gets Adam (man) expelled from Jannah (peaceful life)."
Although in North America we do try to work together (despite our religious differences) in a civilized manner, but our brothers and sisters back home are not that fortunate. There, these differences sometimes lead to violence and killings. Why is that despite clear warnings of the Quran and the Sunnah of the Prophet (PBUH) against it? Is it due to the prejudices that are the inevitable results of our divisions, as Iqbal mentions in the above poem?
With all these divisions and differences, can we progress in the world? Iqbal does not think so:
"Firqa bandi hay kaheen aur kaheen zatein hain
kya zamane mein panapne ki yahee batein hain"
"Somewhere are religious divisions and somewhere are differences based on caste. Is this the way to prosper in the world?"
He further says:
"Tum syed bhi ho Mirza bhi ho Afghan bhi ho
tum sabhi kuchh ho batao ki musalman bhi ho"
"You are Syed; you are Mirza; you are Afghan. You are everything. Tell me, are you Muslim too?"
Here Iqbal uses the word "Syed" to represent the caste system that has penetrated Muslims (especially in the Indian subcontinent because of Hindu influence). He uses the word "Mirza" to represent the ruling elite and the word "Afghan" to represent the differences in Muslims based on region, language, and race.
All these differences are anti-Qur’anic. When Iqbal poses the question, "Tell me, are you Muslim too?" he implies that those who feel proud and superior compared to other fellow Muslims because of these labels attached to their names (and not because of Taqwa), they are not entitled to be called true Muslims.
Qur’an says that those who create differences in the Deen (Islam) are among the Mushrikun:
"Be not among the Mushrikun i.e., those who create differences in Deen (Isalm) and become sects. Each (sectarian) party quite content with itself (that it is following the correct path)." (30:32)
"And those who create division in Deen (Islam) and become divided into sects, O Prophet (PBUH)! You have no part in them in the least." (6:159)
The Prophet (PBUH) is reported to have said:
"Anyone who gets even one feet away from the Ummah has taken out the Islamic yoke from his neck, even if he prays and fasts."
That is why Qur’an calls upon all Muslims to be united and hold on steadfastly to the rope of Allah (i.e. Qur’an) and gives a stern warning to them not to create any divisions (3:103) amongst themselves.
If we look at the global picture as a whole, we find that the number of Muslims has grown steadily to more than a billion today. Muslims possess the richest resources of the world and the most fertile lands of the earth. In spite of this, how ironic that the most vulnerable and the most dependent people on earth are also Muslims.
Coming to the religious level, we find that the number of mosques is growing everywhere. The number of Muslims going to mosques is also increasing. The number of Muslims performing the annual pilgrimage increases every year, and in fact, has to be controlled to restrict the number. The number of Muslim organizations has been growing steadily. Whenever some differences arise among Muslims in one organization, they create another one and build another mosque. Noticing such an abundance of religious fervor among Muslims, Iqbal was led to say:
"Masjid to banadi shab bhar mein imaan ke hararat walon ne
man apna purana papi hay barson mein namazi ban na saka"
"Those with fervor in their faith built the mosque in a night, but the heart is sinful and did not prostrate in years."
Now, let us come to the real question. In spite of all the speeches and the sermons exhorting Muslims to unite, we see that the result is disappointing, to say the least. Why is that? The only way to diagnose this problem is to find the root cause according to Iqbal.
We will have to go deeper into our hearts to find out the root cause of our problems. If we look only at the outside, then just like a tree, we will see its trunk, the branches, and the leaves. And if the roots have become infected with a disease, no matter how strong the rest of the tree is, sooner or later it is going to die. Actually, its demise may be hastened even by a moderate wind. No amount of nourishment given to the branches and leaves will help prevent its final demise.
Obviously, the source to which we must turn to find out the root cause of the problem must provide the necessary guidance to diagnose it. According to Iqbal, the necessary guidance to diagnose all our (not just Muslims’ but entire humanity’s) ills is contained in the Qur’an:
"Wahi derina bimari wahi namuhkami dil ki
‘ilaj iska wahi aabe nishat angez hay saaqi"
"It is the same old disease, the same psychological problem of the heart. The cure is also the same, ‘Aab-e-Nishat’ i.e., the Qur’an."
Qur’an says:
"O mankind! There has come to you a guidance from your Lord and a cure for the disease in your hearts." (10:57)
Thus according to Qur’an and Iqbal, the disease of all our problems lies in our hearts and therefore, the cure should also begin there. Iqbal says:
"Zaban se kah bhi diya la ilaha illah to kya hasil
Dil-o-nigah Musalman naheen to kuchh bhi naheen"
"What can you accomplish by saying la ilaha with your tongue? If your heart is not a Muslim, then it is nothing."
That is, the Iman should enter the depths of the heart. Simply saying that I believe is not enough, according to the Quran (49:14).
The Qur’an says:
"Among human beings are those who say ‘We believe in Allah and the Last day;’ but they are not among the Momins." (2:8)
Those born in Muslim families cannot claim to be Momins (just like the bedouoins of Arabia) unless Iman has entered their hearts.
"The bedouins say, ‘We believe,’ (O Rasool) Say to them that you don’t believe, but you have accepted to surrender (to Islam) and Iman has not yet entered the depths of your hearts." (49:14)
Also, Iman is not blind faith. The Qur’an clearly says that Iman becomes strong only with knowledge,
"And that those on whom knowledge has been bestowed may know that (Qur’an) is the Truth from your Lord, so that they may believe in it and their hearts may be made humbly (open) to it." (22:54)
Therefore, the heart must be kept humble and open, so that Iman acquired by the mind (knowledge) may enter the heart. Iman cannot enter those whose hearts have disease and those who have sealed and hardened their hearts (22:53).
Qur’an says the Momins have dignity and power over others:
"If you are Momins, then you will have dominance and power." (3:139)
And unbelievers will never be able to subdue and dominate Momins:
"And never will We grant to the unbelievers victory and domination over Momins." (4:141)
Obviously, if we as Muslims compare ourselves with these very clear verses of Qur’an, then we have to come to only one conclusion that we are not among the Momins which the Qur’an talks about. Majority of our hearts are not open and humble. In fact, Qur’an tells us that instead of making the heart open and humble, there are some who let their emotions and ego control them. It says:
"Have you seen the one who has taken his own emotions as his god." (25:43)
Iqbal says regarding this type of person:
"Zabaan se gar kiya tauheed ka da’wa to kya hasil
banaya hay bute pindaar ko apna khuda tu ne"
"What is the benefit if you claim with your tongue in oneness of God? You have made your emotion an idol and taken it as your god."
How many of us (besides practicing the five pillars) are willing to go deep down in our hearts and honestly admit that we follow our emotions more often than we follow Allah (i.e. Book of Allah)? Allah demands total and complete surrender of our wills:
"O you who believe! Enter in Islam completely." (2:208)
Therefore, the problems which we Muslims are facing today are the outward symptoms of the root cause, i.e., the internal friction in our hearts between obedience to Allah and obedience to our own emotions and egos. And it is this internal conflict that is referred to as the disease of the heart by the Qur’an. Iqbal too espouses this same theme of the Qur’an when he says:
"Batil du-ee pasand hay haq la sharik hay
shirkat miyan-e haq-o-batil na kar qubool"
"Batil (as opposed to Haq; the Truth) likes to compromise but Haq is uncompromising. Do not accept the middle ground between Haq and Batil."
Therefore, as long as we Muslims keep compromising the TRUTH contained in the Quran, there is no hope for a cure of our collective mental, psychological, and emotional ills. We do not know how many psychological, emotional, and mental forms of idols we carry all the time in our hearts and minds. Qur’an demands us to cleanse and purify our hearts from all kinds of Ilah. These subtle forms of shirk are addictive and like a slow poison have a deadening effect on our hearts and minds. Iqbal in his unique God given style says:
"Dile murda dil naheen hay ise zida kar dobara
ki yahee hay ummaton ke marge kuhan ka chara"
"The deadened heart is not a heart. Make it alive again. This is the only way to cure the age old diseases of nations."
How to revive and resuscitate the dead heart; Iqbal says it is only possible through Qur’an:
"Gar tu mi khahi Musalman zeestan – neest mumkin juz ba Quran zeestan"
"If you wish to live the life a Muslim, then it is not possible except by the Quran."
‘Aisha (R) said: "The Prophet (PBUH) was a walking Quran." Thus the Sunnah is to live by the Quran and not just read it for earning reward for the hereafter.
Iqbal says about our Sahaba (R):
"Wo mu’azziz they zamane mein Musalman hokar
aur tum khwar huey tarike Quran hokar"
"They had dignity and power in the world because of Islam. And you are suffering humiliation and defeat because you have left the Qur’an."
Quran says that our Prophet (PBUH) will complain to Allah:
"And the Prophet (PBUH) will say: "O my Lord! Truly my people took the Quran for just foolish nonsense (i.e., they left the message of the Quran)." (25:30)
But Iqbal also emphasizes that there are plenty of roadblocks in the path of the Quran. No less is the roadblock presented by some religious scholars in the name of Islam. Iqbal says:
"Khud badalte naheen Quran ko badal dete hain
huwey kis darja faqeehane haram be taufiq"
"These people don’t change themselves but they change the Qur’an (by their interpretations). How unfortunate are these custodians of haram (Islam)."
He further says:
"Ahkam tere haq hain magar apne mufassir
taaweel se Quran ko bana sakte hain Pazhand"
"O Allah! Your guidance is no doubt The Truth. But our interpreters can turn Qur’an into Pazhand by their interpretations."
[Pazhand is the book compiled by the followers of Zoroaster which according to them is the interpretation of Avesta, the book of Zoroaster in which his followers inserted their own thoughts.]
And finally, Muslims should always keep in front of them the following verse, which describes the law for change:
"It is a fact that Allah does not change the condition of a people unless they bring about change in their own selves." (13:11)
Iqbal echoes exactly the same message of the Quran in his own God given style when he says:
"Khuda ne aaj tak us qaum ki haalat naheen badlee
na ho jisko khyal aap apni haalat ke badalne ka"
Let us conclude with the folowing message of Iqbal:
"Manf-e-at ek hai is qaum ki nuqsaan bhi ek
ek hi sab ka nabi deen bhi iman bhi ek
harame paak bhi Allah bhi Quran bhi ek
kuchh bari baat thi hote jo Musalman bhi ek"
"There is one common gain and one common loss for all Muslims. (Remember the Prophet’s hadith that all Muslims are like a body.) One Prophet (PBUH) for all and one Iman for all. One Ka’aba, one Allah and one Qur’an for all. How great it would be if Muslims also were one!"
Let us pray to Allah to unite our hearts in the path of Islam. It is Allah’s promise that if we do that, then we will regain our dignity, power, and glory (24:55). And Allah does not break His promise (2:80).
[republished with author's permission from www.tolueislam.com]

Allama Iqbal on Ahmadism
Allama Iqbal on Ahmadism
On the appearance of Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru's three articles in The Modern Review of Calcutta, I received a number of letters from Muslims of different shades of religious and political opinion. Some writers of these letters want me to further elucidate and justify the attitude of the Indian Muslims towards the Ahmadis. Others ask me what exactly I regard as the issue involved in Ahmadism. In this statement I propose first to meet these demands which I regard as perfectly legitimate, and then to answer the questions raised by Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru. I fear, however, that parts of this statement may not interest the Pandit, and to save his time I suggest that he may skip over such parts.

It is hardly necessary for me to say that I welcome the Pandit's interest in what I regard as one of the greatest problems of the East and perhaps of the whole world. He is, I believe, the first Nationalist Indian leader who has expressed a desire to understand the present spiritual unrest in the world of Islam. In view of the many aspects and possible reactions of this unrest, it is highly desirable that thoughtful Indian political leaders should open their mind to the real meaning of what is at the present moment agitating the heart of Islam.

I do not wish, however, to conceal the fact, either from the Pandit or from any other reader of this statement, that the Pandit's articles have for the moment given my mind rather a painful conflict of feelings. Knowing him to be a man of wide cultural sympathies, my mind cannot but incline to the view that his desire to understand the questions he has raised is perfectly genuine; yet the way which he has expressed himself betrays a psychology which I find difficult to attribute to him. I am inclined to think that my statement on Qadianism - no more than a mere exposition of a religious doctrine on modern lines - has embarrassed both the Pandit and the Qadianis, perhaps because both inwardly resent, for different reasons, the prospects of Muslim political and religious solidarity particularly in India. It is obvious that the Indian Nationalist whose political idealism has practically killed his sense for fact is intolerant of the birth of a desire for self-determination in the heart of North-West Indian Islam. He thinks, wrongly in my opinion, that the only way to Indian Nationalism lies in a total suppression of the cultural entities of the country through the interaction of which alone India can evolve a rich and enduring culture. A nationalism achieved by such methods can mean nothing but mutual bitterness and even oppression. It is equally obvious that the Qadianis, too, feel nervous by the political awakening of the Indian Muslims, because they feel that the rise in political prestige of the Indian Muslims is sure to defeat their designs to carve out from the Ummat of the Arabian Prophet a new Ummat for the Indian prophet. It is no small surprise to me that my effort to impress on the Indian Muslims the extreme necessity of internal cohesion in the present critical moment of their history in India, and my warning them against the forces of disintegration, masquerading as Reformist movements, should have given the Pandit an occasion to sympathize with such forces....

Only a true lover of God can appreciate the value of devotion even though it is directed to gods in which he himself does not believe. The folly of our preachers of toleration consists in describing the attitude of the man who is jealous of the boundaries of his own faith as one of intolerance. They wrongly consider this attitude as a sign of moral inferiority. They do not understand that the value of his attitude, is essentially biological. Where the members of a group feel, either instinctively or on the basis of rational argument, that the corporate life of the social organism to which they belong is in danger, their defensive attitude must be appraised in reference mainly to a biological criterion. Every thought or deed in this connection must be judged by the life-value that it may possess. The question in this case is not whether the attitude of an individual or community towards the man who is declared to be a heretic is morally good or bad. The question is whether it is life-giving or life-destroying. Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru seems to think that a society founded on religious principles necessitates the institution of Inquisition. This is indeed true of the history of Christianity; but the history of Islam, contrary to the Pandit's logic, shows that during the last thirteen hundred years of the life of Islam, the institution of Inquisition has been absolutely unknown in Muslim countries. The Qur'an expressly prohibits such an institution: "Do not seek out the shortcomings of others and carry not tales against your brethren." Indeed the Pandit will find from the history of Islam that the Jews and Christians, fleeing from religious persecution in their own lands, always found shelter in the lands of Islam. The two propositions on which the conceptual structure of Islam is based are so simple that it makes heresy in the sense of turning the heretic outside the fold of Islam almost impossible. It is true that when a person declared to be holding heretical doctrines threatens the existing social order an independent Muslim State will certainly take action; but in such a case the action of the State will be determined more by political considerations than by purely religious ones. I can very well realize that a man like the Pandit, who is born and brought up in a society which has no well-defined boundaries and consequently no internal cohesion, finds it difficult to conceive that a religious society can live and prosper without State-appointed commissions of inquiry in so the beliefs of the people. This is quite clear from the passage which he quotes from Cardinal Newman and wonders how far I would accept the application of the Cardinal's dictum to Islam. Let me tell him that there is a tremendous difference between the inner structure of Islam and Catholicism wherein the complexity, the ultra-rational character and the number of dogmas has, as the history of Christianity shows, always fostered possibilities of fresh heretical interpretations. The simple faith of Muhammad is based on two propositions-that God is One, and that Muhammad is the last of the line of those holy men who have appeared from time to time in all countries and in all ages to guide mankind to the right ways of living. If, as some Christian writers think, a dogma must be defined as an ultra-rational proposition which, for the purpose of securing religious solidarity, must be assented to without any understanding of its metaphysical import, then these two simple propositions of Islam cannot be described even as dogmas; for both of them are supported by the experience of mankind, and are fairly amenable to rational argument. The question of a heresy, which needs the verdict whether the author of it is within or without the fold, can arise, in the case of a religious society founded on such simple propositions, only when the heretic rejects both or either of these propositions. Such heresy must be and has been rare in the history of Islam which, while jealous of its frontiers, permits freedom of interpretation within these frontiers. And since the phenomenon of the kind of heresy which affects the boundaries of Islam has been rare in the history of Islam, the feeling of the average Muslim is naturally intense when a revolt of this kind arises. That is why the feeling of Muslim Persia was so intense against the Bahais. That is why the feeling of the Indian Muslims is so intense against the Qadianis.

It is true that mutual accusations of heresy for differences in minor points of law and theology among Muslim religious sects have been rather common. In this indiscriminate use of the word Kufr, both for minor theological points of difference as well as for the extreme cases of heresy which involve the excommunication of the heretic, some present-day educated Muslims, who possess practically no knowledge of the history of Muslim theological disputes, see a sign of social and political disintegration of the Muslim community. This, however, is an entirely wrong notion. The history of Muslim Theology shows that mutual accusation of heresy on minor points of difference has, far from working as a disruptive force, actually given an impetus to synthetic theological thought. "When we read the history of development of Muhammadan Law," says Professor Hurgronje, "we find that, on the one hand, the doctors of every age, on the slightest stimulus, condemn one another to the point of mutual accusations of heresy; and, on the other hand, the very same people with greater and greater unity of purpose try to reconcile the similar quarrels of their predecessors." The student of Muslim Theology knows that among Muslim legists this kind of heresy is technically known as "heresy below heresy," i.e. the kind of heresy which does not involve the excommunication of the culprit. It may be admitted, however, that in the hands of mullas whose intellectual laziness takes all oppositions of theological thought as absolute and is consequently blind to the unity in difference, this minor heresy may become a source of great mischief. This mischief can be remedied only by giving to the students of our theological schools a clearer vision of the synthetic spirit of Islam, and by reinitiating them into the function of logical contradiction as a principle of movement. in theological dialectic. The question of what may be called major heresy arises only when the teaching of a thinker or a reformer affects the frontiers of the faith of Islam. Unfortunately, this question does arise in connection with the teachings of Qadianism. It must be pointed out here that the Ahmadi movement is divided into two camps known as the Qadianis and the Lahoris. The former openly declare the founder to be a full prophet; the latter, either by conviction or policy, have found it advisable to preach an apparently toned down Qadianism. However, the question whether the founder of Ahmadism was a prophet the denial of whose mission entails what I call the "major heresy" is a matter of dispute between the two sections. It is unnecessary for my purposes to judge the merits of this domestic controversy of the Ahmadis. I believe, for reasons to be explained presently, that the idea of a full-prophet whose denial entails the denier's excommunication from Islam is essential to Ahmadism; and that the present head of the Qadianis is far more consistent with the spirit of the movement than the Imam of the Lahoris.

The cultural value of the idea of Finality in Islam I have fully explained elsewhere, Its meaning is simple: No spiritual surrender to any human being after Muhammad who emancipated his followers by giving them a law which is realizable as arising from the very core of human conscience. Theologically, the doctrine is that: the socio-political Organization called "Islam" is perfect and eternal. No revelation the denial of which entails heresy is possible after Muhammad. He who claims such a revelation is a traitor to Islam. Since the Qadianis believe the founder of the Ahmadiyyah movement to be the bearer of such a revelation, they declare that the entire world of Islam is infidel. The founder's own argument, quite worthy of a medieval theologian, is that the spirituality of the Holy Prophet of Islam must be regarded as imperfect if it is not creative of another prophet. He claims his own prophethood to be an evidence of the prophet-rearing power of the spirituality of the Holy Prophet of Islam. But if you further ask him whether the spirituality of Muhammad is capable of rearing more prophets than one, his answer is "No". This virtually amounts to saying: "Muhammad is not the last Prophet: I am the last." Far from understanding the cultural value of the Islamic idea of finality in the history of mankind generally and of Asia especially, he thinks that finality in the sense that no follower of Muhammad can ever reach the status of prophethood is a mark of imperfection in Muhammad's prophethood. As I read the psychology of his mind he, in the interest of his own claim to prophethood, avails himself of what he describes as the creative spirituality of the Holy Prophet of Islam and, at the same time, deprives the Holy Prophet of his "finality" by limiting the creative capacity of his spirituality to the rearing of only one prophet, i.e, the founder of the Ahmadiyyah movement. In this way does the new prophet quietly steal away the "finality" of one whom he claims to be his spiritual progenitor.

He claims to be a buruz of the Holy Prophet of Islam insinuating thereby that, being a buruz of him, his "finality" is virtually the "finality" of Muhammad; and that this view of the matter, therefore, does not violate, the "finality" of the Holy Prophet. In identifying the two finalities, his own and that of the Holy Prophet, he conveniently loses sight of the temporal meaning of the idea of Finality. It is, however, obvious that the word buruz, in the sense even of complete likeness, cannot help him at all; for the buruz must. always remain the other side of its original. Only in the sense of reincarnation a buruz becomes identical with the original. Thus if we take the word buruz to mean "like in spiritual qualities" the argument remains ineffective; if, on the other hand, we take it to mean reincarnation of the original in the Aryan sense of the word, the argument becomes plausible; but its author turns out to be only a Magian in disguise.
It is further claimed on the authority of the great Muslim mystic, Muhyuddin ibn Arabi of Spain, that it is possible for a Muslim saint to attain, in his spiritual evolution, to the kind of experience characteristic of the prophetic consciousness. I personally believe this view of Shaikh Muhyuddin ibn Arabi to be psychologically unsound; but assuming it to be correct the Qadiani argument is based on a complete misunderstanding of his exact position. The Shaikh regards it as a purely private achievement which does not, and in the nature of things cannot, entitle such a saint to declare that all those who do not believe in him are outside the pale of Islam. Indeed, from the Shaikh's point of view, there may be more than one-saint, living in the same age or country, who may attain to prophetic consciousness. The point to be seized is that, while it is psychologically possible for a saint to attain to prophetic experience, his experience will have no socio-political significance making him the center of a new Organization and entitling him to declare this Organization to be the criterion of the faith or disbelief of the followers of Muhammad.

Leaving his mystical psychology aside I am convinced from a careful study of the relevant passages of the Futuhat that the great Spanish mystic is as firm a believer in the Finality of Muhammad as any orthodox Muslim. And if he had seen in his mystical vision that one day in the East some Indian amateurs in Sufism would seek to destroy the Holy Prophet's finality under cover of his mystical psychology, he would have certainly anticipated the Indian Ulama in warning the Muslims of the world against such traitors to Islam.

II

Coming now to the essence of Ahmadism. A discussion of its sources and of the way in which pre-Islamic Magian ideas have, through the channels of Islamic mysticism, worked on the mind of its author would be extremely interesting from the standpoint of comparative religion. It is, however, impossible for me to undertake this discussion here. Suffice it to say that the real nature of Ahmadism is hidden behind the mist of medieval mysticism and theology. The Indian Ulama, therefore, took it to be a purely theological movement and came out with theological weapons to deal with it. I believe, however, that this was not the proper method of dealing with the movement; and that the success of the Ulama was, therefore, only partial. A careful psychological analysis of the revelations of the founder would perhaps be an effective method of dissecting the inner life of his personality. In this connection, I may mention Maulvi Manzur Elahi's collection of the founder's revelations which offers rich and varied material for psychological research. In my opinion the book provides a key to the character and personality of the founder and I do hope that one day some young student of modern psychology will take it up for serious study. If he takes the Qur'an for his criterion, as he must for reasons which cannot be explained here, and extends his study to a comparative examination of the experiences of the founder of the Ahmadiyyah movement and contemporary non-Muslim mystics, such as Rama Krishna of Bengal, he is sure to meet more than one surprise as to the essential character of the experience on the basis of which prophethood is claimed for the originator of Ahmadism.

Another equally effective and more fruitful method, from the standpoint of the plain man, is to understand the real content of Ahmadism in the light of the history of Muslim theological thought in India at least from the year 1799. The year 1799 is extremely important in the history of the world of Islam. In this year fell Tippu, and his fall meant the extinguishing of the Muslim hopes for political prestige in India. In the same year was fought the battle of Navarneo which saw the destruction of the Turkish fleet. Prophetic were the words of the author of the chronogram of Tippu's fall which visitors of Serangapatam find engraved on the wall of Tippu's mausoleum: "Gone is the glory of India as well of Roum." Thus, in the year 1799, the political decay of Islam in Asia reached its climax. But just as out of the humiliation of Germany on the day of Jena arose the modern German nation, it may be said with equal truth that out of the political humiliation of Islam in the year 1799 arose modern Islam and her problems. This point I shall explain in the sequel. For the present I want to draw the reader's attention to some of the questions which have arisen in Muslim India since the fall of Tippu and the development of European imperialism in Asia.

Does the idea of Caliphate in Islam embody a religious institution? How are the Indian Muslims, and for the matter of that all Muslims outside the Turkish Empire, related to the Turkish Caliphate? Is India Dar-ul-Harb or Dar-ul-Islam? What is the real meaning of the doctrine of Jihad in Islam? What is the meaning of the expression "From amongst you" in the Qur'anic verse: "Obey God, obey the Prophet and the masters of the affair, i.e. rulers, from amongst you"? What is the character of the Traditions of the Prophet foretelling the advent of Imam Mahdi? These questions and some others which arose subsequently were, for obvious reasons, questions for Indian Muslims only. European imperialism, however, which was then rapidly penetrating the world of Islam, was also intimately interested in them. The controversies which these questions created form a most interesting chapter in the history of Islam in India. The story is a long one and is still waiting for a powerful pen. Muslim politicians whose eyes were mainly fixed on the realities of the situation succeeded in winning over a section of the Ulama to adopt a line of theological argument which as they thought suited the situation; but it was not easy to conquer by mere logic the beliefs which had ruled for centuries the conscience of the masses of Islam in India . In such a situation, logic can either proceed on the ground of political expediency or on the lines of a fresh orientation of texts and traditions. In either case, the argument will fail to appeal to the masses. To the intensely religious masses of Islam only one thing can make a conclusive appeal, and that is Divine Authority. For an effective eradication of orthodox beliefs it was found necessary to find a revelational basis for a politically suitable orientation of theological doctrines involved in the questions mentioned above. This revelational basis is provided by Ahmadism. And the Ahmadis themselves claim this to be the greatest service rendered by them to British imperialism. The prophetic claim to a revelational basis for theological views of a political significance amounts to declaring that those who do not accept the claimant's views are infidels of the first water and destined for the flames of Hell. As I understand the significance of the movement, the Ahmadi belief that Christ died the death of an ordinary mortal, and that his second advent means only the advent of a person who is spiritually "like unto him," give the movement some sort of a rational appearance; but they are not really essential to the spirit of the movement. In my opinion, they are only preliminary steps towards the idea of full prophethood which alone can serve the purposes of the movement eventually brought into being by new political forces. In primitive countries it is not logic but authority that appeals. Given a sufficient amount of ignorance, credulity which strangely enough sometimes coexists with good intelligence, and a person sufficiently audacious to declare himself a recipient of Divine revelation whose denial would entail eternal damnation, it is easy, in a subject Muslim country to invent a political theology and to build a community whose creed is political servility. And in the Punjab, even an ill-woven net of vague theological expressions can easily capture the innocent peasant who has been for centuries exposed to all kinds of exploitation. Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru advises the orthodox of all religions to unite and thus to delay the coming of what he conceives to be Indian Nationalism. This ironical advice assumes that Ahmadism is a reform movement: he does not know that as far as Islam in India is concerned, Ahmadism involves both religious and political issues of the highest importance. As I have explained above, the function of Ahmadism in the history of Muslim religious thought is to furnish a revelational basis for India's present political subjugation. Leaving aside the purely religious issues, on the ground of political issues alone it does not lie in the mouth of a man like Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru to accuse Indian Muslims of reactionary conservatism. I have no doubt that if he had grasped the real nature of Ahmadism he would have very much appreciated the attitude of Indian Muslims towards a religious movement which claims Divine authority for the woes of India.

Thus the reader will see that the pallor of Ahmadism which we find on the cheeks of Indian Islam today is not an abrupt phenomenon in the history of Muslim religious thought in India. The ideas which eventually shaped themselves in the form of this movement became prominent in theological discussions long before the founder of Ahmadism was born. Nor do I mean to insinuate that the founder of Ahmadism and his companions deliberately planned their programme. I dare say the founder of the Ahmadiyyah movement did hear a voice; but whether this voice came from the God of Life and Power or arose out of the spiritual impoverishment of the people must depend upon the nature of the movement which it has created and the kind of thought and emotion which it has given to those who have listened to it. The reader must not think that I am using metaphorical language. The life-history of nations shows that when the tide of life in a people begins to ebb, decadence itself becomes a source of inspiration, inspiring their poets, philosophers, saints, statesmen, and turning them into a class of apostles whose sole ministry is to glorify, by the force of a seductive art or logic, all that is ignoble and ugly in the life of their people. These apostles unconsciously clothe despair in the glittering garment of hope, undermine the traditional values of conduct and thus destroy the spiritual virility of those who happen to be their victims. One can only imagine the rotten state of a people's will who are, on the basis of Divine authority, made to accept their political environment as final. Thus, all the actors who participated in the drama of Ahmadism were, I think, only innocent instruments in the hands of decadence. A similar drama had already been acted in Persia; but it did not lead, and could not have led, to the religious and political issues which Ahmadism has created for Islam in India. Russia offered tolerance to Babism and allowed the Babis to open their first missionary center in Ishqabad. England showed Ahmadism the same tolerance in allowing them to open their first missionary center in Woking. Whether Russia and England showed this tolerance on the ground of imperial expediency or pure broadmindedness is difficult for us to decide. This much is absolutely clear that this tolerance has created difficult problems for Islam in Asia. In view of the structure of Islam, as I understand it, I have not the least doubt in my mind that Islam will emerge purer out of the difficulties thus created for her. Times are changing. Things in India have already taken a new turn. The new spirit of democracy which is coming to India is sure to disillusion the Ahmadis and to convince them of the absolute futility of their theological inventions.

Nor will Islam tolerate any revival of medieval mysticism which has already robbed its followers of their healthy instincts and given them only obscure thinking in return. It has, during the course of the past centuries, absorbed the best minds of Islam leaving the affairs of the State to mere mediocrity. Modern Islam cannot afford to repeat the experiment. Nor can it tolerate a repetition of the Punjab experiment of keeping Muslims occupied for half a century in theological problems which had absolutely no bearing on life. Islam has already passed into the broad day light of fresh thought and experience, and no saint or prophet can bring it back to the fogs of medieval mysticism...

Allama Iqbal and Ghulam Ahmed Parwez on the creeping of Non-Arab (Ajami) ideas into Islam
By Agha Shorish Kashmiri

While reading the January 2006 issue of Tolu-e-Islam, I came across a review of the Late Shorish Kashmiri, Editor of the weekly Chattan-Lahore, on the well-known book of Mr. Ghulam Ahmed Parwez, Shahkare Risalat - the biography of Caliph Hazrat Umar Farooq. This review is brief but provides a deep thought provoking glance of the deliberations of Allama Mohammad Iqbal and Mr. Ghulam Ahmed Parwez on the creeping of the non-Arab (Ajami) ideas into Islam. I present its English translation for general public benefit. (Abdus Sattar Ghazali, California, USA).

Allama Iqbal, in his 5th lecture on the Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, says that this is not the way to prevent the decay of a nation that we give undue reverence to our previous history or try to recreate it through artificial means.

Allama (Iqbal) wrote in a letter to Chaudhry Mohammad Ahsan (See Iqbal Nama):

‘In my view the Ahadis related to Mehdiate and Christianity are the result of Iranian and non-Arab thoughts. They have no relations with the Arabic thought and the true Quranic spirit.’

In another letter to Molvi Sirajdin, Allama says: For several centuries, Muslims of Hindustan are under the influence of Iranian thought, they don’t have any exposure to the Arabic Islam, its objectives and mission.

Yet in another letter to Dr. Syed Yamin Hashmi, (See Anwaar-e-Iqbal compited by Bashir Ahmed Dar, P 192-193), Allama points out: ‘In my view, non-Arab thoughts are responsible for the destruction of Muslims in Asia. It is the duty of every Muslim to struggle (Jihad) against this. The influence of non-Arab thought is on religion, literature and day to day life.’

In another letter to Mohammad Deen Fouq, Allama says: ‘Arab Islam is a forgotten thing in Hindustan.’ (Anwaar-e-Iqbal p-66)

This line of Armaghan-e-Hijaz reflects this deep historical sense of Allama:
Ajam hunuz na danad ramuz-e-dein warna

(Non-Arabs still do not know the secrets of religion otherwise …)

The expectation from the above quotations was that the scholars of Iqbal should have written on this subject. They should have reviewed the impact of non-Arab thought on Islamic writings. Ironically, none of the Iqbal scholars thought about it or removed the biggest obstacle in the renaissance of Muslims. Most people believe that they were not capable of this, while some others had no courage because of financial or worldly interests.

**********

Two days ago, in the company of Maulana Taj Mehmood of Lyallpure, I met with a friend and the issue of non-Arab thought came during our discussion.

This friend referred to the latest book of Mr. Ghulam Ahmed Parwez, Shah Kar-e-Risalat (Umar Farooq) and recommended that this book is a must read for all scholars.

This book details and unveils all the non-Arab conspiracies that have been mentioned in the above-referred letters of Allama Iqbal. This big size book has 528 pages. In the 14th chapter of this book, about 100 pages detail non-Arab conspiracies, which is the gist of several thousand pages of history. This exhaustive chapter may be described as an independent and comprehensive book. Detail of every sub-topic is given. Hence no question remains unanswered.

These discussions provide answers to almost all questions that come into mind. Eventually, an inquisitive mind also finds some new points of thought.

***********

As far as the whole book is concerned, the scribe has not yet gone through it. Only chapter 14 is read. Obviously, a critique of the book can be written only after the study of the whole book, but after the study of the 14th chapter, I felt that:

(1) Through his pen, Parwez has highlighted the intellectual concern of Iqbal related to non-Arabs (thought) through historical facts.

(2) As I said earlier, it is difficult to give opinion about the whole book before its reading, but I dare to say that the 14th chapter is an analytical story of the political and intellectual difficulties in the history of Islam. It is the story of the plight of Islam at the hands of the whole non-Arab.

(3) Some prominent Ulemas and scholars may disagree totally or partially on certain issue or aspect; however the scribe has noticed a pleasant change in his jaundiced opinion about Parwez that was formed by the Fatwas of Ulemas.

Overall, leaving aside severe political extremism and personal prejudices, I will say that Parwez thinks with an Islamic historical perspective about the renaissance of Islam. His heart is in turbulence because of distortion in the history of Islam. He addresses the new generation on the basis of modern thought in order to remove its confusion.

(4) Discussions in the under review chapter has the following subjects:

- What was the secret of Muslims’ power?

- Beginning of the hidden (Secretive) movements to distance Muslims from the Quran and its consequence.

- Vanquishing of Iranand Romans and the differences between these victories.

- Embracing of Islam by the special unit of Yazdgar.

- Iranian reaction after the Qadsya battle.

- Migration of Iranians to Kufa and Basra.

- Two prominent fronts of non-Arab conspiracy.

- Jugglery of traditions.

- The issue of khalafat.

- Political implications of the right of inheritance (of power).

- The concept of Iranians about their kings.

- Abdullah Ben Sabah.

- The faith of the return of Masih or Mahdi.

- The concept of Imamat, according to Ahadith.

- Distinction between belief (eemaan) and disbelief (kufr).

- Hazrat Salman Farsi.

- Tussle between Banu Umayya and Banu Abbas.

- Sadats and Alvis.

- Abu Muslim Khorasani.

- Brameka

- Walemi (Bani Boya) government

- The Shia period of Baghdad.

- The end of Abbaside period.

- After how long the Iranians took revenge of the Qadsia battle.

- The foundations of Islam.

- Different sects and their fabricated ideologies.

- Distortion of the Quran.

- Hidden meanings.

- The concept of Muhaddith (appearance of a reformer).

- Collectors of Hadith.

- Impact of non-Arab belief on Sunnis.

- Doubts and misconceptions about collection of the Quran.

- The status of Hadith.

- Who was Ibne Jarir Tabri?

- Islam was no longer “deen� but became religion (meaning of the Quranic verses related to Khalafat changed).

- Separation of religion and politics.

- The end of the possibility of legislation (or interpretation as Shafei school declared that all laws are present in ahadith).

- Revival of the capitalist system.

- The concept of fate.

- The reality of mysticism (sufisim).

- Ibn-e-Arabi.

- The foundation of mysticism.

- Authority for the hidden knowledge (to Imam or Mohaddas).

- Attack of non-Arabs on Jehad.

- Cure of those ailments which have been inflicted on the Muslims collectively.

(5) An atmosphere has been created about Parwez in the religious circles persistently that he does not believe in Hadith. But he clarified his belief in a very lucid way, after which, in my view, this issue has been resolved.

This scribe is justified in asking the Ulama that:

- Imam Bukhari collected 600,000 ahadith and after sorting them out he kept only 2762 in his collection.

- Imam Muslim found 300,000 ahadith and trusted only 4348.

- Imam Tirmizi collected 300,000 and kept only 2115.

- Imam Abu Daud collects 500,000 and keeps only 4800.

- Ibn-e-Maja collected 400,000 and kept 4000.

- Imam Nisai collected 200,000 and trusted 4321.

Then what is the reason that Parwez’s character is being assassinated on the accusation that he does not believe in Hadith?

Parwez does not recognize those Ahadith which are against the teachings of the Quran and which have no connection with the sayings of the Prophet (PBUH). Such Ahadith were fabricated to serve the interests of kings after the end of Khilafat-e-Rashda (The period of the first four caliphs); or non-Arab conspiracy attributed them towards the Prophet (PBUH).

Our Ulama, through their barrage of attacks, cannot ignore this important issue which is the current topic of the history of Islam and crops up in our new generation’s mind. On the other hand this is not an issue of kufr (disbelief) and Islam.

What is the thinking of the new generation? Parwez represented this thinking and removed the pile of non-Arab dust from Islam through his intellectual endeavour.

Some people may not tolerate this. But it is not appropriate that knowledge may be stalled or blocked through angry accusations.

(6) Mr. Parwez, in this chapter, also gave explanation about his belief. He says:

‘I am neither Sunni nor Shia. I am not related to any sect. I am a student of the Quran. My belief, rather my conviction is that this great book of God is the only authority for Deen. It is the only standard to distinguish between right and wrong (truth and falsehood). In my view, any belief, ideology, idea, school of religious thought that is contrary to this (book i.e. Quran) is not right, despite the fact that this (belief etc.) is attributed to any of our respected elders. If any of such belief is attributed to any of the respected elders, who belong to any sect, I will humbly say that such attribution does not seem to be true. They might not have said this.’ P-499

After this explanation, there is not justification for a campaign against Parwez. The saying of any prominent religious personality which is contrary to the Quran has no value and it is obligatory on a Muslim that he should reject this.

Shahkar-e-Risalat, is an excellent book from the point of view of topic and printing. Its reading stimulates thinking and opens new channels of thought. It is a book about the exemplary and commendable Islamic political system.

In the words of Allama Iqbal, he wished for the realization of this system in his life.

The biography of Muslim mind may be the most appropriate name this book.

Ae Zouq Is Jahaa’n Ko Hai Zeib Ikhtalaf (Zouq, Diversity if beauty in this word).

We have differences with Mr. Parwez on several issues, about after reading this book, we found great respect for him.

Whatever Iqbal aspired to say about non-Arabs (distortion of Islam), Shahkar-e-Risalat is actually an intellectual and historical embodiment of this wish.

Take back Fatwa against Parwez

Editor Chatan is not privileged to meet Mr. Ghulam Ahmed Parwez personally, but after reading his great book Shahkar-e-Risalat, the editor of Chatan is convinced that this book will prove an asset in hereafter for him. Allah will place Parwez with those Ulama who dedicated their lives to Islam in every period.

Every human being commits mistakes. May be at any point his pen might have erred. But there is no doubt that he is a sincere Muslim. He is a great scholar of the Quranic thought.

I emphatically appeal the Ulama that they should not become victim of petty controversies and must read Shahkar-e-Risalat.

In view of Ulama’s learned opinion, if Mr. Parwez has committed any mistake about religion, he should be politely informed so that his sincere mind can re-evaluate its shortcomings.

However, the fact of the matter is that in the Karbala of Islamic thought, Parwez is also a voice of the Hussaini Caravan. And Ulama should take back their Fatwa against him.

[Published in the May 13, 1974 issue of the weekly Chattan-Lahore.]

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A great article indeed and a very detailed, realistic and superb analysis of the current and past scenarios.

bhai jan in main kahin darmyan main comma hi daal daitay . takeh pata chal jata k yahan misra/she`ar khatam ho raha hay.