This was left as a comment (by Shuja Mirza) on the article “Danish cartoons and the sacred” at Islam from inside. However, being such a comprehensive (traditionalist) comment and conveying so expressively the fall away from metaphysical connectedness that the article only touches upon, I felt it deserved to be highlighted in a separate forum. […]
“Contemporary philosophical anthropology does not have the capacity to speak of a “fall” because it does not accept any reality beyond man himself – so there can be no talk of a fall from, or ascent to, that reality. In the mythological view of things and due to the levels of existence that it […]
A number of readers, both of this blog and of “Islam from inside” have requested information on the availability of “Existence and the Fall” by Hamid Parsania - snippets from the book appear scattered through many of the “Islam from inside” articles. The full book title is: Existence and the Fall: Spiritual anthropology of Islam”. […]
“God is He who created seven heavens and of the earth a similar number. Through them all descends His Command: that you may know that God has power over all things, and that God comprehends all things in His knowledge.” (65:12)
Every higher level surrounds, envelops and comprehends the levels lower than it. Every lower level […]
“O Ali, Since mankind seeks to come near to their Creator through all kinds of piety, bring yourself close to Him through activities of the intellect, so that you may arrive there before all of them.” (hadith of the Prophet)
Many follow religion as a formula, a series of ceremonies that have been handed down to them and which are followed without full depth of understanding. There is comfort (and a benefit) in performing rituals but the goal of a ritual is not the ritual itself. Ceremonies and rituals are symbols, they are indicators, or […]
We cannot be fully human if we touch upon our humanity when looking inward (to our own peoples) but place it aside when we turn to face outwards.
The Qur’an places the responsibility and moral burden of sadaqa (and of compassion towards those who suffer) upon individual Muslims - it makes each of us responsible for acting to relieve the suffering of those in difficulty. This is perhaps because it does not want to transfer such duties entirely to institutions, to lock it […]
“Use the intellect that examines, that penetrates into matters…and not just the intellect that repeats what it hears, for surely there are many that repeat the knowledge that they hear, and there are precious few who examine it deeply.” (Imam Ali - Nahjul Balagha)
“A single attraction from God outbalances all the efforts of men and jinn” (Prophetic hadith)
One glance….
“I put my trust in God, My Lord and your Lord! There is not a moving creature, but He has grasp of its forelock. Verily, it is my Lord that is on a straight Path.” (Qur’an 11:56)
There is no one that God has not taken by the forelock. The forelock was sometimes used as an […]
All truths in this world are partial truths since as limited beings we are (through our limitations) restricted to seeing things from one perspective or the other. We have trouble reconciling opposites and differences since our perspective is limited by the ever-present reality of our many limitations. Total illumination in which there is no error […]
“Say…Who encompasses the hearing and the sight?…” (Qur’an 10:31)
Man rises to knowledge only through the faculties given to him by God, that is, the various senses, the ability to think and reason, and the potential for subtle and deep insight. Even the ability for these senses, such as the sense of sight, to function, is […]
We can witness the light of the sun only by means of the light of the sun…. so God says, “When My servant draws near to me, I become the means by which he sees….” (Sayyid Haydar Amuli)
“…there has never been any dispute amongst the prophets and messengers with regard to the foundations and pillars of religion, then one should realize too that if differences do occur in the details and branches of the law, then these differences are of quality or quantity and do not indicate any difference in the essence […]
Again, a condensed excerpt from Murtaza Mutahhari’s “Fundamentals of Islamic Thought: God, Man, and the universe”. This is taken from the section on science and faith:
“Does our science carry us in one direction and faith in another? Or do science and faith fulfill and complement one another?…. Science shows what is; faith inspires insight into […]
Here is Mutahhari’s condensed presentation of the “argument from attributes” - the definition of Divinity and its properties leads to recognition of the necessity for God’s unity and uniqueness and the impossibility of multiple divinities. I’ve edited it down to a few lines - the full text can be found in “Fundamentals of Islamic Thought“.
From […]
I was recently re-reading my heavily underlined and dog-eared copy of Murtaza Mutahhari’s excellent “Fundamentals of Islamic Thought: God, Man, and the Universe” (a book which should be more widely used as a fundamental primer text on Islam) and thought I ‘d post a few bits and pieces taken from its contents. This particular section […]
Symbols, texts, iconic personages, and rituals are the architecture, the geometry, the symbolic worldly aspect, the formalized representation of metaphysical realities and of the human connection to these realities. For Muslims, the Prophet is the human representation of the writing of the Divine pen. He is the one on whose heart God wrote His revelation […]
“Unlike the traditional ulama, who never go beyond the texts that they read, the modern intellectual will be able to read deeper into the text in a critical, imaginative manner.” (AbdolKarim Soroush)
Actually, among the traditional ulama there are many who “read deeper into the text” albeit more cautiously and using different tools than “modern intellectuals” […]
“Modernity is characterized by the questioning of everything, of all that we once held dear and inviolable. It opens the way to plurality and diversity, but it can also be seen as a challenge to the worldview of the past.” (AbdolKarim Soroush)
I wish there were some truth in this definition - if there truly were […]
Islam from inside (recent posts)