By Dr. Mohammad Akram Nadwi People often confuse the intensity of an experience or feeling with the reality and authenticity of that experience or feeling. This applies very much to religious and devotional exercises. Both these can induce states of minds like trance or even unconsciousness. Because of the emotional intensity, people who get into such states can become convinced that they reached a high, spiritual station. In reality, they did not; what they did was to escape and absent themselves from normal life and its normal responsibilities. Because the normal life, by comparison, lacks colour and intensity, people can…
View More Religious emotion and self-knowledgeCategory: Thinking
Wisdom, Good Instruction and Argument
By this link: What is the meaning of the verse: “Invite to the way of your Lord with wisdom and good instruction, and argue with them in a way that is best.” ? I replied: You would have achieved real success were you to truly understand the meaning of this verse, for most people have neither understood it properly nor applied it correctly. Know that inviting to our Lord’s way (daʿwah) is only realized with two fundamental characteristics: wisdom (all of which is praiseworthy and not restricted by any other thing) and instruction (which is qualified with being ‘good’ since…
View More Wisdom, Good Instruction and ArgumentHow to motivate yourself for study?
By Dr. Mohammad Akram Nadwi Eating is possible but difficult and unpleasant when you have no appetite. Similarly, study is difficult and unpleasant when you have no curiosity and no puzzlement in respect of what you intend to study. Curiosity and being puzzled constitute the appetite for knowledge and understanding. Where curiosity exists, any knowledge obtained will prove to be digestible and beneficial, and therefore likely to be more easily remembered and integrated to other elements of knowledge. Without curiosity, new knowledge and information are simply a distraction or entertainment and therefore soon forgotten. Similarly, where there is no puzzlement,…
View More How to motivate yourself for study?The True Meaning of Study
By this link: Something has confounded us and as you are our teacher, can you please remove for us the confusion and clarify for us the correct way to look at it? I said: I have never spared any effort in clarifying what is right and explaining, in revealing the truth and lifting the veil. So what is it that you find difficult and whose reins escape you? They said: We live in a developed age and an advanced time, in which everything has become easy and paths are well-trodden. Sciences are easily attainable and art and literature are readily…
View More The True Meaning of StudyReflections on the theory of evolution as a cultural dogma
By Dr. Mohammad Akram Nadwi The theory of evolution of all species from a common ancestor, with no special distinction for humankind, spills over from the domain and concern of specialists in biology. It does so because the theory is often promoted as something we have to believe. This upsets religious believers who have a quite different understanding of the origin of humankind. The difference on this point should not lead to mutually intolerant hostility and rejection if the believers’ account of the origin of humankind is understood in relation to its religious purpose, and the scientists’ account of it…
View More Reflections on the theory of evolution as a cultural dogmaWho Taught You How to Think? An Introduction to Maulānā Shahbāz Iṣlāḥī
By this link: What is critical thinking? I replied: The faculty of critical thinking is basically the process of analogical deduction, which consists of drawing order and connection between things and matters, linking the known with the unknown, and that which is understood with that which is less understood. Sound critical thinking emanates from the correct ordering and precise linking between different issues, such as causes with their effects; results with their reasons or rationale; starting premises with their end results; and fundamental principles with their subsidiary, peripheral issues. This must be done such that the path and link through…
View More Who Taught You How to Think? An Introduction to Maulānā Shahbāz Iṣlāḥī