Regis Debray Growls at a World in Chaos, Spiritual Meditations, NewAgeIslam.com

Spiritual Meditations

Regis Debray Growls at a World in Chaos

To engage in a conversation with Regis Debray, one of France's most stimulating public intellectuals, is to expose oneself to an avalanche of unorthodox ideas. From the study of his fourth-floor apartment in the Latin Quarter he casts a disabused glance at the chaos assailing the world from all sides. Aeons ago, after disastrous stints in the company of Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, he renounced all craving to change the course of history through an armed, left-wing revolution. His flirtations with democratic socialism first with Chile's Salvador Allende and later with Francois Mitterand of France also proved to be short-lived.

Once he bade farewell to any direct truck with the political establishment, Debray devoted all his time and energies to what he believed was his true vocation: writing. Over the past quarter of a century his output novels, extended essays, columns in the press, books on art, religion and 'medialogy' (a discipline he claims to have forged) has been prolific. Each publication generated fierce controversy. His critics, especially on the left, have damned him for promoting ideas that they think belong to another, reactionary age: the importance of the state and nation, the need for a robust national identity, the role of religion in human affairs and so forth.

Debray, now touching 70, asserts time and again that he has been, remains, and will be a materialist, an agnostic, a man of the left but with a Gaullist underpinning. In his most recent book, The Fraternity Moment, he rails against what he calls the 'religion of the contemporary West'. The central beliefs of this 'religion' relate to activism about human rights; a preference for unabashed individualism to the detriment of the common good; an endorsement of the market ideology as the be all and end all of human progress; a condescending attitude towards other faiths and cultures in the name of pluralism and tolerance; a subservience to the 'videosphere' (where the image reigns) at the cost of the tried and tested value of the 'graphosphere' (where the printed word is supreme.)

http://newageislam.com/regis-debray-growls-at-a-world-in-chaos/spiritual-meditations/d/2241

IBN TAYMIYYAH: THE FATHER OF ISLAMIC RADICALISM?, Radical Islamism and Jihad, NewAgeIslam.com

Radical Islamism and Jihad

IBN TAYMIYYAH: THE FATHER OF ISLAMIC RADICALISM?

By Emdad Rahman

BOOK LAUNCH: : Toynbee Hall in East London was the venue as Professor Yahya Michot from the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies launched his much awaited and debated book on Ibn Taymiyyah.

For leading enlightened Western academics, Muslim modernists and 'progressives', Ibn Taymiyyah is considered the godfather of uncompromising violent Jihadism. For the modern day 'Jihadi', the life and works of Taqi-Uddin Ahmad ibn Taymiyyah (d. 728/1328) are regarded as sources of inspiration. Perhaps one of the most misunderstood and misquoted scholars, he and those claiming to follow his school of understanding today, have been accused of anthropomorphism, enmity towards people of spirituality or Tasawwuf, and creedal deviation from mainstream Sunni Islam.

Ironically, Ibn Taymiyyah lived at a time very similar to ours, where Muslims in certain regions lived under non-Muslim rule, i.e. lands occupied by the Mongols and the Crusaders, and with various Muslim factions vying with one another to gain credibility with the Establishment.

In his book 'Ibn Taymiyya: Muslims under non-Muslim Rule", Professor Michot overturns this conventional and somewhat simplistic picture of Shaykh Ibn Taymiyyah.

During the book launch he examined the life, work and jihad, and present close and

careful translations of the four 'Mardin fatwas' issued by Ibn Taymiyyah on how Muslims should respond when they come under non-Muslim rule. Should they fight or quit such rule? If they have to adjust to it, what form should this take and to what extent should this be? The inconsistent and oft unfair accusations of deviancy levelled against Ibn Taymiyyah were also addressed in a scholarly manner.

http://newageislam.com/ibn-taymiyyah--the-father-of-islamic-radicalism?--/radical-islamism-and-jihad/d/1288

Is Science Another Of Those Fanatical Religions?, Spiritual Meditations, NewAgeIslam.com

Spiritual Meditations

Is Science Another Of Those Fanatical Religions?

By Professor B. M. Hegde

June 17, 2012

“Intellectual integrity made it quite impossible for me to accept the myths and dogmas of even very great scientists, more particularly of the belligerent and so-called advanced nations. Indeed, those intellectuals who accepted them were abdicating their functions for the joy of feeling themselves at one with the herd.”— Bertrand Russell 1872-1969.

Is science really serious when scientists claim that only science is authentic and all else is unreal? Has science lost its heart? Is science another of those fanatical tight-knit religions? Why is science being sold as the only route to human wisdom? Eons before modern science of the West came into being humankind existed here with all the wisdom which we claim we have today.

Science and technology in ancient India, China and Egypt have had their hoary past. Some of the leading western scientists paid their obeisance to the wisdom of those civilisations. Many of them have admitted that they built their views sitting on the shoulders of some of the thinker-philosophers of yore! In the true sense of the word, science is only a method to understand the working of this universe. In that sense, science is a great exercise, but to sell science as the be-all and end-all of human wisdom to the exclusion of all other fields of knowledge is the height of foolishness and short-sightedness. It is that institution of science that one has to shun.

In fact, science, as it is being practised now, is a highly materialistic enterprise. Consequently, it wants to maintain its hegemony and grip on the establishment. Any criticism of science is frowned upon even by the laypeople who have been thoroughly brainwashed to believe that science has the legitimate right to supremacy in this world. Some of the material comforts of technology like communications, transportation and electricity have added proof that the science base of these technologies is to be venerated. Scientists are so deluded by their invincibility that they have no patience to listen to any other view. There is no debate in this arena. As long as there is no debate, there will be no progress.

http://newageislam.com/spiritual-meditations/professor-b.-m.-hegde/is-science-another-of-those-fanatical-religions?/d/7657

Osama’s war and Indian Muslims

Osama’s war and Indian Muslims

Gujarat blasts, Muslim fears

Aijaz Zaka Syed - Arab News

Unfortunately, there is a real dearth of honest and informed leadership in the community. Those who have a public voice and are taken seriously in the establishment rarely look beyond their own narrow partisan agenda to provide leadership to the community. And those who really care for the community are too isolated from the mainstream to carry their voice to the larger Indian society. Many of them see these serious issues facing the community as of no concern to them.

http://www.newageislam.com/osama%E2%80%99s-war-and-indian-muslims/islam,terrorism-and-jihad/d/481