Dr Muhammad Maroof Shah

Faith is the most important treasure of life, religions unanimously assert. Why? Because it helps us achieve our full potential or perfection as humans and makes us participate in all the joys, beauties, peace, blessings that life has to offer. Faith, as the opening verse of the Quran makes clear, opens up access to the God of Mercy. Faith is good news that we are somehow cared, that all things march toward perfection, that nothing is ultimately jarring. All is a symphony. It is a great festival of lights that the world is, to which faith invites us. There is no greater wine than the Wine of Love that God is for the faithful. Faith is an insurance against all despair, all anxieties, all disheartening things, all disasters that life could have in store for us. Faith and gnosis are the greatest goods we really crave for. But the question is why is faith, genuine faith so rare today and thus we are bombarded by all kinds of existential, psychological, social and other problems. One reaso

Let Muslim scholars write more universal histories, like Ibn Khaldun attempted, without anxiety to show Islam in the background or foreground. Many spots on the moon are named after Muslim scientists. Over 500 stars have names originally Arabic as have Algebra, Chemistry and many instruments we routinely use. Muslims made homes for old and abandoned animals and used money from Awqaf to treat and feed them. Even cats whom we often despise had separate buildings. Muslim pioneered bird hatcheries. Muslims wrote over hundred books on horses alone. Muslims invented gunpowder, compass, many techniques in bee keeping, modern floriculture and made countless discoveries in sciences from gravitation to mechanism of vision. Discussing hundreds of such interesting things that most of us don’t know, and succeeding in further convincing (if someone doubted) us about our current decay and past glory, but only tangentially touching on deeper reasons, metaphysical or philosophical that made such gl

We all believe that khaesh (myself) comes first, then dervaish (the other, the stranger). We evaluate in terms of mine against thine. Love for possessions, for power, for status based on this primordial error. And this is the most fundamental basis for the politics that has destroyed the world. AAP(Aam Admi Party) privileged aap over mai or hum. That partly explains ecstatic welcome to its victory. Even ricksahwallas thought that they now participate in Chief Ministership. The question is can we put the other party, the other’s advantage or aap ki “interest” above one’s party or “interest.” To talk about one’s interest (to be differentiated from what Plato calls enlightened self interest or Iqbal calls Khudi ) is a sin against God, against Holy Spirit, against all the prophets. Let me explain. All traditions from Far Eastern to Indian, Judeo-Christian, Islamic, African and Native American unanimously privilege the other in relation to the self. In fact all traditional philo

Opening up of the first Art Gallery in Kashmir is great news, not just for art lovers but also for all of us who believe art is an important aspect of education and life and none can claim to be literate who is ignorant of art. Many art forms are often assumed to be alien to Islam, a misperception forcefully dispelled by Mualana Abul Kalam Azad in the concluding lines of his great work Gubar-i-Khatir. Islam, like other traditions, has regulated expression of art and not banned it. In fact Islam employs art physics and theology by calling God Beauty or Beautiful and advocating love of beauty whether it is in nature, in souls of prophets and saints or in any object of utility made for consumption or object of art made for contemplation. Islam has cultivated rich tradition of art that is no less important than Fiqh and requires art education for spiritual development of every Muslim by emphasizing the principle of perfection – Ihsan . One can find emphasis on art in traditional calligra

I think two things explain this: Woeful art illiteracy of the people in general and philosophy of art illiteracy in most of the artists Our artist friends complain that they don’t receive proper recognition, and hardly anyone is interested in visiting art gallery recently opened in Srinagar.  Visitors, or masses, complain that the art works of contemporary artists don’t speak to them, or they fail to comprehend them. Why this disconnect? I think two things explain this: Woeful art illiteracy of people in general and philosophy of art illiteracy in most of artists. People hardly know anything about art (we don’t teach art in schools, generally speaking) and can be classified with colour blind or beauty blind  group. Those artists who think art is a profession and art works need to be exhibited, or sold, or personality of artist be expressed or art needn’t imitate archetypes or communicate well to all who are interested are ignorant of First Principles art exemplifies. They fail to u

Kashmiris are famously charged with Pir parasti . And this Pir parasti is associated with a host of beliefs and practices that we need to take into account. The question is how do we understand or engage with local narrative.  Our dismissive rejection or wholesale embracing of this narrative is what we are often supposed to choose while living in Kashmir. Given ideological polarization and often huge costs hidden in these choices we need to be better informed about what exactly constitutes local narratives and how far one can wish it away if one chooses to. Salafis and others who find some problems with local narrative need to come up with informed critique of a culture deeply informed by this narrative. Such an informed analysis of this local narrative has not been made by our historians or culture experts. And this means a lot for people searching for self-identity in the times that find identities politically problematic and seek to fracture such attempts at self-definition. Here

Life is an enigma for him and he is in search of someone, perhaps a master, to unravel it to him If art is sacrifice (yajna), form of prayer, a discipline calling for contemplation and certain moral standards for the artists though not for the art itself, we can spot only few artists around. Today art is an ideology, a thing to be exhibited and lobbied for awards, a commodity one can purchase. No wonder genuine artists and poets whom Plato thought are taught by God are rare, or not better known.  A genuine poet can’t be proud, he can’t brag, he can’t be accused of “straying in every valley” as his ethics, his faith in transcendence are there to keep him on the track.  He carves a space in our hearts. Kazantzakis once remarked that “God is the Ah that comes when seeing any beautiful thing.” I think the criterion of genuine poetry is our spontaneous Ah on encountering it. This is made possible by marriage of profound thought and deep feeling besides a command over form. All these poi