Dr Muhammad Maroof Shah

Here is the basis for ethics on which all traditions are united; transcendence of lower self to subsist in the divine self. Why are prophets sent? To perfect ethics: "I was sent to perfect your ethics," the Prophet (SAW) said. As has been remarked “Not other things, only morality. He doesn't say 'your education, your medicine, your technology.’” Ethics is said to be the First Philosophy by philosophers from Socrates to Levinas. Hikmah may be understood as philosophy if this moral dimension link is kept in view. The end of art also converges with that of ethics.       How are sacred scriptures, wisdom traditions and ethics linked? How many books and commentaries on sacred texts should be read for right knowledge? What is the right path? Can’t we state it in clear terms and stop wrangling over niceties of doctrine? How to know the most important kernel of the Quran and Sunnah or of other traditions? Iqbal says that “Qalandar juz do harfi la illa kuch nahi rakhta/

Beshara Movement: Responding to the Mess in Responses to Religion Today. The West has its own way of engaging with religion and spirituality, and a lot of New Religious Movements find their home there. Neo-Sufism, in its New Age dress, has especially making new converts amongst the intellectual elite. Beshara, a New Age Religious movement, seeking to express the most universal and modern aspects of Sufism, has been a presence to contend with. It has made use of Sufism without Sha’riah or religious framework. It has irritated traditionalists, mainstream Sufis and advocates of those who have been suspicious of Sufism for its vulnerability to such a reading. However, there are other ways of approaching Beshara, learning from it and critically engaging with it. Isn’t it puzzling that people, often speaking, fail – and have failed - to follow Sha’riah, as usually understood? If we go by the sermons in the mosque, over 95% Muslims can be tried in Sha’riah courts or by morality police of a

Do we have a culture now? What is culture and what is civilization, and the difference between the two? Even our better educated class is conscious of the difference between the two and what this means for quality of life we live. Broadly speaking we have been pursuing a march to civilization at the cost of culture and don’t know the middle point that marries both of them – this is the mandate Islam has proposed for itself. This thesis has been brilliantly argued in a classic work Islam between East and West by former Bosnian President Alija Izatbegovic, one of the really great scholar-intellectual-statesmen of the Muslim world.       Culture signifies everything that relates to man as something more than merely biological or material entity. It is poles apart from what is called civilization and is an expression of religious or spiritual self of man. Everything cultural ultimately has its grounding in man’s yearning for what transcends man as biological creature or individual ego

Most of us have travelled far from our houses or towns but who can claim that he or she has journeyed within? I once imagined an angel in charge of Heart’s Embassy complaining God that he be retired as he has no or only very occasional applicants to attend to. The answer from God  was “Don’t be impatient; every person is your client. I have directed another angel to make them restless for visiting the farthest though nearest placeless spaces through trackless paths.” And that has indeed been the case. We are all restless, hankering after love or love’s celestial mansions that are innumerable. Cupid has struck us all and fortunate are those who have been struck so hard that they have dropped dead like moths. All education that the school of life offers us unasked is variation on the theme of perfecting the art and science of love. Learning to love unconditionally, love everything as the Friend in disguise, transcend the lust that wants to possess and not give away everything one has c