An Account of the Invocation of Jinns, Angels and Souls

Captain Black Beard's Ghost!

This article presents translations of important excerpts from the chapter titled "An Account of the Invocation of Jinns, Angels and Souls", from the book "Irfan" by Hazrat Faqir Noor Muhammad Sarwari Qadri Kalachwi (RA). This book was first published in 1942. It has two parts. Both parts also  have translations in English. The urdu version of the first volume can be read here and English version can be read here.

This is in response to the materialist views of the atheists who claim that once we die, we live in an eternal oblivion. The purpose of presenting this translation has many aspects but it is indeed not intended as a possible rebuttal. This is meant to give some food for thought to the present-day, and future, scientists, and intellectuals and to help them form concrete notions of any possible human afterlife. It is also advisable that this article be read in connection with, and preferably after reading, On Afterlife and Islamic Spirituality.

For the past one hundred years science of invocation of souls , which is called spiritualism, is published and practiced among the Europeans, it is much celebrated there. And this science has acquired a form of a worldwide religion over there. In the USA tens of millions of people believe and follow this religion and this religion has spread all across Europe. And there is not a single country in Europe where this religion's numerous spiritual gatherings, huge organizations, large scale societies, thousands of lecturers and hundreds of practitioners known as mediums are not present. Credible doctors, chemists, scientists, philosophers and even members of parliament are special members of these organizations and societies. There are plenty of daily newspapers and weekly magazines in Europe that publish the achievements of these spiritual organizations for the general public. Thus, in London "psychic news" is a famous newspaper which has a huge audience. And there are plenty of news papers that are publishing about this science. There are colleges for its education. Proper education of the science is given in London and "The British College for Psychic Science, London" is a big college for this science…. (continued)

The circles and gatherings that are established for the invocation of souls in Europe are called spiritual seances, spiritual circles, spiritual sittings. In these spiritual gatherings a medium's presence is extremely necessary and the success of the whole circle or gathering depends upon him/her. Medium is such a person upon whom some soul gets appointed naturally. Although now is colleges this spiritual excellence (mediumship) is somehow acquired but normally mediums become to be so naturally by birth, 

The Fox house in Hydesville

In these circles three persons sit around a table. One among them is the medium and the other two are his/her helpers. Rest of the people are spectators. Sometimes these gatherings are conducted successfully with hundreds of people. Thus, souls come and go in these gatherings. They talk, show faces, they transport physical objects in and out of closed locked rooms. They play drums, they take the medium out of the closed room. They touch the bodies of the attendees to make their presence felt. They make signs and write excerpts on walls. Rather this science has progressed so much there that with sophisticated photographic equipment and plates pictures of spirits can be taken which are photographed. Souls come and deliver lectures in these circles and gatherings and their voices are recorded on tapes. Thus, so many strange things are done that leave human wisdom dumbfounded and material wisdom and science is unable to explain it.

Casa Da Familia Fox

Here, for the purpose of keenness of the reader, I (the author) would like to describe  a brief history of this science. Initially when, where and how this science started and how did this gain tradition in the agnostic, atheistic countries of Europe.    The first strange incident of this science happened in 1846 in a village named, Hadesville, in the USA the detail of which is that in the town of Hadesville a man named Weekmaan used to live. In the house, rappings were heard for a few successive nights. The people of the house became so frightened of these invisible and unnatural voices that after a few months they left the house. After they left another man named John Fox settled in this house with his wife and two children. They also started hearing the same rappings in this house. When they informed the villagers of these voices the villagers rushed for the discovery of these voices. They learnt that an invisible hand and an unnatural object produced those rappings. A person named madam Fox told the people that some soul was responsible for this and that this was a soul of a traveller who was murdered, whose name was Sharl Ryan (I might be wrong in interpreting the name of the person correctly, but this was my guest guess). The story is that a few years ago this man appeared in this village while he was traveling and roaming around and stayed in that house for a night. Some other person who was staying in that house already, killed him out of his greed for former's possessions and money. When the news of those rappings spread most people started ridiculing this incident of spiritualism. Some even said that it was a white lie. This could never happen. After this poor John Fox, along with his family, moved out to another town named Rolter. News spread in this town and he became a subject of that town's atheists and materialists ridicule. People of Europe have a distinguishing feature that when ever they see and experience a new phenomenon, all of them start researching about that and do not abandon the subject unless they gain some knowledge about it. When the discussion of this incident gained momentum in Rolter, the people of that town sent a committee of scholars for inquiry over there for three times. But the committee could not reach at a decision and the townspeople made John Fox and the scholars a subject of their criticism and ridicule. For the newspapers all of the accounts became a source of entertainment and they ridiculed them a lot. But in the mean while strange spiritual incidents of this type started happening and rigorous research ensued and when the health of this science was proved then only in four years the knowledge of this problem spread in all of the USA very quickly and with much intensity and it became well known everywhere. Thus, people started using those rappings as ticks and clicks of the telegraph system and everywhere spiritual gatherings and circles established. People used to sit around a big table along with the medium. One person used to read out the alphabetical letters. When upon reaching the desired letter a rapping would be heard, they would make note of that letter. Like this they would collect all the letters, such as in the case of telegraph, and form words and phrases from them to see a complete utterance of what the soul had desired to say or a complete answer to a specific question. Like this initially the process of conversation with the souls began. 1854 had not yet finished when Washington's parliament took responsibility of research of these unnatural events. Meaning that after eight years of the mentioned incident Washington's members of the parliament themselves focused their attention to the research of it. The reason was that a rather long application with fifteen thousand signatures was presented to the members of the parliament. The application is as follows:

We, the signatories of the following, residents of the united states of America, beg to state that some unnatural and unusual incidents are occurring for a few days in this country and in various parts of Europe. These incidents appear mostly in northern, southern and central america. Nothing becomes known about these incidents. Common public is completely perplexed, bewildered and anxious. Because the purpose of this application is to gain attention of you people, that's why we state a few accounts of these incidents in this application:

1) These thousands of wise people have witnessed a hidden force that gives motion to huge and heavy bodies and completely topples them around. That is apparently against the laws of physics and is out of the common human knowledge and power. Up until now no man has been able to explain these incidents. 

2) In a dark room a light of different shape and color appears. Even though that room does not have any such substance in it before that is chemically reactive or is ignitable like phosphorous.

3) The strangest thing about these incidents which needs attention is that different types of sounds appear in the house. Sometimes such rappings are heard that point towards the presence of an invisible wise being. Sometimes machine or factory-like sounds are heard. Sometimes sound of a severe blizzard is heard. Sometimes such a voice is heard as if when a tide hits a wall due to wind. Sometimes a loud knock and cannon-like sound is heard of the intensity that nearby houses echo and vibrate. Sometimes this voice is like a human voice. Sometimes the voice of a horn-blow is heard from that house even though there is no such instrument in that house. It feels as if a harmonium, or a gramophone, or a sitar or a Saarangi (a string instrument) or horns gather by themselves in the house and start blowing. Nobody plays them. Sometimes these sounds are heard without the presence of horns. And all of these voices are produced according to the laws of physics the description of which is according to acoustic undulations. And they properly reach our ears. Researchers have tried hard to know the producers of these sounds but they have not been successful in their pursuit so far. We find it pertinent to describe the two principles here which are considered mandatory to solve this difficulty. First is that all of these incidents have been related to souls of men. (I am missing a sentence here because I don't think that I can translate it near to perfection). The explanation of this was done by its hidden force itself when it was asked about the question. Second renowned personalities of our country accept this. But other renowned personalities reject it saying that its research should be done under the power of the sciences of visibility so that the actual reason for the occurrence for these incidents could be known. We do not hold agreement with this last suggestion because after our research we have reached a conclusion that there is something that is against what can be called the reason for these incidents. We earnestly request you people that these events that are happening are completely true and certain. And their research and inquiry for the benefit of humanity is (….) required. Therefore your attention is extremely needed. Can every wise person not understand that perhaps the research of these incidents may produce an important result that may be beneficial for the literary, material and intellectual condition of the inhabitants of America? Something that may change out principle of economy al together? And may correct our faith and our philosophy? And that it could change the nature of our educational system?

We people, for the research of problems that may produce an important result for collective existence, consider it important to consult the gathering of you people for the betterment of our collective system. We, the compatriots, have come here to request you with extreme humility to guide us about these strange incidents. It would be good if you form a research committee for this no matter how much money is spent on that. We have a firm belief that whatever the committee will do, its results will provide the best benefits to our collective existence. We people have a hope that your respectable gathering will definitely accept our humble but important application.

After this the parliament of Washington made a research committee for this, which after research and inquiry announced the feasibility of this. After this, this knowledge spread all over united states of America. So much so that by 1898 the followers of this religion reached the count of twenty million. In 1870 common spiritual gatherings were 20, important gatherings were 150 and there were 207 lecturers and 22 mediums. One of the famous scholars of this was Professor "Admone" (This is how the pronunciation in Urdu translates to English. I suppose that the author intended to mention John W. Edmonds, but this is only a guess) who had been selected in the parliament many times. Professor Robert Hare of the United States of America wrote a book about this. Similarly professor Robert Dale Owen wrote a book titled "Boundaries of the Invisible World" in America. By the end of the last century there were almost 22 such newspapers that used to publish the achievements of such committees and organizations for the common people.

All of these scholars used to do research about this so that they could save the people from going astray. Because Allah Almighty had bestowed them with the knowledge of Physics, mathematics, science and philosophy. Scholars in England also indulged in the research of this when the news about the researches regarding this event reached the ears of the British.

Therefore the educational society of England, which was established in 1867, suggested in one of its congregations, that was held on 6th December 1869, that a committee be formed for the research of this type of spiritual incidents that will inform the people about the correct circumstances. Therefore, this committee remained busy in research and inquiry for 18 successive months. When after its research it announced the feasibility of the spiritual incident, the British nation was astonished. Professor Wallace wrote a book named "spiritual wonders". Among these scholars were a few who were staunch opponents of this science and that included Dr. George Sexton. He left opposition of this and read about this for 15 years. He says that after reading and experimentation I developed firm belief on the religion of spirituality and during my moments of research I had conversations with my demised relatives, elders and friends. Dr. Sawmarace (or possibly Chalmers), Dr. Haggen, and professor Myers etc. also researched about this. They established a "Society for psychical research" which used to publish a magazine ".... of the souls". It used to publish the research work concerning these types of unnatural incidents and events.

Like America and England, an interest in scholars of France also developed about this and like this science of spiritualism spread in Germany, Russia, Italy, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Holland, Sweden etc. and in all of Europe there are numerous societies and organizations about this science and numerous books on this have been written and newspapers and magazines are busy about publication of this science. The point is that in all of the Europe this science is clearly established. If we describe the comprehensive practices , the reality, and detailed accounts of this modern European science of spirituality, then it will constitute a separate huge book. Anyhow the important and mandatory details are listed here for addressing the curiosity of the keen reader. Although this dervish (the author) has never had a chance to sit in any of these types of spiritual circles and neither in our country Pakistan there is any such spiritual organization or society. But I have done a keen study of spiritualism and I have performed a comprehensive research on as to what sort of souls are these which these people invoke and considerable literature and many books concerning this science have crossed my eyes. It is important to discuss this science here because our youngsters, who are fans of new enlightenment, are so much mad about following the Europeans that they consider each and every word and action  and every ideology and belief of Europeans to be above and better than divine revelation. Bare this in mind that life after death and existence of soul and the issue of its reward and punishment etc. has become a firm belief and a certain ideology of your materialist priests of Europe and the British sages. But you are still riding on the devilish donkey of atheism and you are racing it towards the hell. If you have any doubt on our knowledge of invocation of souls, we don't mind that. You will after all agree with the beliefs and ideologies of your materialist priests. In which are included your renowned philosophers, doctors, scientists and wise politicians. If you find it hard to believe what we say then you can read these writing for yourself. And if you are not satisfied even then, you get a chance to go abroad for higher education in fields such as law, science, physics, engineering, etc. You can go and see for yourselves by taking part in those spiritual circles to testify what we say. But you people have the same plight over there that if you get a chance to spare time from your studies, you spend it on reading novels, viewing theaters and dance clubs and when you come back to your country you bring a paper permit to fill and empty your stomachs with food while sitting on the same donkey of atheism. And if by mistake someone talks to you about God and his prophet (may Allah's peace be upon him) and religion you show your irritation by saying that don't talk to us about these obsolete issues in this time of education and enlightenment. It is a pity that how heartlessly you commit murder of the wisdom and even upon doing this you are called wise and enlightened. Now we shall present forth you a few practices and the reality of this spiritual science. In our country also there is not a single city where this type of invisible and unnatural voices are not produced and this type of unusual events and incidents do not happen. We people abandon such houses for ever by considering them houses of ghosts and jinns and nobody dares to live in them. Moreover, in our country there are numerous mediums, upon whom some soul is attached naturally or from birth. We overlook these mediums considering some shadow of a jinn or a ghost or a disease. The difference is only that the Europeans, who are extremely brisk, have researched and inquired about this thing and created a series of communications with it, have derived beneficial results from it. And they have progressed it to the degree of a proper science and skill.  But we, like the inhabitants of the America's Hadesville village, are still running away from this, and still we have not moved one step further from its initial milestone. Our people of virtue and sages of the religion have, in their times, have shown such astonishing and unbelievable exhibitions of that. Today's European spiritual practitioners have no reality in front of them. And they hold, in front of the former, value less than infants. But we have pride as if son of a sultan is also sultan. And we are putting scars on the names of our dear sages with our impure and filthy selves. We are drowned from our head to feet and still we have pride and illusion about being close to God. We beg in streets and door to door but still we claim to be the contractors of the heaven. We cannot take care of our torn clothes and lice but the euphoria of being called the best Ummah is riding on our heads. We have become a statue of abjection and pity but the ecstasy of sacredness and piety rides so high in the head that it never gets off. The result is that our undeserving ummah is drenched in such a nervous disease from which there is little hope of resurrection. May Allah Almighty have mercy on this dead ummah. According to the Europeans there are three main principles of acquiring this knowledge: The first is meditation. The second is to focus the imagination and thoughts on a single point that is called concentration. Third, there are many ways of communicating with their senses. But the special and major methods are listed below:

The Ghosts Can Do It!

1) First, a huge table is made for this purpose below which there are wheels and that starts moving and rotating with a little force applied by the soul. Or there develops a tension in it around which sits a medium along with his/her two helpers and audience sit nearby. In every circle and meeting the presence of a medium is important and the soul gets imposed naturally on this medium. Initially the soul is invited to come in the circle. This is called as a guide spirit and through this other souls are invoked. In order to invoke the soul the medium has to go into unconsciousness, which is called a "trance" in English. The medium either imposes trance on him/her-self by self concentration, or he/she goes in a trance with the help of a helper who, with the magnetism of hypnotism makes the medium unconscious. In such a situation the soul or ghost to be imposed comes and gets imposed on its head. After this the process of dialogue and conversation begins with the soul. Dialogue and conversation initially commences like the  ticks and clicks of the telegraph. Meaning that a single rap can imply affirmation and a two raps imply a negation. One person asks the desired question on the table and the souls one time click is considered a "YES" and a double click is considered a "NO". 

2) A more developed form than this is that when the soul is imposed on the medium and the table starts revolving and moving and rappings start to be heard then one man reads alphabetical letters on the table and on which letter they hear a knock, that letter is written down on a paper by a person and like this whatever letters are collected are used to form words and phrases to get the answer to their questions and to get what the soul has to say. This is done when the imposed soul is educated. 

3) On the table a heart-shaped piece of wood is made that has a long end like a pointer. It has three wheels underneath it so that they can start moving with a little force of the soul. Medium places its both hands on this heart-shaped cow-tail wood and the helpers also occasionally place their fingers on the medium's hands so that a connection can be established with the soul. Alphabets are written in front of the table and the soul enters the body of the medium and turn by turn, from the 30 letters of the alphabet, points one by one with the end of the cow-tail stick and one person on the table copies these alphabets. Similarly the alphabets that are collected are used to form words and phrases like in the case of the telegram. 

4) The medium keeps a pencil in his/her hand and the soul gets imposed on him/her and gives it an unintentional (on behalf of the medium) movement to write what it, the soul, intends on paper or slate. This is the job of a more elevated medium and an educated soul. 

5) A pencil and papers are placed in an empty box and the medium places his/her hand on this and those papers automatically get written by the soul's intended writeup.

6) The sixth method is that the soul speaks from the mouth of the medium and answers the questions. Addresses the attendees and delivers lectures. Sometimes the soul adopts a physical and bodily shape and appears, touches the attendees, topples the things, rings bells, plays horns and drums. Sometimes it takes the medium away too. Brings things out of the locked rooms and takes the things that are out inside. The crux is that it does strange and weird things which are out of the scope of the material wisdom and knowledge and science and philosophy have not been able to explain them and human wisdom is unable to apprehend this knowledge.

Below are written some incidents of these spiritual scholars which happened with their interactions with the souls:

1) The first incident: A German medium namely Dr. Sirpox describes about his state that I tried to write on a paper 19 times through a soul and all of my sittings went in vein. But the 20th time when I sat for invocations, I felt a (……) and an unintentional motion in my hand. After that a cold gust of wind touched my face and hand. After this my hand started flowing on the invisible writeup and I started writing unintentionally the things about the world (or space) of the souls. The logic for this is that while writing down the spiritual things, I used to talk to the people sitting with me and my hand kept on writing the spiritual reasonable things. 

2) The second event: William Crookes writes that I saw a practitioner Aanis Fox that he would write a spiritual excerpt on one place and at the same time he would dictate some other topic to some medium and at the same time with a third man he would very easily argue about some third conflicting topic. 

3) A practitioner's statement is that he saw a boy who used to do mediumship. He was completely ignorant about education and civility. At the time of imposition of the soul he inquired him about problems of philosophy, logic and spirituality, for example, he inquired him about problems of invisible world, intention and ability, and gave comprehensive answers about all of these problems in extremely scholastic excerpts. Even though he did not know anything about these domains. 

4) Fourth Event: Research was done about a girl that upon imposition of the soul she knew eight different languages, for example, French, Spanish, Greek, Italian, Portuguese, Latin, Hindi and English. Even though she actually only knew English.

5) Fifth Event: William Crookes states that in a spiritual circle in which Mr. Home was the medium Florence Cook's soul appeared in her exactly physical and apparent form and I conversed with her by shaking hands with her.

6) Baron Glastow writes that on the 13th of the water month (I don't  know which month that is) 1886 I placed a white paper and a pencil in a locked box and kept the key with me and there was no limit to my astonishment that when I opened it I found it written. Then on the same day I tested the same process ten times and I was successful every time and the box would lay open in front of me and statements would themselves be written in front of me. After that I placed a white paper in front of me on the table without a pen and that was found written in front of me.

An incident of this dervish is that once upon a time this dervish was staying with a friend of his in Khushab. Some of his friends brought to me an old man and said that this man has a shadow of some jinn or ghost upon him since a long time. Please cure him so that this shadow should leave him and go away. Our people have this habit that they try to get rid of these ghosts. Thus, some commercial practitioners invite the spellbound and beat and torture him badly. Nonetheless, that old man was sat in front of me. That old man's whole appearance changed and his face became immensely scary and horrible. So much so that in that gathering who ever he would look at he would start shivering. At last that old man started reciting mantras of sanskrit language with such clarity as if he was some sage or pandit. He joined his hands and begged me: "Mahaaraj have mercy on me. I am a Hindu yogi. Peace be with your two sons (I had two sons at that time). I am your cow. Don't say anything to me." He did a lot of pleading like this. At last, in order to make me happy, he made a few foretelling statements that came out to be true verbatim afterwards. After that he asked me if he could leave. Thus, I told him to go and the old man took a long yawn and came back to his original form. When that old man was asked that if during the imposition of  ghost and the soul he remembered anything, he said that at that time he would become oblivious of everything and neither his ability or intention remained. Whatever speaks or does is the jinn or the soul that gets imposed on me. After that he also told that this soul never imposed on him with this much intensity. Because of its imposition my whole body aches. 

Thus human body is like a utensil and safli and alvi (spirituality specific jargon words) souls gets dissolved in it as if in a utensil a liquor, for example water, scent or pigment, acquires the shape of the utensil. 

In Europe in order to invite and invoke souls a few voluntary acts are done that serve as spiritual diet and food for them and they are drawn attention towards so that they come easily in spiritual circles easily and quickly. Included in these things is music also. Due to this, on one hand, the self of the medium gets attracted towards the world of the souls. Secondly, the souls love music. They get attracted to such parties and gatherings easily where music is played. Third, fragrance, for example smoke of bakhore is blowed and flowers are placed. This also helps in the invocation of the souls. Fourth, the houses in which the souls are invoked are kept relatively dark. Or red light is turned on in the houses.

Now we write in relation to these invisible things as to what is it that these people invoke. So this is to be remembered that in invisible worlds and delicate spiritual worlds the lowest and the most inferior world is that of the "aalam-e-naasoot's" (again Islamic spirituality specific jargon) asfalest world which is the home of all the "safli" selves. In these jinn, ghosts, devils and "safli" souls live. The latifa nafs (the psychospiritual organ) in the human self is the most resemblant and close to these "safli" creatures. The person whose self has resemblance with any one of these invisible "naasooti" creatures, then sometimes by gaining opportunity that matching creature, through jinn devils and "safli" souls, enters and dissolves into this person. And by making a permanent home in that persons self resides there forever. And just as a bird comes to its nest, this soul comes inside the human body often. And when one soul makes room and place for itself in it, it becomes a home and place for various other devilish and "safli" souls. And when this type of a soul enters a human self (the word here is wajood, which probably means the mind, body and soul). then it acquires its whole body, heart, brain and senses. And it exits and pushes out the actual self al most at the same time out of it. And that occupying soul talks, walks, thinks, understands, and works. This is the reason that in Europe the mediums for these "safli" souls are normally women and in our country also women are normally ghost-ridden and men are very few. Because women's hearts and brains are normally weak. Therefore, jinn devils and "safli" souls occupy the selves of them relatively easily. This "naasooti" world of the jinns, devils and the "safli" souls is the closest to us relative to the other subtle invisible worlds and our selves are normally in this world while we are dreaming. Jinn, devils and "safli" souls sometimes become a cause of such bodily and nervous illnesses that somehow cannot be treated by any means. This is the reason that people who take up the profession of mediumship in Europe normally do not have good health. But because the europeans have made this conquering of souls a profession, they perform trade with this. Therefore everyone who enters a spiritual circle or a gathering has to pay some fees and they have to buy tickets. That is why in every sitting and meeting a considerable amount is collected for the medium. And those practitioners and mediums that exhibit the most exhilarating miracles have the largest crowds of people around them. In such circles the seats and places are reserved a month before the meeting and it becomes very difficult to obtain a ticket. So it is a pity that such self centered people have converted this delicate and priceless knowledge also into a source of living and a profession. And instead of seeking advice and warning they earn through it for a few days of this life.

The purpose of describing the accounts of european's invocation of souls in this book is to invite people to develop faith in Quran-e-Kareem where miracles and spiritual abilities of prophets are written to a large extent. For example, the account of Prophet Suleman's invocation of queen Bilquees's throne with his spiritual power. If it can be correct for an invisible creature to transport things in and out of a closed locked room, then it is not difficult about the spiritual power of the king of all practitioners, the prophet Suleman (AS). Similarly it should be thought about the miracles of all the prophets and aulia Allah (friends of Allah) that they used to invoke angels and excellent souls to take such astonishing services from them that human wisdom remained dumbfounded in attaining knowledge of them.

In Europe in the circles of captivating the souls, these souls often appear either behind or on the left side of the medium. And this is particular about jinns, devils and "safli" souls that they appear behind and on the left side of the medium. Moreover, before these souls are invoked there, cold wind blows in the rooms. So much so that the temperature of the room falls considerably below the normal. And frequently the curtains of the room or something else also catches fire. And often when the medium is a woman she becomes naked at the time of imposition of the soul. All of these actions depict that they belong to the jinns and the "safli" souls. The accounts of after death experiences that have been obtained from these souls are more or less similar to our Islamic beliefs:

1. Souls see their friends and relatives as flesh and bones and when after the death of someone, people mourn, this is a source of agony for the dead (according to the teachings of Islam it is forbidden to mourn over the dead).
2. In life if someone is blind or lame or has other physical disability then after death that fault is removed due to some good deed while he was alive.
3. After the death people get rewarded according to their good or bad deeds.
4. On the inner side there are seven worlds for the souls. Good and virtuous souls live in the top most world (or realm) and with excellent communities and live serene and affluent lives. And the inferior "safli" souls live in the lower "safli" worlds and get punished for their deeds.
5. For the "alvi" (possibly meaning good) souls there are always available for them gardens, palaces, schools and other  luxurious things.
6. The male and female gender remains established there but in the "barzakh" marriage or nikkah or birth of children does not happen.
7. A statement of souls is that the problem of extension and rebirth (Aavagone or reincarnation) is completely false. And the soul cannot take birth in this world again. Every soul comes to this world once and acquires only a unique body.
8. The time for death is fixed and that cannot be changed, forward or backward, by a second.
9. For the souls there are in the next world spiritual masters that give them spiritual education and there are separate inner schools and colleges that have specific laws and regulations.
10. Souls can get to know a few future events and they come to living people and meet them in their dreams, meditations and even when they are awake.
11. Souls help their relatives and friends in their worldly affairs, as much as they can, and they become happy about their happiness and sad with their sorrows.

So there are such and similar other things which have similarity with Islamic beliefs and ideas.

On Afterlife and Islamic Spirituality

Heavenly Puss!

This article is written in response to Sam Harris's "This Must Be Heaven" .

I have been thinking of the issue of afterlife for quite a while now, and I read various articles about it written both from the religious (particularly Islamic) and scientific point of view. In particular I recently read Robert Lanza's account of death and afterlife, the main idea of which is that we never really die. I also saw your talk titled "death and the present moment", in which you assert that we live in nothingness once we die. It is vey interesting to see that you have brought up this article too. I think that this article is very informative, for me at least. Before reading this article I did not know about psychedelics or their ability to induce states to the human consciousness that you have talked about. Similarly, since I am not a neuroscientist by profession, I do not know what really constitutes a near death experience even though I have read about it before and its asserted connection with some possible afterlife. I also do not know that if it is an extremely honest thing to correlate a near death experience with an actual death experience. I have personally never had a spiritual experience of the sense you have stated, by your use of psychedelics, or the ones that are reported by spiritual masters of various religions (like Islam, Christianity and Hinduism etc.). So hearing or reading an account of that is also a new experience for me.

I have nonetheless become quite concerned about this never ending discussion about afterlife, existence of God, human freedom and morality etc. The reason for this is that since we obviously live in a time where our world is extremely globalized in the sense that everything that happens in the world nowadays, an account of that spreads across the globe within a blink of an eye. We know everything about so many cultures now that nothing is really a secret. And we tend to get affected, in good and bad ways, by whatever is happening around us. I think that it has become important that we discuss and try to solve matters that affect humanity. Religion, I believe, is the most important of such matters.

I believe that it is irrelevant if either I  or you or Alexander win or loose a debate. I think what is important is to find the truth, no matter what it is. To this end, it would be very interesting to actually know, beyond blind belief, that whether God, and consequently afterlife, exists or not. This is not that easy of an expedition to undertake. Specially, after having read your article I tend to appreciate more the limits of clinical trials of near death experience. And even if a near-perfect near death experience were to be conducted, a smart guy like you could justifiably argue about the authenticity of that. Indeed, to quench the thirst of intellectual curiosity is a difficult job to undertake. The conclusion we are left with at the moment, however, is that an after life may or may not exist. I believe that given our our current knowledge of such matters, this is the most rational stance.

But let's not shy away from what Islam has to say on this. And that too in full knowledge of what is happening around us. This is to say that let us see as to what Islam has to say in spite of what happened to Malaala Yousafzai very recently. This is also very important to understand because not only that, like all other religions, Islam claims to be the true religion of God, it is extremely blunt about the falsity of other religions. I  also think that it is important because Islam, as a religion, is under tight scrutiny in the West. You, Sam Harris, are, in point of view, the harshest and worst critic of Islam at the moment. Indeed, the points you raise in some of your books and articles are hard to be refuted. This includes the all time open issue of the existence of God. Islam, nonetheless, is not a secret religion. Everything about Islam is now available on the Internet. This also includes, the rules on jihad (with sword) and apostasy laws. Islam needs to be discussed. I believe that this would not be a futile effort and despite the fact that many people are strongly opinionated about the various doctrines they like to believe in or otherwise, I believe that even among them there is a large number of people who are openminded viz a viz faith literacy. And that whether a person believes in one doctrine or the other, I believe that it is not a bad idea to be faith literate.

Recently I came across a book on Islamic spirituality named "Irfan", which literally means wisdom. This is one of the various books I have read on religion and spirituality.  I believe that as far as Islamic spirituality is concerned, this is the most comprehensive book I have read so far. It has two volumes and the first one has also been translated to English. The facebook page of the book can be found here. The table of contents of the book include, and is not limited to (1) Proof of existence of God (Allah). (2) The important relationship between God and human beings. (3) The answer to the question that if God exists then why can He not be felt or known. (4) The thoughts of famous European scholars and scientists in relation to the identity of God. (5) An eye opening discussion on the reality of soul. (6) The relation between soul and breathe. (7) The comparison between science and religion. (8) The explanation of the Quranic verse that, "verily only in the remembrance of Allah do hearts find peace". (9) The rationale behind the eternity of human soul. (10) Reality of dreams and the difference between the dreams of common and virtuous people. (11) A discussion on the psychospiritual organs of human beings. (12) Origin of mesmerism and hypnotism. (13) Purpose of life and need for remembrance of Allah. (14) A discussion on telepathy. (15) The reason behind fear in the heart of believer at the time of death. (16) On the false idea of some people that sufism is only a conglomeration of various superstitions, thoughts and ideas. (17) On invocation of jinns, angels and souls. (18) And various chapters on polytheism, atheism, Hinduism and other religions. (19) On Jehad (20) Meditation.

The book contains many more chapters. I have just listed here a few for the purpose of brevity. Overall, the book covers almost every aspect of Islamic spirituality. The purpose I have introduced it here is not to counter argue with Sam or Alexander (about atheism or Christianity, so to say). The purpose, thus, is also not to prove a supremacy of the book or the Islamic belief system as well. The purpose is to inform the keen reader, who may be a Muslim or a non-Muslim about the existence of such a book on Islamic spirituality. The book obviously addresses jihad along with other aspects of Islam, such as what constitutes worship and a way of life. The book extensively deals with souls and jinns. The keen reader may then form a more clear opinion about Islam. The book was first published in 1942. Another purpose behind citing this book is that many a times I read about spirituality in an atheistic sense, specially on the blogs of Sam Harris, he explicitly defies the connections of the term with medieval superstition and connects it to some normal, natural breathing practice. The idea behind advocating such spirituality and meditation is primarily to empty one's mind. Such meditation, for instance, can be done by breathing in the word "Tea" and breathing out "Spoon". Islamic meditation, on the other hand, is done, for instance, by breathing in "Allah" and breathing out "Hoo". The idea behind both is to get peace of mind. But proponents of Islamic spirituality consider it only as one of the many secondary or even tertiary benefits. The primary purpose is to attain proximity to God. And the spiritual experience, of which Sam Harris is skeptical, and which I have never had to be honest, is only a secondary byproduct.

I nonetheless find it interesting and important to share this information for so many reasons. Some of them can be gleaned from the paragraphs above. I think that it is time that we, Muslims and non-Muslims alike, study Islam more thoroughly as it is playing pivotal role in shaping modern history. I believe that we all should agree that Islam is an important religion even if some of us do not consider it to be true.

On God, Souls, Afterlife and Islamic Philosophy

I recently came to know that there is a possibility that human beings do not have free will. This gave me a bit of a sigh of relief. I remember that a few years ago the topic of free will and its connection with Islam was broached up in front of me while I was sitting with a clique of learned people and I felt a little bit bad about myself as I did not have any clue as to what sort of a position I should take about it even if I had to do that in my mind. I still can't figure out the repercussions of not having free will. I don't know if it is a good thing or a bad thing to not have one.

After having read a lot of articles and a few books written against Islam, I tend to understand that one of the things that turns people off about this religion is its unreasonableness. This perceived, or real, or whatever, unreasonableness of Islam has many aspects to it: bizarre women rights, a lack of affinity for democracy, apostasy laws, militant jihad, a belief in the existence of a possibly imaginary God and in an afterlife, the ability of Muslims to get offended quickly on such trivial matters as publishing of funny caricatures showing their Prophet wearing turbans full of bombs and funny movies. All of these issues should be addressed and brought forward for the perusal of both Muslims and non-Muslims alike using certain unbiased scholastic methods. That whether Muslims have ever been capable of a philosophical thought process or not has to be seen through the lens of philosophical history of Islam.

A casual look at the early history of Islam suggests that study of philosophy was a well-established enterprise in Islamic civilization and that there was a considerable number of Muslim philosophers who addressed a variety of philosophical questions and raised numerous intellectual concerns that are still more or less relevant to the modern world. It is quite interesting to observe also that some of the notable Muslim philosophers, the names of whom have also never been unknown to the West, translated much of the significant Greek philosophy to Arabic. This includes the works of Aristotle and Plato. The notable Muslims philosophers are Al-Kindi, Al-Farabi, Avicenna, Averroes and Al-Gazel. These people and a few others are celebrated as Muslim philosophers in the Islamic as well as the Western world even today. 

I find it worth mentioning here a definition of philosophy that I read in a book titled "A History of Western Philosophy" written by Bertrand Russell. I liked the definition so much that I still have it in my memory. It is somewhat like:

"Philosophy is concerned with the study of issues that religion refused to address and that science could not address". 

I think that this is a really nice and comprehensive definition of philosophy. If we look at the works of the above mentioned Muslim philosophers, we may want to argue, and as also suggested by Russell, that these people were not really philosophers but interpreters of (mainly Greek) philosophy. Nonetheless, Nonetheless these, and other influential scholars of Islam, had considerable influence on the latter generations of Western philosophers.

It also turns out that these Muslims scholars, and earlier Muslim philosophy, addressed many issues that are quite relevant to todays scientists and philosophers. These domains include, but are not limited to, cosmology, evolution, optics, psychology, education, science etc. 

It is beyond the scope of this article to discuss in detail the achievements of earlier Muslims in each of these domains. The primary purpose of writing this article and of the research that it is based upon was to see that whether earlier Muslim philosophers were introspective about their religious beliefs or not. In other words it was sought to see specifically as to how the earlier Muslim philosophers conceived God, afterlife and other related concepts, such as that of an immaterial soul and its existence after death. It was also sought to investigate the nature of their openness on these issues in terms of mutual dialogues and criticisms of the related ideas. It was also sought to see as to whether such ideas had an element of oddity and idiosyncrasy attached to them given that they deviated from popular notions held by common people and, if so, how much of an appeal and impact they had on the thought process of general population. The last point is very cogent here as a study as it would reflect the general temperament of the society (both Muslim and non-Muslim) viz a viz the weirdness of philosophy. This is important because it is thought that philosophy does not naturally appeal to the average layman's mind.

A closer look at the history of early Islamic philosophy reveals that Muslim scholars and intellectuals were quite concerned about their, and each others', views about theological matters such as existence of God, nature of soul and that of afterlife. The eleventh century Islamic scholar, Bu Ali Sina, known as Avicenna to the West, developed a proof of God's existence. The proof makes use of certain formal proving techniques of that time. 

Similarly there was another Muslim intellectual, Al-Farabi, who was a predecessor of Avicenna, and from whom (along with the Greek philosophers Aristotle and Plato) the latter took considerable inspiration for his work. Al-Farabi did considerable work in the realms of metaphysics and cosmology. His work on astronomy is highly inspired by that of Ptolemy and additionally has an element of metaphysics concerning existence of God attached to it. I found the account of his work written on his Wikipedia page quite interesting and I am copying an excerpt from that over here for the perusal of the keen reader.

The process of emanation begins (metaphysically, not temporally) with the First Cause, whose principal activity is self-contemplation. And it is this intellectual activity that underlies its role in the creation of the universe. The First Cause, by thinking of itself, "overflows" and the incorporeal entity of the second intellect "emanates" from it. Like its predecessor, the second intellect also thinks about itself, and thereby brings its celestial sphere (in this case, the sphere of fixed stars) into being, but in addition to this it must also contemplate upon the First Cause, and this causes the "emanation" of the next intellect. The cascade of emanation continues until it reaches the tenth intellect, beneath which is the material world. And as each intellect must contemplate both itself and an increasing number of predecessors, each succeeding level of existence becomes more and more complex. It should be noted that this process is based upon necessity as opposed to will. In other words, God does not have a choice whether or not to create the universe, but by virtue of His own existence, He causes it to be. This view also suggests that the universe is eternal, and both of these points were criticized by al-Ghazali in his attack on the earlier philosophers.

Al-Ghazali, well known as Al-Gazel to the West, wrote a book titled "The Incoherence of Philosophers" to cite his differences with Avicenna and Al-Farabi. Al-Ghazali was latter refuted by Ibn-Rushd, known as Averros to the West, in his "Incoherence of the Incoherence". The latter incoherence by Averros is an interesting document in the sense that it is mostly in the form of a dialogue between himself and Al-Ghazali. More specifically, Averros, has taken critical comments and excerpts from the former incoherence and has given his rebuttals to them. A dialogue is copied here as an example from the latter Incoherence's chapter titled, "Showing That They Are Unable To Prove The Existence of a Creator of The World":

Ghazali says, on behalf of the philosophers:

The philosophers might answer: When we affirm that the world has a creator, we do riot understand thereby a voluntary agent who acts after not having acted, as we observe in the various kinds of agents, like tailors, weavers, and builders, but we mean the cause of the world, and we call it the First Principle, understanding by this that there is no cause for its existence, but that it is a cause of the existence of other things; and if we call this principle the Creator, it is in this sense. It is easy to establish by a strict proof an existent for the existence of which there is no cause. For we say that the world and its existents either have a cause or have not. If it has a cause, this cause itself either has or has not a cause, and the same can be said about the latter cause, and either we go on ad infinitum in this way, and this is absurd, or we arrive at a last term, and this end is the First Cause, which has no cause for its existence and which we call First Principle. And if the world existed by itself without cause, then it would be clear what the First Principle is, for we only mean by it an existent without a cause and which is necessarily eternal. However, it is not possible that the First Principle should be the heavens, for there are many of these and the proof of unity contradicts this, and its impossibility is shown on examination of the attribute of the principle. Nor can it be said that one single heaven, or one single body, the sun or any other body, can be the First Principle; for all these are bodies, and body is composed of matter and form, and the First Principle cannot be composite, as is clear on a second examination. Our intention is to show that an existent which has no cause is eternal by necessity and by universal consent, and only about its qualities is there a divergence of opinion. And this is what we mean by a first principle.

I say:

This argument carries a certain conviction, but still it,is not true. For the term `cause' is attributed equivocally to the four causes: agent, form, matter, and end. Therefore if this were the answer of the philosophers, it would be defective. For if they were asked which cause they mean by their statement that the world has a first cause, and if they answered, `That agent whose act is uncreated and everlasting, and whose object is identical with its act', their answer would be true according to their doctrine; for against this conception, in the way we expounded it, there is no objection. But if they answered `The formal cause', the objection would be raised  whether they supposed the form of the world to subsist by itself in the world, and if they answered, `We mean a form separate from matter', their statement would be in harmony with their theory; but if they answered, `We mean a form in matter', this would imply that the First Principle was not something incorporeal; and this does not accord with philosophical doctrine. Further, if they said, `It is a cause which acts for an end', this again would agree with the philosophical doctrine. As you see, this statement is capable of many interpretations, and how can it be represented there as an answer of the philosophers?

Clearly, it is not extremely clear as to what this small dialogue stands for, or what it tends to conclude. One would need to take a course in medieval philosophy to make sense out of these "incoherences". However, this is a dialogue which shows a contradiction of views concerning the creator of the universe. The crucial point worth noticing in this and the rest of the Muslim philosophy is that Muslim intellectuals did contemplate on the nature of God and that they used to argue about it. Kalam, the cosmological argument, particularly deals with the issue of existence of God. It is also interesting to note that in Islamic philosophy skepticism was established by Al-Ghazali as part of the orthodox Ashari school of Islamic theology.

Much has been written on the nature of human soul and afterlife as well. This has been done, for instance, by Al-Farabi and Avicenna. According to Al-Farabi, the afterlife is not a personal experience as commonly conceived from the vantage point of religious traditions such as Islam and Christianity. Any individual or the distinguishing features of the soul, or the self, so to say, are annihilated after the death of the body. According to him, only the rational faculty survives, and that too, only if it has attained perfection. And then, it becomes one with all other rational souls within the agent intellect and enters the realm of pure intelligence. 

One may conclude from this that the afterlife promised in the religious texts is not more than a metaphor. Much of these views were, however, inspired by works of Aristotle, of which the Muslim scholars were the chief interpreters at that time. 

A keen reading of Muslim philosophy also suggests that earlier Muslim scholars were also bounded in their work by the orthodox beliefs and ideas of Islam held by themselves and the people around. This restricted their views on topics such as existence of God and afterlife. Muslim intellectuals nonetheless addressed this issue.

The idea behind writing this article was not to argue that whether God exists or not. Rather it was to elucidate that the earlier Muslim scholars had to confront this and related issues due to one reason or the other and that this is what made them write huge volumes of books.

We live in an era where scientific knowledge has advanced to a stage that many of the ideas which were held sacred due to their inherent mystery can now be verified. We are definitely not living in times in which our views about the cosmos are not dominated by the Ptolemaic astronomy. We are living in an age where doctors can perform clinical near death experiences to verify whether the subject had any experiences of an afterlife or not. The results, no matter what they may be, demand from us to adopt and abide by certain ethical rules, specially when we are about to wrong someone's religious beliefs. This is important for the sustenance of the human race.

To make caricatures of personalities, whom people hold in high esteem, in the name of freedom of expression is a debilitating idea. It is quite natural that such gestures invite grotesque reactions. In similar vein, Muslims should also try to avoid getting uprooted at the slightest hint of a firecracker being blown elsewhere in the world.

Why Do We Like The West?

We do not only like to be in a Western country, we love to be in one. And there are other reasons to it apart from money, beauty, culture, art and all the liberty. Consider this for an example:

As a part of my application for a driving theory test in Denmark earlier in June this year, I had to appear for something that is known as to be able to drive on a slippery road. As a part of my rehearsals there I was supposed to take an interpreter for me who would help me in translating the instructions given on radio in Danish to English. This was mandatory as I had listed that I needed an interpreter as my Danish is not so good. At the nick of the time all the few friends I had talked to about this to go with me to the interview did not turn out for some odd reason. I finally had to go to the slippery ground alone. The instructors there did not agree to let me in without an interpreter and asked me to bring one by giving me a short span of time. After trying to call a few more acquaintances and failing I walked to a taxi standing nearby as a last hope. The taxi driver was not only very friendly but he was also extremely honest. And this came to me as no surprise. I told him about my problem and he started ringing all over to his friends to find me an interpreter. Eventually the person arranged for me a person who was Danish and also knew English. The person would not only charge a lot less than most other person and this is what that nice taxi driver explained to me how and why should he charge like this. Examples such as this are not few about Western friendliness and honesty, somethings which come for free most of the times. 

Why Should I Become an Atheist?

After reading a book like "The End of Faith", many people would want to convert to atheism. There could be many compelling reasons for that. After getting the idea that all one has is a short life, with the present moment as its most precious gift, without an otherworldly life and with no God in sight. Indeed, the idea that there is no God and, consequently, no after-life is a source of great relief too. This gives one the possibility of availing the endless opportunities and exploring the endless avenues which would otherwise have been prohibited due to more or less strict religious laws. Indeed, the idea that a personal God is constantly monitoring one's actions   can be a great source of inhibition for pursuing many fantasies.

But the main reason why a person would believe in such a book, or message therein, would depend on that person's belief in the author, or the messenger. That belief comes from the trustworthiness of the latter. This is to say that if the author of a very nicely written book having compelling reasons for its readers to take its message seriously was himself a complete impostor, nobody would take the book seriously. That veritable traits such as honesty, sincerity, truthfulness, a general predisposition towards innocence and a lack of social crookedness etc. are to be considered more seriously as parameters of credibility as opposed to scientific acumen, wit, eloquence, intelligence quotient etc.

If we look at the spectrum of personalities that inhabit the Western continents, where atheism is flourishing, we find that it is quite easy to find many people that are quite credible. This is what makes atheism quite attractive as an idea for life. In other words, this is the main reason why one would want to develop a disbelief in a super-natural being that controls the lives of people and an after-life.

Personal credibility plays a great role in making people believe in ideas. Consider this person who had lived in a town for around 40 years and he had never cheated, stolen, lied, or had never done anything, what so ever, immoral  otherwise. As a matter of fact the person has been found to have immaculate and extraordinary personal character from the point of view of the Western scholars also. A good example of this can be found here. It is this reputation of him that walks two steps ahead of him and makes people believe that they should consider him as the Prophet of God when he proclaims to be so. It is this reason that when Muhammad (PBUH) made his way to Mount Safa, the most well-known hill in Makkah, to announce the message of Islam to its people and asked the crowds, "O people! Will you believe me if I say there is an army marching behind this mountain which is about to attack you?".

They all answered, 'Of course we would, we have not heard a lie from you throughout your life'.

Muhammad, The Last Prophet (saw) said, 'O people of the Quraish! I warn you to fear God's punishment. Save yourself from the fire. My position is the same as that of the sentry who sees the enemy from afar and warns his people of the danger of their enemies. Does such a person ever lie to his people?'

It is this message, that was delivered by one of the most credible persons of history, that makes one think that he might as well be right on his account of existence of God and the prospect of an afterlife. 

On Dishonesty of The Muslims!

Hi Sam, I hope that you are doing well. After my last post on your wall, I have decided to try to address another of your articles titled, "Honesty: The Muslim Worlds Scarcest Resource". This is a difficult thing to do as you have quoted verses from the Quran in this article and you have left people only with a binary choice: either to refute or to endorse the verses. I have chosen to write my comments and thoughts about them. First of all, I have to admit that even though I have recited Quran a number of times in my life, I have never read it, This is to say that I have done the recitation in Arabic which I can only read but not understand. To understand Quran one has to revert to some translation of it in a language that one understands, which are normally English and Urdu in my case. I have to emphasize that this is normally the case with most of the Pakistani people. I cannot claim this about Muslims of other countries though but I can anticipate that for people other than the Arabic speaking Muslim countries the situation would be the same. I can very well imagine that for Muslim converts, specially belonging to the European and other Western countries, the situation would be radically different. I speculate that an average European converted Muslim would be a lot more aware of the text and contents of the Quran than an average Muslim belonging to a typical Muslim country. I attribute this primarily to the innate curiosity I have observed in people living in Western countries about whatever subject they encounter. I also attribute this to the fact that Muslims who were born and raised in Muslim countries, families or neighborhoods tend to take Islam for granted (if it has to be considered a gift of any kind). I have to further admit that I have never been a formal student of philosophy or logic. I would try to sound as much rational as possible, but I expect my naivety or lack of rationality be forgiven but not overlooked. I have to say this because I may want to continue this work in future as well without coming across as a nuisance to the reader who is specifically inclined towards reason over dogma. I hope that the way I want to express myself would improve by the passage of time.

Islam, like almost all other religions, claims to be the true religion of God.  Islam also claims that Quran is the true, ultimate and final word of God. Islam also claims that Muhammad (PBUH) is the final Prophet of God. Islam also claims to obsolete Christianity and Judaism as earlier versions of Islam itself.  For other religions, like Hinduism for example, Islam does not even consider them as religions of God i.e. Allah. Islam has also addressed atheism by labeling it as wrong. So how does this minimize the conflict? This piece of information, and everything that is based around it, which can be found elsewhere on the web and in the libraries, actually adds to the multidimensional conflict the humanity is in at the moment. This obfuscates the problem because even after almost one and a half millenium of its advent its preceding religions, Christianity and Judaism, still claim to be the true religions of God. Added to this are the present circumstances we live in, where we have all the technology and infrastructure to create and propagate new and interesting ideas about so many subjects. The problem gets further obfuscated if we look at it from the lens of an intellectual who demands adherents of a system of beliefs to rationally argue in favor of the beliefs they hold dear to themselves. This, in my point of view, is an extremely reasonable demand although it is difficult to meet. This also demands a lot of hard work and immense intellectual honesty.

The point of writing this article is to try to offer an honest explanation of the points you have raised in your article titled; "Honesty: The Muslim Worlds Scarcest Resource". I shall now come to this. I presume that what you have challenged the ordinary Muslims to endorse (or to refute to) in this article are the various verses of the Quran where the God has himself mocked the infidels, and not only that, He has also asked the Muslims to kill them. I am not going to address each and every verse. I am only going to address the rather more critical verses where the God has asked the Muslims to kill the infidels. IN other words, I am going to pick the verses which appear to me as more sword-like. For the purpose of brevity, I am going to skip the verses where the God has mocked the infidels themselves. The only thing I have to say about this is that this is something God holds personally against the infidels. This is to say that Islam believes in a personal God and according to the Islamic point of view everyone is accountable for their personal doings. I also have to add here that a lot of Quran has to be read in context. This means that it has to be read with the help of a suitable explanation. This is important because if it is read out of context the meaning of whole verses gets distorted. I have chosen Tafsir Ibn Kathir for this purpose which is a well known and widely accepted source of explanation for the Quran. 

Most sword-like of these are the three verses from the second chapter of the Quran titled Al-Baqarah (meaning, "The Calf") in English. These are verses 190-193 which are stated below one after the other.

وَقَاتِلُواْ فِي سَبِيلِ اللّهِ الَّذِينَ يُقَاتِلُونَكُمْ وَلاَ تَعْتَدُواْ إِنَّ اللّهَ         لاَيُحِبِّ الْمُعْتَدِينَ      

Translation: And fight in the way of Allah with those who fight against you *200 but do not commit aggression because AIIah does not like aggressors. *201

Explanation: *200. The believers are asked to fight those who hindered their efforts in the cause of God, and acted with hostility towards them merely because they sought to fashion human life according to the revealed guidance of God. Earlier, when they were weak and scattered, the Muslims were asked merely to preach and be patient with the wrongful repression meted out to them by their opponents. However, now that a small city state had been established in Madina they were commanded for the first time to unsheathe their swords against those who had resorted to armed hostility against their movement of reform. It was some time after this injunction that the Battle of Badr took place, to be followed by several other battles. 

*201. The believers are told that material interests should not be the motivation for their fighting, that they should not take up arms against those who were not in opposition to the true faith, that they should not resort to unscrupulous methods or to the indiscriminate killing and pillage which characterized the wars of the pre-Islamic era, the Age of Ignorance. The excesses alluded to in this verse are acts such as taking up arms against women and children, the old and the injured, mutilation of the dead bodies of the enemy, uncalled-for devastation through the destruction of fields and livestock, and other similar acts of injustice and brutality. In the Hadith all these acts have been prohibited. The real intent of the verse is to stress that force should be used only when its use is unavoidable, and only to the extent that is absolutely necessary.

وَاقْتُلُوهُمْ حَيْثُ ثَقِفْتُمُوهُمْ وَأَخْرِجُوهُم مِّنْ حَيْثُ أَخْرَجُوكُمْ وَالْفِتْنَةُ أَشَدُّ مِنَ الْقَتْلِ وَلاَ تُقَاتِلُوهُمْ عِندَ الْمَسْجِدِ الْحَرَامِ حَتَّى يُقَاتِلُوكُمْ فِيهِ فَإِن قَاتَلُوكُمْ فَاقْتُلُوهُمْ كَذَلِكَ جَزَاء الْكَافِرِينَ

Translation: (2:191) Fight against them wherever they confront you in combat and drive them out from where they drove you out. Though killing is bad. persecution is worse than killing *202 Do not fight against them near the Masjid Haram unless they attack you there.

Explanation: *202. Here the word fitnah is used in the sense of 'persecution'. It refers to a situation whereby either a person or a group is subjected to harassment and intimidation for having accepted, as true, a set of ideas contrary to those currently held, and for striving to effect reforms in the existing order of society by preaching what is good and condemning what is wrong. Such a situation must be changed, if need be, by the force of arms. 

Bloodshed is bad, but when one group of people imposes its ideology and forcibly prevents others from accepting the truth, then it becomes guilty of an even more serious crime. In such circumstances, it is perfectly legitimate to remove that oppressive group by the force of arms.  

فَإِنِ انتَهَوْاْ فَإِنَّ اللّهَ غَفُورٌ رَّحِيمٌ

Translation: (2:192) And if they attack you first (even in that sacred area), strike them (without any hesitation); this is the due punishment for such disbelievers. If, however, they desist from fighting (you should also do likewise), and know that Allah is Forgiving and Merciful *203 .

Explanation: *203. God, in whom the believers have faith, is forgiving and ready to pardon even the worst criminals and sinners after they have renounced their arrogant defiance towards Him. It is suggested that this attribute of God should be reflected in the behaviour of the believers as well. As the saying goes: 'Mould your morals according to the attributes of God.' Hence, Whenever the believers have to resort to armed conflict, they should do so not for the sake of quenching their thirst for vengeance but in the cause of God's religion. Their conflict with any group should last only as long as that group resists the cause of God. As soon as it gives up this resistance hostility should cease.

وَقَاتِلُوهُمْ حَتَّى لاَ تَكُونَ فِتْنَةٌ وَيَكُونَ الدِّينُ لِلّهِ فَإِنِ انتَهَواْ فَلاَ عُدْوَانَ إِلاَّ عَلَى الظَّالِمِينَ

Translation: (2:193) Go on fighting with them till there is no more a state of tribulation and Allah's way is established instead. *204 Then if they desist from it, there should be no more hostility except against those who had been guilty of cruelty and brutality. *205

*204. Here the term fitnah is used in a different sense from the one in which it was used above (see verse 191). It is evident from the context that fitnah refers here to the state of affairs wherein the object of obedience is someone other than God. Hence the purpose of a believer's fighting is that this fitnah should cease and obedience should be consecrated to God alone. 

An investigation of the usages of the word din (which occurs in this verse) reveals that the core of its meaning is obedience. In its technical usage, the word refers to that systern of life which arises as a result of a person recognizing someone as his Lord and Sovereign and committing himself to following his commands and ordinances. This explanation of the word din makes it quite clear that when some human beings establish their godhead and absolute dominance over others, this state of affairs is one of fitnah. Islam seeks to put an end to this and replace it by a state of affairs in which people live in obedience to the laws of God alone. 

*205. What is meant here by 'desisting' is not the abandonment of unbelief and polytheism on the part of the unbelievers but rather their desistance from active hostility to the religion enjoined by God. The unbeliever, the polytheist, the atheist, has each been, empowered to hold on to his beliefs and to worship who and whatever he wishes. In order to deliver these people from their error, Muslims are required to counsel them and tell them where their good lies. But Muslims ought not to try to achieve this purpose by resorting to force. At the same time, these misguided people have no right to either enforce the false laws of their own contriving instead of the laws of God or to drive the people of God to bondage of others than God. In order to put an end to this fitnah, both persuasion and force be used, whenever and to the extent to which each of the two is needed, and a true believer will not rest until the unbelievers give up this fitnah. 

The statement that hostility is meant only against wrong-doers seems to imply that when the true system of life replaces the false one, ordinary people should be granted a general amnesty. At the same time, however, it would be justifiable to punish those who exceeded all limits in their hostility to the Truth, at the time when they held the reins of power. Yet in dealing with such people, it becomes the true believers, after they have one final victory, to adopt a general attitude of forgiveness and tolerance towards the vanquished rather than subject them to revenge for the wrongs they committed in the past. Those criminals whose records were exceptionally bad could, however, be punished. The Prophet (peace be on him), availed himself of this permission in respect of some notorious enemies whose hostility had exceeded all limits, even though pardon and forgiveness behoved none more than him. Thus 'Uqbah ibn Abi Mu'avt and Nadr b. Harith from among the captives of the Battle of Badr were put to death and when a general amnesty, was proclaimed after the conquest of Makka four out of seventeen persons were executed. (See Ibn Hisham, vol. 1, p. 644 and vol. 2, pp. 409 ff. - Ed.). The link to an online version of the book is here. These acts were based on the permission to put to the sword those who have been conspicuously ruthless in their hostility to Islam and the Muslims. 

One may argue then that why is Islam religion of peace then if their Prophet (PBUH) had to execute himself his enemies while he could have easily forgiven them. There are various answers to these questions which can be found elsewhere on the web. There are obviously arguments in the favor of the Prophet and then there are critiques that question the genuineness of his Prophethood. Indeed the curious student of religion (and particularly of Islam) should keep on trying to find the truth. What is interesting to note, in these verses, however, is that even though Muslims have been allowed to use power and force to try to quell forces that make a hindrance in their way while they try to live their lives according to the tenets of Islam, they have been allowed to do so only with caution, by following a certain set of rules, and by having due regard for other peoples beliefs and ideas. To this end, I would briefly try to comment on the highlighted parts of the explanation of verse 2:193. The first sentence highlighted as black piece of text explains what Quran means by the word 'desist'. The second part highlighted as green clearly talks about everybody else, including atheists, that they have a right to worship anything else they hold themselves dear to. One may get offended by the use of the word 'empower' here. I might have gotten offended if I were an atheist by inferring that how does anybody, whether a human being or a God of peoples' imagination, have the authority to 'empower' me into believing or worshipping anything I would like to do while I am already a free-man. Resentment to Quran's authoritative style by use of such words can grow further if I look at the opposition of it, or of other books like this, and their hypothetical authors, and their apostles, as the sole purpose my life. This rather invokes an emotion of rebelliousness in my intellectually motivated assumed self. But the bottom-line, however is that Islam somehow allow everyone to practice whatever they want to practice. I also presume that this has been asserted about an Islamic state. I have heard from many people that Muslims residing in non-Muslim states are required to abide by the rules and regulations of those states. So while living in Rome Muslims have to do as Romans do. Of course, they have to abide by laws which are not in conflict with the teachings of Islam.

The next line, in red, instructs Muslims to counsel the non-Muslims to embrace Islam as the right path, without resorting to the use of force. That non-Muslims are not not allowed to force their ideas upon Muslims is emphasized next. And that whenever Muslims are being forced into believing ideas of non-Muslims, they are recommended to use persuasion and force to resist this. I think that this would happen in the worst scenarios.    

After having read this, however, there is no denying that Islam is actually not a religion of terror, or turmoil or oppression. Thanks to this current wave of Islamo-phobic sentiments from various parts of the world that we have to actually open up the Quran and read and try to understand that what does Islam actually stand for as a religion. 

It is also interesting to note and reiterate that Islam had the atheists in mind and made room for them.

One could keep on arguing in favor of, or against, certain things about Islam or other equivalent ideologies. I would rather to stop here and talk about something else for a while. Human beings have an innate ability to think. That whether there is a God who made thinking machines out of them or whether they thought themselves about some God(s) and developed ideas and evolved religions is a subject of keen scientific and academic investigation.

Try to hang around with a bunch of Muslims in any randomly chosen location of the world. This is to say that, that place could be a shopping center in the busy city of Lahore. A rural village in Pakistan. A bus station in CopenHagen, Denmark. Or a hostel dormitory in a far flung town of Western France. Try to eavesdrop on any conversation those people are having about infidels. Be they educated or illiterate, computer science researchers or ordinary dish washers, taxi drivers and cleaners. They all say one thing unanimously, which, when translated to plain English, simply means: that if these western people recite the kalimah Tayyaba, they would become better Muslims than us just by the virtue of having recited it and by the virtue of having better values than us. The point I am trying to make here is not that the people be forced in to reciting kalimah Tayyaba, and hence be forced in to embracing Islam. The point I am trying to make here is that, ordinary Muslims who have been to the Western countries are normally so very impressed by the general attitude of the people, their behaviors, their general honesty, candidness and courtesy towards all others alike. The point I am trying to make in short is that ordinary Muslims already hold people from foreign countries in high esteem. Ordinary Muslims do not, at the same time, consider themselves to have something which makes them better off than an ordinary Frenchman or a Dane. There are aspects about the Western society that nobody can deny that they have benefited the whole human society in general. Specially in our times we have, and we could have, benefitted a lot from the scientific and technological advancement most of which has happened in Western states. I am a member of a religious spiritual club which issues a monthly magazine on Islamic spirituality and that is full of allusions to many scientific achievements of the Western researchers in various fields that affect human development, ranging from medicine to meditation. The point I am trying to make is not that whether the Western or Islamic way of thinking about life is right or whether that Islam can co-exist with the West or not, the point I am trying to make is that I don't see a great deal of a dispute of ideas on the street.

Whether is a God or not, or whether we want to believe in one or not, if one exists, is a question more of intellectual speculation and should be addressed more in an academic spirit. Other than that, earth quakes are erupting, glaciers are falling, people are dying. For some it is wrath of God, for others it is will of God and yet for others it is the sheer absence of God.

(WORK IN PROGRESS)

A Free Thinker's Ride on Sam Harris's Wall

Hi Sam, I hope that you are doing well. I have read al most all of your significant articles and your books, namely, "The End of Faith" and "A Letter to a Christian Nation". So far, I have only been a passive reader of your work. And despite the fact that I am a Muslim, I enjoyed it. It gave me an alternative view on religion. An alternative view on how other human beings can look at religion. The answer to why I read your books is rather complicated and has many factors. But the most compelling answer to this, in my point of view, is that I have lived in Europe for quite a few years and the way the European society normally functions and the way the people are is often times extremely impressive. The people are good natured, honest with their work and candidly welcoming and despite all of this the countries are secular and people are mostly agnostic or atheistic. This is impressive. I wonder why an average European atheist is so nice. Nice to the extent that he normally doesn't know anything bad. This drew me closer to your book titled "The End of Faith" around last year this time. I found it extremely well written and thorough. In the book you have a special chapter titled "The problem with Islam" which is also extremely well written and the excerpts from which can be found elsewhere on the web. I have to admit that even though I am a Muslim, I cannot completely argue about the portions of the book firstly because my knowledge about the Quran is limited and secondly because you have raised some logical issues in it that require special attention to detail by a learned and an unbiased person (possibly an Islamic scholar) who has specialized in Islamic studies. I also have to admit that after reading the book, I, for the first time, not only understood atheism but also seriously considered it. This is to say that I had to ask this question to myself again and again that, is there really a God? a divine force who has created the universe and the life? Or stated simply, Is Allah really the God or just a mythical figure. I remember that I was in Copenhagen around that time trying to look for a postdoc position in a nice Danish university.

After having lived in Europe and after having studied and worked there for a while I believe that religion is not necessarily required to organize the society. Actually the way things have been, it is not required at all. Human beings, if they have a will and desire to improve things, can self-organize themselves and their surroundings.

What is the importance of religion then if people can live their lives by having good morals otherwise and can live peacefully? The need to having a religion becomes superfluous if people can get everything they need in their lives by the virtue of a good social order AND if there actually is no God. This last bit is something no one is sure about. Surely, as a religious person (like a Muslim or a christian or a Jew or a Hindu) cannot give the proof of existence of the God he or she believes in, an atheist cannot give a proof of the non-existence of God either. A religious person can only argue in favor of his existence by presenting the signs of his existence as portrayed in the religious texts. Similarly an atheist can only argue in the non-existence of God by possibly using scientific methods as tools. The end result of this is what we are seeing; a war of ideas, words and weapons on every level of the human society. For instance, your blogs are extremely heated up by the continuous bashing of Islam. Similarly,  in various places in the Muslim countries there are uproars against the USA.

Religion, however, is only important if what religion claims to be or have is actually true. Stated more specifically, and that too about Islam, is that, Islam is the true religion of God (or Allah, to be more specific) IF AND ONLY IF what we know about Islam is in reality true. and IF AND ONLY IF the God (or Allah, for that matter) actually exists and IS not an invention of the prehistoric Arabs or people of the middle-east. 

How can we know that? The answer is that it is not a very simple project to undertake. Nobody has ever seen God. And whether there is an afterlife is only known to the dead, with whom we cannot communicate. 

To this end, to satisfy my curiosity about this matter, I further investigated on the Internet to try to know anything I could about a possible afterlife. I came across your lecture titled "death and the present moment". In this lecture you say that we live in nothingness once we are dead. That mind is run by the brain and mind ceases to exist once the brain is dead. That we are as good as a dead animal once we are dead. That is to be dead is as if we were never born. That further intrigued me to research on as to what really happens once we are dead. I came across these ideas about "near death experiences" and "out of body experiences". I am not going to go in to the details regarding the nature of these experiments but the crux is that there is a certain part of the "self" that exists even once we are dead. The guys (who were normally western researchers) inferred that there IS an afterlife for the dead human-beings. 

Having said this, this does not mean at all that there is a God. Or even if there is one, that Islam is the true religion of God. This does not simply imply that. What it implies to me is that the existence of God is an all time open question the answer to which has not been found yet by so many scholars, scientists, and philosophers. 

This, however, does imply that there might or might not be a God. And if there is one, there might be a true religion and hence a true word of God. The consequence of thinking like this is that both the religious people as well as the atheists should soften up a little bit on this topic and try to adopt alternative approaches to addressing this problem. For instance, adopting the scientific method is a really good option. So, for instance, you may appoint a PhD student in your lab to develop a thesis "Is there really a God?" (jokes aside). Burning Holy scriptures and mocking religious figures (like Muhammad (PBUH) or Buddha) only creates more unrest in the society.

I think that a very viable option for you, and I seriously recommend that you do it, is to engage in open dialogues with religious (Islamic) scholars. I think that this is very important that you ask openly and honestly, on the media, various questions related to the verses of Quran specially where the God has demanded to kill the infidels. This is extremely important for the society to understand as well. So, for instance, you can challenge an Islamic scholar of your choosing to come to CNN or BBC, for instance, to address your questions. This would otherwise be very interesting for the general education of masses.

I like your work on free will. I will have to spare ample time to read and understand it.

On Negative Thinking!

It wasn't the chemistry, it was the thought patterns, instead, that had had him bury his head in the hot sand of real-life for the past one decade. The doctor convinced him, through examples taken from his own mind, that it had to be straightened out, instead of the brain. This came as a very pleasant news for him after all. The Chemicals would now be replaced with exercises... mental exercises, as he was told, demonstrated and taught. "You will have to practice these exercises daily", he'd said.

He'd developed a negative image of his apparently mal-functioning head since long, oblivious of the fact that it was not the brain that was faulty, instead, it was self-created perception that was wrong. Life had been very tough for him due to this. Despite the fact that he had enjoyed all the material luxuries one could afford, he had to struggle a lot. The stifling feeling that anything that may emanate from his mind may be inherently flawed, had affected his performance negatively. He had lived as if he had been trying to swim the river upstream. He had lately started figuring out that while (al most) half of his mind would function spontanelusly, the other half was always dedicated in monitoring the first half. This had snatched spontaniety and creativity of his collective mind significantly. Added to this was the misery that he had become dependent on chemicals to get rid of the side-effects of such a delapidated mindset. He wanted to get rid of this ever existing state of mind now. He no more wanted to live with a collective mind that was a mere captive of itself. He would rebel, he had decided, and get the things in the right order. And he was adamant. Thus, the new doctor.

"You will be very successful in life", the doc would tell him convincingly time and again, "provided that you think positively." He would tell these same lines to all of his patients, whispering hope and belief in their ears. As if all were mentally retarted. As if all suffered from the same disease. The deadliest disease, that plagued the mindsets of the whole human race i.e. negative thinking.

Darwinism!

Darwinism is an excellent manifestation of the concept of "survival of the fittest". The problem, however, is that it does not teach you how to be fit. What further obfuscates the matters is that Darwin's successors effectively teach humans how to be misfit.

The Questions on top of the pile!

I have two very important questions, but I would like to go with the preamble first.

Given the current political upheaval in Pakistan, the US would be willing to deal with Sharifs as well, provided they play with the rules. An analysis about pakistani political options has been given as top stories today in Dawn. This is no surprise. As a matter of fact, US is somewhat fed up, tired and drained due to sustained warfare; it needs a break. There is an increasingly growing antiwar sentiment within the US as well; please read of the suicide epidemic. If this happens (that US packs up or soothes up its policy) it will give a lot of breathing air to Sharifs automatically: they pose to be right-wing Pakistanis, and US would be leaving for its own reasons, the latter may always be used by the Sharifs to create some kind of an epic about them.

1) Given this the most important question that should be asked from Sharifs is that what EXACTLY is their stance on relations with the US now and when they come to power. The decision boundary regarding this has been very foggy, this will turn out to be very intricate when the fog shed. However, the Sharifs should “educate” the people precisely as to what their view is about being anti-US or pro-US, from various vantage points, for I think that from deep inside Sharifs ARE pro-US. This is the most important question that stares any Pakistani politician i.e. How will they align their foreign policies with the WEST.

2) I have a very strong notion that the new recruits into the PML-N are once again completely inept donkeys. i) What are their criteria for distribution of tickets for elections. ii) how do they propose to bring about a democratic change with their donkeys given that an average army officer has a reasonably good BA from PMA, how do they propose to put the ARMY back to the barracks with their donkeys?

Adil Raja

To Expect Effectively

Pakistan does not have a single problem; there are myriad of them, and each of them is gigantic. To name a few, education, medical, poverty, jobs, social issues, injustice, politicians, army etc etc. and above all the people and their grossly unrealistic expectations.

The biggest problem in Pakistan among all is that people waiting in the hope of some Messiah to arrive and solve the problems in a blink of an eye. This problem alone is enough to fail the country. On practical grounds, moreover, the masses fail to convey their wishes and desires to the elected/about to be elected members. There more emphasis on flaunting some affinity with a politician in any possible sense.

Given this problem alone, Pakistan is around 300-500 years behind where the West stands now.

In order to demand a right one has to know about the right first, and to know that, the meaning of the latter has to be known. Here, on one hand as the people are fed up of dictatorship (as they are possibly told to be), on the other hand the meaning of democracy in grossly misunderstood. The meaning of democracy possibly tantamounts to having a military ruler dethroned. At the same time it is known to few that the top bidders to the throne of Islamic Empire of Pakistan have their children's destinies entwined to the political parties they head.

Here the psyche of people of Pakistan is of particular interest. People are very "icon-o-philic". They love huge figures. Once they love someone, they will remain loyal forever; defiance is not an option, no matter how many times their own trust is betrayed. And ever-lasting love ensues from a mixed feeling of fear and a severe inferiority complex.

It sounds as if rest of the problems pertaining to Pakistan are here to stay for a long time, as long as the people as a whole dont learn to expect in the effective manner.

Political Psyops

AA,
Given the ample space available for scribbling articles, under utilization of the blog, plenty of free time and a political upheaval in the country, I shall use Psyops to litter my political thoughts.

Pakistan has now become the center-stage of geo-politics. And as George Friedman quotes in his famous book (the name of which is skipped here for the mere reason of brevity), the end-game of WOT shall be played there. It is definitely scary. However, do we owe a thought to the very problems the country faces? Or is it all futile. I guess I should unwind my brain of the domestic issues first.

The Postcard

San Marcos-- Venice Italy

The Pics

A scholarly conference is not much better than its program comittee

Some general guidelines for guaging the worth of a conference would be something like:

1) Its relevance i.e. How relevant is it to your research area. Some conference just invite everyone and do not have specific goals.
2) It reputation. For instance everyone in the area of communications networks would know the worth of getting a paper published in IEEE Infocom or ACMs sigcomm.
3) A major and often over-looked factor is to have a look at the Technical Programme Committee of the conference. This is very important and the candidate should have a look at the members in the TPC before actually submitting. Once again, two conferences might have almost the same king of TPC in terms of whether whcih institutions have representations in them. However, one conference might have more seasoned researchers than the other even though they belong to the same universities.