Last Edited: Wednesday, November 07, 2007 12:21 PM -0600 / Last Updated: Wednesday, November 07, 2007 12:21 PM -0600
Born in 1940, Dr. Asghar Ali Engineer took a Bachelor's Degree in Civil Engineering. His interest in religion and its philosophy motivated him to do an in-depth study of Islam and other religions. Combining the knowledge of Islamic sources with an insight into the contemporary changes taking place in the world, he has written 48 books and numerous articles on issues relating to Islam, Indian Muslim, communal riots, communalization of Indian society, and human rights violations. He has argued for appreciation of illustrious Indian scholars of Islam such as, Muhammad Iqbal and Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, passionately advocating a progressive understanding of Islam that strives to creatively respond to change. He has been advocating to Muslims to follow, in spirit, the Quranic teaching of adl, ahsan, rahmah and hikmah i.e. justice, benevolence, compassion and wisdom to make this world a better place to live for everyone. In his writings, he has also been arguing for the need to study the Islamic sources in the modern context. Taaqqul (reasoning), Tadabbur (contemplation), Tafakkur (Thinking) and Hikmah (Wisdom) have been emphasized by him as important tools to face the challenge of modernity. Dr. Aghar Ali Engineer has written extensively on the growing menace of communalization of Indian society and has documented most of the communal disturbances in different parts of India. He has also written a book on Gujarat pogrom of 2002, which was a watershed in the history of communal violence in India. His book Rethinking Issues in Islam was a path breaker as it provided a framework for the need to revisit some of the important issues confronting Muslims in India and elsewhere. Dr. Asghar Ali Engineer has also made extensive use of cyberspace to reach out to millions of young men and women. Online edition of Indian Journal of Secularism edited by him has taken his writings to a vast number of people in different corners of the world. Winner of the "RightLivelihood Award 2004", which is considered an alternative Nobel Prize, Dr. Engineer has been a source of inspiration to a large number of Indians committed to the cause of security, equity, secularism, and progress for all sections of Indian society. Jamia Hamdard University conferred upon him the degree of the Doctor of Literature (D.Litt), Honoris Causa, on January 14, 2005. [Adapted from their citation]
Quite apart from the valid question of just how 'balanced' was Roy's perception of the historical role of Islam, I've included the above article here for it demonstrates how much a certain 'revolutionary' reading of Islam could appeallike Marxismto the 'universalistic' streak already inherent in the brahmanical psyche. - Sunthar
Dr Farish Ahmad-Noor is a Malaysian political scientist and human rights activist. He is currently academic researcher at the Zentrum fur Moderner Orient in Berlin, and is the author of New Voices of Islam (ISIM, 2002) and Islam Embedded: The Historical Development of PAS 1951-2003 (MSRI, 2004). The Other Malaysia is aimed at highlighting the marginalized elements of Malaysian history that have been sidelined by the official historical narrative of the Malaysian state.
Of Ismaili cultural background, Iqbal was born in Madagascar. A graduate of the INALCO in Urdu and Arabic, he is a specialist of the Khoja Ismaili literature of the Indian subcontinent. He is currently pursuing his researches in Paris on the Khoja mode of knowledge transmission.
Explanation of the virtues of Knowledge in the Kalm-i Maul is the example par excellence of traditional Ismaili pedagogy. This bilingual study, presented for the first time in French, should attract the attention of those who want to deepen their knowledge of Ismaili culture, as much as believers and spiritual-seekers. You can order Iqbal's French opuscule, published in 2003, from: Librairie d'Amrique et d; Orient, Jean Maisonneuve Successeur; 11rue Saint Sulpice, Paris (6e); 3 bis Place de la Sorbonne, Paris (5e).
I got to know Jean-Marc through our interaction after his talk on 2nd Dec 2002 on "Islam and Javanism in Indonesia: the example of ritual initiation in the martial practices" within the framework of Marc Gaborieau's seminar on "Islam in the Indo-Pakistani subcontinent." It seemed clear to me from some of the textual extracts and other terminology used that the tradition was a Kaula tantric one that had been reworked into an Islamic context. Particularly striking was the elaboration of the Sanskritic rasa-theory from the otherwise restricted realm of aesthetics into an existential mode of being for the Indonesian Muslim initiate, and the role of eros (shrngra) and the worship of Bhairava for, among other goals, mastery over the body while undergoing the discipline of the martial arts. Jean-Marc and I subsequently met a couple of times over lunch to discuss the larger background of his researches and his personal involvement in the South-East Asian martial arts tradition. Along with his Japanese companion, Etsuko, who is an artist, he also joined Charles Mopsik, Jacques Vigne, Christian Bouchet and others at our place in Jan 2003 for the marathon discussion of 'lucid dreaming' (as in the Indian tantric traditions, dreams, and their interpretation, also play an important role in initiation into the Javanese martial arts). On 29th May 2003, we also had the pleasure of visiting with Jean-March and Etsuko the Monet Museum at Giverny, just outside Vernon where they live, before spending a most agreeable afternoon discussing French anthropology, etc., with several of Jean-Marc's colleagues working on China and Indonesia and belonging to the same research group, under the direction of Jean-Claude Galey (who was very close to Louis Dumont). Jean-Marc spent all of June 2003 in Malaysia to study Pancak Silat (another martial arts tradition) and is now in Java pursuing further research. While in Kuala Lumpur, he spent much time with my childhood friends and family.
The forms of Sri Canda Birawa (Bhairava), Sri Smaragama, amorous unions and social implication, relation to the marriage of Sri - nuptial rites / Canda Birawa - Smaragama'
Arjunawiwaha (Arjuna's marriage), Dewa Ruci, the relation to knowledge, yoga and meditation, around the "experienced" : practices and transmission, combat et love; teacher/pupil relation; fidelity, authority, peace, combat, heroism, illusion : how the dominant ideas-values take shape; creation myth of the Javanese alphabet : the carakan and the two relational poles, alternating and synchronic value of the two poles.
Mukur Khisha and I met Joaquin for the first time in Madrid on 22 July 2001 around late lunch at the Illraz's. He is a "writer, sniper and chronicler of artistic life," who lives in Spain. He has written extensively on his Rom heritage that he sees as deeply rooted in Indian tradition. By an interesting "coincidence" I witnessed my first bullfight at the Plaza de Toro the same evening immediately after taking leave of Joaqun. I was introduced to Joaqun, who has lived several months in Benares, by Oscar Pujol. You can read more about him and his various cultural activities at the Indo-Roma home page that he maintains at svAbhinava Friends.
This article was originally written for the Spanish Muslim paper Amanecer ('Dawn'), which refused to publish it, thus ending their collaboration (they had previously published 3 articles by him). Joaqun argues that Pakistan is a nation without a political purpose that therefore needs the hobby-horse of Kashmir to justify its existence. As an agent of destabilization and a check on the expansion of Indian influence, it has well served the geopolitical purposes of (earlier the British and now) the United States (and till now...China). On the brink of disintegration, Joaqun foresees a future where the Pakistani populace might well end up demanding reintegration into a "Hindu" India where Muslims enjoy full and equitable rights of citizenship. For more on Pakistan's identity crisis, see Bruno Philip, "Pakistan or the impossible democracy" (Le Monde, 13 Oct 01); for American discovery of the double game vis--vis the Taliban, see Jacques Isnard, "The ISI: the patron of the Taliban" (Le Monde, 13 Oct 01); for a critique of current US policy towards Pakistan, see also Christophe Jaffrelot, specialist of "Hindu" political parties, "Can Pakistan be controlled?" (Le Monde, 18 Oct 01); for Ahmed Rashid's denunciation of Pakistan's suicidal involvement in Afghanistan, see his acceptance speech of the Nisar Osmani award for Courage in Journalism. The contradictions (bordering on duplicity...) of the U.S. 'war on terrorism' is aptly illustrated by the recent exercise in 'rescuing the enemy' (viz. Pakistani military brass) from besieged Afghan city of Kunduz.
Maria Ali-Adib, a Syrian currently residing in London, grew up moving between the UK and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Living within the Arab worker-immigrant community then prevalent in the UAE, she learned to distinguish between the sense of identity rooted in first-generation UAE immigrants and the relative cultural fluidity that came to define their children. This initiated her deep interest in the adaptability of young people. After graduating with a BA in Economics from the University of London, she co-founded an organization based in the UAE aimed at student-centered educational reform, with a particular focus on the educational needs of Palestinian refugees in the Middle East. She then returned to the UK to develop this research in a Masters degree program in Development Projects at the University of Manchester, where her graduate research was endorsed by the Centre for British Research in the Levant. In this program she also examined the educational opportunities available to Palestinian refugees residing in Lebanon. Her work in Palestinian camps reinforced her interest in Israeli-Palestinian relations, leading her to liaise with Jewish community groups to promote better understanding of the conflict and a search for common ground. She currently sits on the Board of Trustees for Windows for Peace, a Tel Aviv-based organization that engages Palestinian and Israeli children in joint projects. She is also the Co-directorwith Ari Alexanderof Children of Abraham, an interfaith project that works with young Muslims and Jews from around the world through photography and dialogue.
Martin Riesebrodt's academic interests are in social theory, the historical and comparative sociology of religion, and the relationship between religion, politics, and secular culture. Central areas of teaching and research focus on theories of religion and on the role religion plays in processes of formation of social groups and their identities, especially with reference to class, gender, and generation. His most recent book, Die Rckkehr der Religionen. Fundamentalismus und der 'Kampf der Kulturen,' explores the unexpected renewal of religion in the modern world. Based on a revised theory of religion, it argues that secularization and the resurgence of religion are not mutually exclusive but rather related to each other. Continuing arguments made in his earlier Pious Passion: The Emergence of Fundamentalism in the United States and Iran, the book also analyzes the relationship between fundamentalism, class, and gender, and offers a critique of Samuel Huntington's "Clash of Civilizations." Professor Riesebrodt has also published on classical social theory, in particular the work of Max Weber. He has co-edited a volume on key theoretical concepts in Max Weber's sociology of religion, Max Webers Religionssystematik. He is presently working on a sociological theory of religion which understands religion and its practices as a cultural resource for the management of uncertainty and prevention of crises. Examples of lay-oriented practices, virtuosi practices, and religious propaganda taken from Abrahamic as well as East Asian traditions will illustrate and test basic assumptions of the theory. Moreover, the book will offer a sociological justification of the concept of religion.
Mary and I
got to know each other in early 70s, shortly after my taking up residence at
the International House of the Banaras Hindu University, through our
collaboration in organizing lectures on religious culture, particularly
Hinduism, sponsored by the Maharajah at his Chet Singh Palace on the banks
of the Ganga. I was then President of the International Students Union, Mary
would soon be teaching at the Sociology Dept. She has focused on the Muslim
community of Banaras, particularly the weavers (Ansari), who constitute a
quarter of the population of the Hindu sacred city. Mary subsequently
returned to the U.K., where she is now teaching sociology at the University
of Manchester and at the Metropolitan University. Her research has provided
source materials for our monograph Between Mecca and Benares, and we
also facilitated the publishing of her essay on Ghz Miy in Living Benares
(SUNY). We renewed our friendship and intellectual exchanges over my few
days with her (and her colleagues) in August 2001 in the world's first
industrial and working class city. Our discussions on (the Puritan element
in) 'English' national character, stimulated by my visit to the monument
paying tribute to (Manchester's support for) Abraham Lincoln's war-effort
(to the detriment of England's own textile industry!), and my subsequent
discovery of Irish nationalism in Dublin, helped prepare me mentally for the
thesis that the American War of Independence was, in many respects, a
continuation of the English Civil War, and has provided me valuable insights
into the increasing polarization of political debate in greater
Anglo-America with respect to civil liberties and (the impact of)
'globalization' (on developing countries). Most recently, Mary visited
France for the first time to stay with us in Paris from 8-14 Jan 2003,
during which time she got to know
Vinay Bahl, and
also met friends like the Franois Chenet.
This paper was published under the title "'Wahabi' sectarianism among the Muslims of Banaras" in Contemporary South Asia (1994), 3(2), 83-93. 9/11 of the year 2001 has revealed the tremendous politico-cultural significance of Wahabism not just for Islam but for the entire world. Mary visited us at the Multiflat Guest House at BHU in 1986 while researching this paper.
We were introduced to Mohammad and his family in 29 Sep. 2002 by his colleague at the Philosophy Dept. of Paris-VIII University, Dr. Rada Ivekovic (whom we have known from Benares and who has recently published a book on the city). We discussed the respective contributions of (Shia) Islam, Western (neo-) colonialism and (Aryan) theocracy towards the current impasse of Iranian society and the alienation of its intelligentsia. As regards, the 'incompatibility' between reason and intuition in Shia intellectual history, I have been urging Mohammad ever since to look at this problematic in the 'philosophical' work of Abhinavagupta, as a possible way to mediate the opposition between these two faculties. I have been attending several of Mohammed's seminars confronting Western and Islamic thought on such diverse subjects as revelation, mysticism and apocalypse. On ??? June 2003, we enjoyed most of the day at the Fashahis in the company of several of his departmental colleagues (including Rada), all with a strong background in the sociology of knowledge.
This section was moved to Esoteric Philosophy homepage on 12 Jan 2004 at the request of Joe Martin, who felt that in many respects Islamic thought belongs more to the 'Western' than to the Oriental tradition. I felt that such a consolidation would facilitate the post-Nietzschean quest to recover the lost esoteric dimension of Western philosophy by introducing Islamic (and Jewish) understandings of scripture and mystical experience on the same page.
Before his retirement from the Indian Foreign Service in December 1993, Mukur had served as Indias Ambassador to Congo, Chile, Colombia, Cuba and Argentina. I got to know him as a friend the Ilarraz' in Madrid in July 2001, His views on India's malaise are particularly interesting because he is a practicing Buddhist of tribal background. Moreover, as a spiritual orphan of the Partition, his arguments reflect a lifelong attempt to come to terms with a trauma that many other Hindu nationalists may have not lived through except in their imagination.
Though Hinduism has been able to assimilate--or at least accommodate--all previous religions domiciled in the Indian subcontinent, Islam has proved to be the intransigent exception, resulting in the creation of Pakistan. "What emerges in all clarity is the opposition between two worldviews with differing understandings of community, history and the sacred city. Permanent reconciliation between Hinduism and Islam will be achieved only whenby reducing the inner distance between Mecca and Banarasthe questions posed by (the mutilated stump of) the world-pillarwhich still straddles the boundary between the two religionsare finally resolved" (concluding lines of Visuvalingam, "Hindu-Muslim Relations in Colonial Banaras"). [my comments to be added...]
After studying in Delhi's St. Columba's High School and then St. Stephen's College, Rajiv arrived in the US in 1971 to study Physics and Computer Science. His corporate careers and business entrepreneurship included the computer, software and telecom industries. He now spends full time with The Infinity Foundation, a non-profit organization in Princeton, New Jersey. Its main interests include fostering harmony among the diverse cultures of the world. Many of its projects strive to upgrade the portrayal of India's civilization in the American education system and media. This involves both challenging the negative stereotypes and also establishing the many positive contributions from India's civilization.
The common theme underlying most of these articles and columns are the representations of India, Hinduism in particular, in the United States (and by extension in the West), as reflected in and determining academic discourse, mass education, media stereotypes, foreign policy, etc. In the process, several of them also focus (at least in part) on the (often maligned) religious values enshrined in Indian traditions and the socio-political 'unconscious' of American 'multiculturalism'. In addition to the numerous un-moderated comments from Sulekha readers, several of these essays have been discussed on the Abhinava forum, either simultaneously (Ganesha, psychoanalysis, critique of history orientated religions, etc.) or subsequently (caste and racism).
Problematizing God's Interventions in History (Mar 19, 2003) column
The Root of India-Pakistan Conflicts (Feb 11, 2002) column
CNN's Pakistan Bias (Jan 11, 2002) column
How 'Gandhara' became 'Kandahar' (Dec 17, 2001) column
Gita on Fighting Terrorism (Nov 5, 2001) column
The American Guilt Syndrome (Oct 8, 2001) column
Umair Ahmed Muhajir, aged 27, was born and raised in Dubai and is now a U.S. citizen. He has resided for the last 10 years in New York, where he received his Bachelor of Arts degree from New York University and law degree from Columbia University. He has been working as a lawyer since 2002. Though previously a citizen of Pakistan, Umair had been reflexively hostile and critical of the two-nation theory since his childhood. The result is that he sees himself as Indian and identifies himself at every level more with India, for example, by backing its cricket team, reading its newspapers, following its elections more closely than those held in Pakistan, as well as taking its philosophical heritage and ethos very seriously. The result would be ironic, were it not so fitting given the tangled web of Indian culture, modern ideologies of the nation-state, and the realities of globalization.
The long review of Govind Nihalani's recent film Dev was e-published in July 2004 at the Outlook India website. The review of the Hindi movie Shabdstarring Sunil Dutt and Aishvarya Raiwas posted here on 4th March 2005.
Yoginder Singh Sikand is an Indian (permanently based in Bangalore) at the International Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World at Leiden (The Netherlands), where he is currently pursuing post-doctoral work on a project on Islamic Perspectives on Inter-Faith Relations in Contemporary India. After his B.A.(Hons.) in Economics at St. Stephen's College, Delhi University, he did his M.A. and M. Phil. (Sociology) on "Charisma and Religious Revivalism: The Case of the Tablighi Jama'at among the Muslim Meos of Mewat)" at Jawaharlal Nehru University (1992-94). He completed his Ph.D. (History) at the University of London (1998) on "The Origins and Development of the Tablighi Jama'at: A Cross-Country Comparative Study." He has worked with voluntary agencies in the field of education in Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, and Bihar (1988-90), has taught Islamic History (Hyderabad), and worked on a research-cum-action project on religious traditions and communal harmony in India for Oxfam (1999-2000). Yoginder currently edits a web-magazine, Qalandar, devoted to a discussion of issues related to Islam and Inter-Faith Relations in South Asia.
Qalandar is an online newletter devoted to Islam and Interfaith Relations in South Asia.
Yoginder has published 4 books, more than 35 articles in various journals, 5 contributions to collected volumes, as well as more than 250 other articles on various topics, including Muslim, Dalit and women's issues, religion, politics and culture in numerous South Asian periodicals and newspapers such as the Deccan Herald, The Pioneer, Himal, The Observer of Business and Politics, Sunday Observer, Milli Gazette, Mainstream, Manushi, Nation and the World, Islamic Voice, The Sunday Observer, The Voice of People Awakening, Frontier, The Tribune, Dalit Voice, Communalism Combat, the Daily Times, Jang, South Asia, etc.. Also, several book reviews, and 10 booklets on his own.
This two-part article provides biographical sketches of all the luminaries of the Kashmiri Rishis, the only Sufi movement indigenous to South Asia. As it has perpetuated, at the popular level, the classical Sanskritic syntheses of Indian spiritual traditions achieved just before the Islamic period by the Shaiva absolutist mystics, we have included it within Abhinavagupta and the Synthesis of Indian Religion.
I had posted this article to the Abhinava forum on 2nd March 2004 with the following remarks addressed to Yoginder: "It is vital that Indians as a whole recover and systematically compile these rapidly disappearing vestiges of such syncretic (including Hindu-Buddhist) traditions (in Nepal), so as to reflect on their significance and relevance for the future. Otherwise, we shall always remain at the mercy of the highly divisive or trivializing representations of the past imposed upon us by the Orientalists (including their homebred Indian offspring...), who focus on only the incompatibilities between Hindu and Muslim or try to conjure away such phenomena as implying that religious values were irrelevant to such communities that wore a 'hybrid' identity."
I had posted this article to the Mecca-Benares forum on 3rd June 2004 with the following remark: "How different is this now explicitly self-conscious American foreign policy of 'reshaping' the Muslim world in its own (narcissistic?) image from the till now tacit, even largely unconscious, proselytizing agenda animating and structuring the 'ivory-tower' of Indological studies?"
I had forwarded Yogi's review to our Mecca-Benares list on 7th April 2004 with the following comments: "Taking a historical perspective on the problems of Kashmiri identity necessarily involves not only refocusing on pre-colonial Hindu-Muslim syncretism (as exemplified by the Rishi cult till the 15th century) but also going beyond into the pre-12th C. Buddhist-Brahmanical culture: 1) How could one deconstruct Indian and Pakistani national narratives and agendas in relation to Kashmir without proceeding further to take apart the latter's once fluid regional identity, one that had ancient and enduring cultural links to the Indian heartland, Tibet and Central Asia? Such a logic is likely to result in further 'balkanization' with the breakup of Kashmir, at the very minimum, into Ladakh, Jammu and the Srinagar Valley. 2) Though the Kashmiri case is aggravated by Islamic militancy and the neighborhood of Pakistan, the problem of competing identities is not just a religious one and is endemic in various permutations to the whole subcontinent. If Kashmir splinters into unviable mini-states, this may unleash and legitimize a chain-reaction (considering what is happening everywhere else...) that might eventually swallow up both India and Pakistan. 3) Whatever its own shortcomings, the nation-state (whether India or Pakistan), despite internal imbalances and hegemonies, is at least able to offer a level of protection to local interests/values and indigenous cultural identities. Its weakening, at this critical juncture of economic globalization, might end up exposing Kashmiris as a whole to forces over which they have absolutely no control (cf. US grip on Pakistan & Iraq). // I fear there will be no solution to this (nor the Israelo-Palestinian...) problem until both Muslim and Hindu identities are not just deconstructed but reconstructed afresh. Who is better equipped (with some education...) to address this life-and-death issue than the Kashmiris themselves? [P.S. I guess the question is whether Kashmiris want to do their lobbying in Delhi/Islamabad or in the Washington beltway (like Ahmed Chalabi?)...]"