From: onf@cbnewsg.cb.att.com (omar.farooq)
Subject: Re: First Pakistani MD-PhD!
Organization: AT&T
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 20:16:51 GMT

>Article 26291 in soc.culture.pakistan:
>From: khan@davidsys.com
>Subject: Re: First Pakistani MD-PhD!
>Date: 30 Jul 92 09:31:44 PST
>Organization: DAVID Systems Inc, Sunnyvale CA
>Lines: 19
>  When you counter my arguments against 
>mad rush for worldly 'scholarship' with
>"Iqra!" from the Quran, you should understand
>that Allah swt is referring to the Quran,
>True Knowledge, not the False Knowledge of
>universities of today, a knowledge based on
>denial of God, and insists on Uncertainty.
>  On one level the Quran is a clear message,
>on the other level it is a key to  many
>other worlds of knowledge. 
>  You can have as many Phd.'s as you want,
>but can you identify your own Shaitaan?
>Can you identify which spirit you may be
>possessed with at any given time during
>the course of any endeavor, whether it
>is from Allah swt , or from a source 180 degrees
>opposite??
>  Status built around worldly pedestals
>is falsehood. 

You make good point about obsession with wordly knowledge, but you still
don't realize that there is a difference between a pedestal built
around worldly hedonism and the pedestal built around real 
scientific/technical knowledge.  True, we should know the knowledge
contained in our own religion before embarking on embracing Western
ideals, but the Prophet(PBUH) said , and I  quote(Hadith):
	"Go even as far as China if you have to to acquire 
	 knowledge"
	"The ink of the learned is holier than the blood of the
	 martyr"
	"A moment of contemplation is worth more than a year of
	 prayer"
Do you think that he wanted us to go to "China" for religious 
knowledge alone?

Tha Khalifa Umer (RTU), upon conquering Jerusalem/Jordan/Palestine
from the Romans, demanded as part of an exchange of prisoners, 10
volumes of Greek literature.  Don't you think he came across knowledge
profane and knowledge sacred.  He sought out to acquire knowledge! Which
is the point I am trying to make, and then used what he may have
considered valuable ( watch the Smithsonian 1 hour documentary on Islam,
call 1-800-LEARNER for more info).  You see, even our own history is
being taught to us by Westerners.  Why? because we jump up and down
and condemn the sinful "worldly" knowledge that Shaitaan is tempting
us with.  Yet we don't realize how our Muslim founders spent their
lives as an example to the rest of us to show that if you want to
take the challenge of handling the temporal and spiritual aspect of
this world, this is how you do it ("IT" being their way of life).

I think that the feudal traditions in our countries have gotten the
best of us.  I am not doubting that the Quran (a 120,000 word poem 
contains vast amounts of knowledge about nearly every aspect of life
and death), but merely trying to re-iterate that we should appreciate
our learned members of the community and encourage them further.
By countering their worldly accomplishmentss with religious 
demands, we further tainting the already tainted image of Islam
because by doing so we are losing the very essence of our own religion
and re-affirming the speculations of the ORIENTALIST.

Try reading that ORIENTALISM by Edward Said.


Salaam
Omar
omar.farooq@att.com
From: aza@hpfcso.FC.HP.COM (Asad Aziz)
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 16:59:36 GMT
Subject: Lawyers!!!
Organization: Hewlett-Packard, Fort Collins, CO, USA