Assignment: The critics of Islam For the department of English and Media studies. By Prof DR Sohail Ansari Dead line: 30th April


الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا وَصَدُّوا عَنْ سَبِيلِ اللَّهِ أضَلَّ أعْمَالَهُمْ
Those who disbelieve and hinder [men] from the Path of Allah, He will render their deeds vain.
Making students the critical consumer of information.
Initiating students into the art of academic writing.
This assignment is the first of the series that analyzes the assertions of the detractors of Islam and of prophet (P.B.H.U)

Same but different:
Students will read the article titled ‘The critics of Islam’ four times. Each time they will find different exercises to do. This is the first time they read.
(The assignments are in compliance to instruction from higher authorities so that learning remains uninterrupted despite the closure of university)

Eurocentrism is the inspiration

Alexis Heraclides states:

Stemming from Eurocentrism's innate bias towards Western civilization came the creation of the concept of the "European Society," which favored the components (mainly Christianity) of European civilization and allowed eurocentrists to brand diverging societies and cultures as "uncivilized." 

 Critics of Islam are committed advocate of “The White Man's Burden’’
 The rooted belief of the inferiority of non-white and non-Europeans has given justification for racial discrimination. These all critics of Islam are committed advocate ofThe White Man's Burden," condoning ‘Western Imperialism’ colonialism, coercion, imposition and the colonial exploitation of Muslim World  as a mission-of-civilization: civilizing the unwilling savages (Muslims of the world).
These all critics of Islam are committed to promoting the Eurocentric racism inherent to the idea by way of Development aid or development cooperation the Western world delivers civilization to the Muslim nations: the savages of the world.
Racialized narratives
The narratives of these all critics of Islam are even heavily racialized, shaping beauty standards by racializing biological and popular beauty ideals to suggest that mixture with whiteness is better.

Critics of Islam apply idealist construct to

account of Islamic cultures

The figurative superiority resulting from the rise of

"European Civilization" and the labels of "civilized" and "uncivilized" are partly responsible for eurocentrism's denial of Islamic social evolution, giving these critics of Islam the advantage of dismissal of such ideas regarding Oriental civilizations through comparisons to the West.

The rooted belief of the inferiority of non-white and non-Europeans has given these critics of Islam justification for bringing discredit upon the Islamic world, they, therefore, are unscrupulously eager for preventing the account of lower-level explanation and account of Islamic cultures and their social evolution, mainly through eurocentrism's idealist construct, espousing the notion that the evolution of societies and their progress are dictated by general tendencies, leading to the Islamic world's evolution becoming more of a philosophical topic of history instead of historical fact, thus these all critics of Islam tend to trivialize and marginalize the philosophies, scientific contributions, cultures, and other additional facets of the Islamic world.

Only Islam comes under vitriolic scalpel.
Almost all critics of Islam converted from Islam to Christianity and migrated (immediately before or after conversion) to USA or any European country and were immediately wrapped up in cocoons of cotton wool, therefore the criticism of theirs has always been cocooned in humbug. Never known as writers before conversion, these all critics of Islam immediately after arriving to foreign lands became as if by magic writers (those who do not believe in magic say that writings of theirs are ghostwritten).  Surprisingly it is only Islam which comes under the vitriolic scalpels of these magician writers.  
Prophet (P.B.U.H) is bête noire and Jesus is Redeemer
To these critics of Islam countries with European civilizations are the only civilized societies and as the western societies favor Christianity as their main component; therefore, almost all of these critics converted to Christianity such as Ali Sina, Magdi Allam to name (but) a few and started speaking of  nirvana they had attained because of conversion and condemning Islam and prophet for depriving the world of peace.

Critics of Islam are obsequious Zionists

As The Israel lobby or the Zionist lobby has pervasive influence over U.S and there are many Jews in positions of influence in Hollywood, in network television, in sports and entertainment, and in many other areas of American and European public life, these critics of Islam before long become the avid supporters and political activists on behalf of Israel; for example,  Nonie Darwish  founded the pro-Israel web site ‘Arabs for Israel’. 
Interestingly, despite this symbiosis, critics of Islam are sycophants, groveling to Jews for wooing and acting like the political toady. They condemn the anti-Semitism and identify with Israel’ in the face of unprecedented violations of international law and human rights standards by Israeli occupation forces and never even  acknowledge the seriousness of Israeli violations of human rights and international law.
Raheel Raza (born 1949/1950) is a Pakistani-Canadian Muslim critical of "Islamic extremism" and of what she has called "inequality’’ toward Muslim women but never condemns Israel due to Israel’s systematic denial of Palestinian human rights.

These critics of Islam are pro-Indian
These critics of Islam claim to have a rational, enlightened and humanistic outlook but these critics of Islam endorse Israel as a modern state based on the right of the Jewish people to self-determination in their historical homeland, but respond to news indicating the trampling of human rights with impunity in Kashmir after the abrogation of Article 370 as the "fabricated narrative" and do not even acknowledge the right of the people of Kashmir to self-determination in their historical homeland (despite the rights of latter are supported by United Nations Security Council Resolution 39 resolution unlike the rights of former those are disputed).
These critics of Islam  are not non-partisan
These critics of Islam claim to have a rational, enlightened and humanistic outlook but Tarek Fatah is a Pakistani- secular activist he likes, many other secular activists, is the greatest proponents of secularism in the Pakistan. These all critics of Islam want to see Pakistan dissociated from spiritual concerns but never talk of the secularization of Israel and  condemn BJP for de-secularization of India.

Disquisition of Faisal Devji
‘Faisal Devji’s elegantly argued treatise, which explores the idea of Pakistan as an expression of Zionism, an ideology most commonly associated with the creation of the country’s closest ideological twin—Israel. Devji’s argument is simple: in order to understand the enigma represented by Pakistan and Israel we must cease to assume that either is a ‘nation’ in the conventional sense. Instead, Pakistan and Israel represent political manifestations of an ideal form of the Enlightenment state that harks back to an earlier moment in the Enlightenment when the coming together of peoples was seen to rest on (the fantasy of) political consent, legitimized by the force of an idea alone. In this sense, both countries stand apart from the trajectory of nineteenth-century European nationalism, which judged the nation to be the hallmark of a collective attachment born of shared blood and soil….. Devji argues what distinguished Pakistan and Israel from these earlier state forms was the conscious invocation of religion as the basis of their social contracts…..
The focus of Devji’s interest is neither Islam in Pakistan, nor indeed Judaism in Israel, after independence. Instead he is concerned to highlight the nationalist moment when religion as ‘the empty idea of a national will untrammelled by anything given outside the idea itself’ was pregnant with radical possibilities (Devji 2013: 47). This is not to say that Devji is indifferent to the trajectory of ‘religion’ in the unfolding of the social contract in Israel and Pakistan. As he observes, ‘religion’ as an idea of belonging that holds the ‘nation’ together still endures in one important respect in the life of these two independent states. For notwithstanding their statehood, both Israel and Pakistan still determine their nationality by reference neither to shared territory nor common descent but by the question: ‘who is a Jew and who is a Muslim’ (p. 48).

These all critics of Islam deny established realities and say:

·       That the migration of Indian Muslim to Pakistan should not be seen to rest on political consent, legitimized by the force of an idea alone.

·       Religion was not the ‘the empty idea of a national will untrammeled by anything given outside the idea itself’ for the creation of Pakistan

·       Against all evidence on the contrary that Pakistan was created for entirely economic reasons and religion simply merely intervened  

 

 

These secular critics of Islam never criticize Israel but always Pakistan

These critics of Islam claim to have a rational, enlightened and humanistic outlook but these secular critics of Islam never criticize Israel for the conscious invocation of religion as the basis of its social contracts and determining its nationality by the question: who is a Jew

The Objectives Resolution is vigorously condemned by these secular critics of Islam because it simply proclaims that constitution of Pakistan would be modeled on the divine sovereignty and democratic faith of Islam. 

Additional reading:

‘Scholarly writing is also known as academic writing. It is the genre of writing used in all academic fields. ...
This is objective and not offensive to anyone’.
Exercise:
‘And were immediately wrapped up in cocoons of cotton wool’
‘Interestingly despite this symbiosis, critics of Islam are sycophants, groveling to Jews for wooing and acting like the political toady’.
Question:
This language is not academic because it  is not impartial or unbiased as it has the potential to offend readers, and can negatively affects the writer's credibility and distracts from the message being conveyed.
This language is not academic as there is the note of sarcasm and the use of irony to convey contempt.
What do you suggest what to do?
Should we delete these lines?
Should we make them impersonal?
 Should we keep lines but give evidence so that they can serve as the conclusion.
Exercise:
‘The narratives of these all critics of Islam are….. whiteness is better’.
Question: Check overall unity
Are these lines incongruous if so should they be removed or some lines are to be added so they blend with the rest?
Explain lines within context

‘Critics of Islam apply idealist construct to account of Islamic cultures’

‘The figurative superiority’
‘Preventing the account of lower-level explanation’
‘Progress are dictated by general tendencies’
‘More of a philosophical topic of history instead of historical fact’

 

Additional reading:

Intellectual dishonesty is a failure to apply standards of rational evaluation that one is aware of.

Question:

‘Critics of Islam apply idealist construct to account of Islamic cultures’ is this an intellectual dishonesty?


Comments