COMMENT : A rose by another name — Yasser Latif Hamdani

It is a well known fact of Islamic history that the Holy Prophet (PBUH) freed non-Muslim prisoners after numerous battles on the condition that they would first educate Muslims 

After making fools of themselves on TV by abusing a world renowned physicist like Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy, the twosome of Ansar Abbasi and Orya Maqbool Jan have taken to their columns, declaring war on reason, rational discourse and education. The column this week in daily Jang by Ansar Abbasi was appropriately titled Jahil Kaun — Ansar Abbasi (Who is Ignorant? Ansar Abbasi). How brutally honest! Orya Maqbool Jan’s column in daily Duniya was titled Daleel ki Maut — Orya Maqbool Jan (Death of Logic — Orya Maqbool Jan). Again one cannot help but agree.

Ansar Abbasi proves his ignorance not just of worldly education and the modern world but also about Islam itself in his column. He claims that only Islamic knowledge is real knowledge, and therefore, all other knowledge is fake by implication. Nothing militates more against the spirit of Islam than this statement. Let us remind Mr Abbasi of the Holy Prophet’s (PBUH) saying: “Go to China if you have to in the quest for knowledge.” Now it is entirely possible that Mr Abbasi thinks China in the 7th century was inhabited by Sheikh-ul-Islams, but those who do not use their echo-chamber of self delusion to sound out their own illogical drivel know better.

It is a well known fact of Islamic history that the Holy Prophet (PBUH) freed non-Muslim prisoners after numerous battles on the condition that they would first educate Muslims. Clearly, those non-Muslim prisoners were not educating Muslims about Islam. Islamic civilisation reached its zenith in the closing centuries of the first millennium AD. It did so not because Mahmud of Ghazni was busy plundering the subcontinent. The main reason for the golden age of Islam was the hunger for knowledge that its scientists and freethinkers demonstrated. If Mr Abbasi had come across Averroes, Avicenna, Rhazes or Jabir bin Hayyan, it is near certain that he would have denounced them as heretics and jahils (ignorant) as well. Later, the mullah orthodoxy suppressed free thinkers and scientists from 1200 AD onwards. The torch of knowledge passed to the west. The rest is history. Mr Abbasi ought to read it some time. Almost 800 years of aversion to knowledge has brought Muslims to their knees. Ansar Abbasi seems to be just one cruel manifestation of the long-drawn-out decline of the Muslim world and Islamic civilisation.

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