(via onemorerobot)
e-rocki asked: whats the meaning behind your url?
Smashing liberalized institutions, one URL at a time.
I win tumblr today, cause doctorofnothing told me I’m his favourite salafi.
akio replied to your post: akio replied to your post: Yeah but then who’s…
I don’t know. I mean. Seems Islam has quite much of history - check Seyyed Hossein Nasr - he might just another Westernizing proponent but, you know, in real life and historic scope, Westernizing Islam is not problem. That’s how Islam emerged too.
It really isn’t the concept of westerners embracing Islam that is the problem, as this was never really the point that I was attempting to make.
Rather, it is this idea of ‘kalaam’ that individuals such as Hamza Yusuf, Tariq Ramadan, and Sayyid Hossein Nasr all embrace. ‘kalaam’ is a mixture of Hellenistic/European philosophy and Islamic theology, hence why it is commonly translated as ‘philosophy’ amongst many Islamic circles. This idea of ‘philosophy’ in Islam is highly contested because often times it challenges the fundamentals of the religion.
Islamic mysticism, or modern ‘Sufism’, came out of this ‘kalaam’ ideology. This is the same mystical ideology that is rooted in European philosophical traditions rather than Islamic ones. Many of the more traditional scholars within Islamic history such as ibn Taymiyya exerted a great amount of energy in attempting to refute these European mystical/philosophical influences back when they were gaining ground within the Muslim world.
Most of these liberalized secular-oriented Muslim ‘philosophers’ are viewed as a westernized bastardization of the religion by many of the more formal scholars of ‘traditional’ Islam. Not to re-mention the fact that a great majority of the audiences that praise Hamza Yusuf and the likes of him come from wealthy ‘liberal’ backgrounds and have a very arrogant attitude towards the foundational traditions of Islamic scholarship.
“But man is so partial to systems and abstract conclusions that he’s ready to distort the truth intentionally, ready to deny everything that he himself has ever seen and heard, merely in order to justify his own logic.”
— Fyodor Dostoevsky
Notes From Underground
(Source: theopneustos, via leichenschrei)
Aboo Haneefah said to Aboo Yoosuf, “Beware of speaking to the common-folk about the foundations of the Religion by way of kalaam [philosophy], since they blindly follow you, so they will become pre-occupied with that.”
Manaaqib Abee Haneefah (p. 373) of al-Makkee.
akio asked: Humans move. Their assets change. That's how we came to be, mostly. Most are result of that kind of changes.
When it comes to this understanding of the Islamic tradition, though, it’s not an issue of a variation of ideology from place to place due to environmental and social factors. Rather, it is more of a Europeanized, liberal, and secular ‘perversion’ of the foundational elements of the Islamic doctrine itself (see: many ‘westerners’ attempting to interpret faulty English interpretations of the Qur’an within recent times.)
Ideology, at least in Islam, is founded upon the principles of the Qur’an and the authenticated sunnah. Even Hamza Yusuf would admit to this completely.
Culture, on the other hand, is the implementation of this ideology in practice within society itself. Hamza Yusuf attempts to brand Islam in a kind of culturally European light via such ideologues as al-Ghazali.
One must understand that many of these European influenced ‘Islamic’ thinkers (who, for the most part embraced the ‘Sufi’ mystical tradition) used Hellenistic philosophy to challenge the Qur’an and the authenticated sunnah, thus going against the religion itself.
This is why Hamza Yusuf’s ‘brand’ of liberal Islam is so disturbing to me. These Sufi ‘mystics’ that he promotes were known for their strange understanding of the religion through certain European philosophical methods that have always been distant from the foundational understanding of the Islamic tradition.
akio replied to your post: Yeah but then who’s better??? Do you have your favorite? I’m just starting. Tariq Ramadan and then Hamza Yusuf. Both are flaky and not really philosophical or rigorous. And it’s more like ongoing jazz or punk rock concert, in my view. Errors and flips and accidents. It’s not philosophy. It’s tending to living people’s community. There is that kind of difference.
well, institutionalized philosophies like foucault or zizek or spivak looks to me only like brain dead, or their fans and readers read and use them in really brain dead way. schools make arrogant inexperienced debate kids.
In terms of the foundational elements of Islamic understanding, Hamza Yusuf continually misrepresents the ideals of Islamic ideology in his attempt to ‘secularize’ it for inter-faith audiences. Many of the more traditional scholars of the religion within modern times have discussed the problematic elements of interpreting religious Islamic teachings for non-Muslim audiences due to the fact that it can distort the ideals of Islamic theology itself.
For example, in that ‘Tikkun’ speech, Hamza Yusuf quotes Kierkegaard’s perspective on institutionalized Christianity and ‘Christ’ not too long after he makes a plug for certain Islamic ‘Sufi’ mystics that dabbled in European ideologies (such as al-Ghazali.)
Also, while I do agree that the legacy that Foucault left has been misrepresented within modern-day institutions (lol, the irony here is interesting), I honestly don’t know what to say about Zizek since he has rallied against these institutionalized understandings of philosophy in the past. Spivak on the other hand, meh.
Their fanatics and followers that adhere to these liberally institutionalized schools and traditions seem to be where the problem stems from, though. Many attempt to interpret their philosophies without a proper understanding of the message that is attempting to be portrayed by the philosophers themselves.
akio asked: Yeah but then who's better??? Do you have your favorite? I'm just starting. Tariq Ramadan and then Hamza Yusuf. Both are flaky and not really philosophical or rigorous. And it's more like ongoing jazz or punk rock concert, in my view. Errors and flips and accidents. It's not philosophy. It's tending to living people's community. There is that kind of difference.
Re: Hamza Yusuf’s speech at ‘Tikkun’
I really dislike certain elements of Hamza Yusuf and Tariq Ramadan’s teachings due to the way they attempt to portray doctrinal Islamic ideology for a mostly ‘yuppie’ liberal audience.
That is, both Hamza Yusuf and Tariq Ramadan attempt to continually promote a liberally secular understanding of Islam rather than a more foundational understanding of the religion itself.
The problem here with Hamza Yusuf stems from the fact that he runs a so-called Islamic institution in California that espouses this ‘western’ tradition. This is the same ‘western’ tradition that is reminiscent of mostly white-males converting to ‘Hinduism’ and ‘Buddhism’ during the latter end of the 20th century.
Remember that ‘Hinduism’ was never really a formal ‘religion’ until imperial powers attempted to socially categorize and ‘structure’ certain ideologies, philosophies, and methods of living within the Indian subcontinent… thus, to have a man such as Hamza Yusuf promoting an extremely Euro-centric understanding of Islam (see: ‘Sufism’, which is taught by many ‘post-modern’ secular institutions as a kind of ‘liberal’ brand of Islam) kind of puts a bad taste in my mouth.
But yeah… as you said, Hamza Yusuf, Tariq Ramadan, and some of these strange ‘westernized’ Muslims seem to treat many matters of the Islamic tradition as if it were one big Sufi party/concert of sorts. Strange stuff, yo.
thepeopleofd asked: Well you're certainly a peculiar person! Don't find people like you everywhere!
“Beautify knowledge [by acting in accordance to it], & do not beautify yourself with it.”
Sufyaan Ath-Thowree. Jaami’u Bayaan al-‘ilm-Jaami’u Bayaan al-‘ilm-v. 1 pg. 680 al Hilyah v.6/page 361 with similar wording.
(Source: fatwa-online.com)
islam-is-submission asked: you were born into what religion?
Secularism, although I attended ridiculous protestant Christian elementary schools as a child. I never bought into Christianity, though… they got problems with understanding their own theology.
I’m one of those post-Cold War individuals that was raised without any kind of strong ‘identity’ or ideological background due to the mixing of the ‘east’ and the ‘west’ within recent times.
islam-is-submission asked: what religion you follow? or are you an athiest? just asking.
Just as with most things institutionalized in our society, I disagree with the way religion is socially structured in the modern-day.
Although, at the same time, I do have personal beliefs that coincide with Islamic monotheism and the ‘salafi’ methodology. I just have personal issues against the way it is institutionalized and structured within society itself.
I’ve always been a big adherent of referring things to the Qur’an and the sunnah that has been authenticated by the major scholars of hadith for a great majority of my own ‘religious’ issues. Thus, one could say that I follow the ‘manhaj as-salaf’, although I refuse to call myself by any labels.
This is why I disassociate myself from the ‘atheist’ label, also. I disagree with atheists due to their spite for religious ideology.
Technically, one could say that I am an ‘agnostic’ to a certain extent, although this label still doesn’t accurately portray my personal views towards religion. I think that this whole idea of agnosticism and atheism is a Europeanized concept of anti-religiosity and social categorization.
Anyway, I like the Imam of the masjid al-haram. That’s all that matters.
