Guest Post: Fariha Akhtar
Most of us believe that everyone needs to modernize in order to cope up with the dynamics of this world. We feel that its ok to change ourselves with changing times as long as we dont compromise on our religious principles and so Mush came up with the concept of Enlightened Moderation. A huge number of Pakistanis except religious fanatics welcomed this notion since it seemed to lead to a neutral path“deen aur duniya saath saath.
I also supported it up until when I began to formally study what “Enlightenment actually is. Enlightenment in its real sense is an effort to humanize religion. Mr. M. J. Inwoods explains the leading doctrines of Enlightenment as shared by most of the spokesmen in the Oxford Companion (1995,236) and one of those doctrines goes on as
Beliefs are accepted only on the basis of reason, not on the authority of priests, sacred texts or tradition. Thus Enlightenment thinkers tended to atheism, or at most to a purely natural deism, shorn of supernatural and miraculous elements and designed primarily to support an enlightened moral code and in some cases to account for the faith that the universe is a rational system wholly accessible to human reason.
This very clearly shows that Enlightenment leads to the replacement of religion by reason and rationality. In order to modernize Pakistan, Musharraf also wanted to have this sort of “Enlightenment” but since it was too difficult to openly reject the supremacy of religion so he came up with a desi version of it giving it the name of “Enlightened Moderation”.
It is just a softer image of the original concept so we shouldn’t fall in the trap because initially this desi version may seem to be tolerant towards Islam but would ultimately lead to the rejection of it. In fact, even now we can see the repercussions all around in the form of the amendments being made to the curriculum and the demolition of Mosques in Islamabad which are just a few examples.
Comments
6 responses to “Enlightened Moderation: Desi Version of Enlightenment!”
Great article, it was interesting to read and I have always believed that the word Enlightened moderation was a misnomer to butter up the term Martial Law.
Heck if he had announced Martial Law, Pakistanis would have fought on the streets and America would have coughed up a fur ball. But with a snazzy term like Enlightened Moderation was easier for the west to swallow and at the same times Pakistanis were yet again made a fool out of, one more time
If we take Enlightenment as a term then surely this is exactly what you qouted in your article.
Actually West started to break away from Chruch in the sevententh century. Philosopher like Thomas Paine wrote several books and issued pamphlets to challenge the church beliefs. He wrote AGE OF REASONS that stormed the religiously active society back then. His writing inspired the FRENCH AND AMERICAN REVOULTIONS, THESE TWO REVOLUTIONS changed the west forever. He wasnt an Atheist, he was a Deist, he believed in A SUPREME BEING.
I leave this term Enlightenment here, cuz I want to discuss Musarraf’s Enligtened moderation.
As Mush’s term refelects that its about MODERATION not about Enlightenment. As enlightened literal meanings are Having knowledge or Spiritual Insight, and Moderation means AVOID EXTREMES.
What I get from this notion is INTELLECTUAL REFORMATION, as ALLAMA IQBAL ALSO WROTE A BOOK called RECONSTRUCTION OF RELIGIOUS THOUGHT IN ISLAM. ppl at that time critized Iqbal for writing this book and that is why according to Iqbal’s son he didnt try to get it published in URDU language in his life time.
As we all know in our society how many of us want the HARD CORE kind of Islam as imposed by Taleban or Saudi style HALF(HARDCORE)Islamic and HALF MAN MADE LAWS to be imposed on public.
FOR isntance in SAUDI ARAB WOMEN ARE NOT ALLOWED TO DRIVE CARS. I am not going in the debate whether it is islamic or non islamic law , but what I am trying to say is WE NEED TO ACT AS A MODERATE PERSON IN EVERY ASPECTS.
When it comes to legislation, being an Islamic state we should legislate according to moderate teachings of ISLAM not the hard core interpretations of some IMAMS.
IJTEHAD NEEDS TO BE DONE ON SO MANY ISSUES. AND ONLY THOSE COULD DO IJTEHAD WHO ARE ENLIGHTENED AND WHO COULD UNDERSTAND THE INTRICACIES OF MODERN AGE. NOT THOSE WHO ARE UNABLE TO COMPREHEND OR SOME REASON THEY JUST DONT WANT TO FIND THE SOLUTION TO MOST BURNING ISSUES FACED BY THE MUSLIMS OF THIS AGE.
I am NOT here to support Musharraf as he himself says that HIS IDEAL IS KAMALATTA TURK, so its useless to say anything after this. He himself reveals everything in this simple statement.
Apart from govt’s policies WE ALL MUST STRIVE FOR ENLIGHTENED AND MODERATE SOCIETY IN ORDER TO SELF OURSELVES FROM THE MENACE OF SECULARISM AS WELL AS FROM THE CLUTCHES OF EXTREMISM.
@Nocturnal
There indeed is a difference between “Enlightenment” and “enlightenment”. What i meant to clarify is that Musharraf’s notion of “Enlightened Moderation” is about bringing “Enlightenment” not merely “enlightenment”. A couple of years ago…i read some part of “Philosophy in the time of Terror” by Giovanna Borradori. In that book, he has presented interviews of Habermas (a very famous modernist thinker) and Derrida (an equally famous post-modernist thinker) and their opinion about what can possibly be the reason behind fundamentalism and terrorism and what can be done about it. Habermas suggested that in order to change the way fundamentalists think, west needs to take a “soft-consultative” approach. This soft consultative approach involves a lot of things and one of them is presenting sugar-coated “Enlightenment” just the way Musharraf has in the form of “Enlightened Moderation”, so that we can swallow it easily.
As far as Ijtehad is concerned, i can’t say much since i haven’t got proper knowledge about it but still I feel something that asks for rejection of religion could not support Ijtehad.
Helloo Everyone,
We were taught about enlightment theory by our social science teacher. I wonder who taught Musharaf all this stuff?.?.? And just after 9/11. Must be a CRASH COURSE 🙂
Musharafs Theory of Moderate Enlightment is about bringing the moderate Muslims in the limelight (saving the country and the military even at the cost of values. May be the concept of TAQAYYA is behind). But what I know about Islam is that it forbids to create classes and everyone should be treated equally. So Muslims can not be in the form of groups according to Islam (Although they are).
I want to ask one thing, the concept of Jehad was brought practically in Pakistan by a military ruler (Our military rulers do know how to bring changes) in 80s. At that time the liberals were considered as QAFIR. But due to some reasons those Jehadis are now treated as terrorist or extremist. And Pakistan does have such kind of people. And the liberals are now progressive (Rulers do really change their minds quickly and have great ENGLISH vocabulary). My question is that what will happen if something goes wrong and then the concept of Jehad will be required to overcome the situation? Where will all the T.V channels, liberals and Investors go? Is there a backup plan!!
One more thing if you people have time then read the following books (In case you have not)
Friends Not Masters
By Ayub Khan
Pakistan between the Mosque and Military
By Irshad Ahmed Haqani
You will be able to find out the minds behind so-called Pakistani Think Tanks
Regards,
Mehdi
By Ayub Khan
Pakistan Between Mosque and Millitary
By Irshad Ahmed Haqani
There are many hubbub voices which blemish the real fact about Enlightenment aka Enlightening Moderation one wonder what the heck is Enlightenment? in urdu ‘Roshan Khiyali’
PM Shortcut Aziz was the drumbeater of Enlightenment.
Believe me or not Enlightenment is simply worship of Lucifer.
Freemasonry is a religion that believes Lucifer is the “God of light and God of good in which divine words turn bad and evil turn good in the guise of Enlightenment.
It preaches “tolerance” and the universality of all religions in order to negate them all
The lesson of this story is that God is indispensable. He is Reality. We cannot deny Him without denying the principle of our own fulfillment. A secular new world order is prey to the devil. This is impasse we are in. We are ruled by a satanic cult.
The human endeavor is a simple question of whom do we wish to bow, God or Lucifer? If we prostrate God the world would be heaven and our lives would be bliss. If we choose lucifer, you can imagine the rest as in recent events.
Some things we can do: 1) boycott the mass media; 2) “out” politicians, teachers and media/ngo figures who are pushing the freemason agenda; 3) refuse to hate other people or fight other countries; 4) celebrate the things the freemasons hate — nationhood (internationalism causes war) heterosexual identities, nuclear families, Islam and one-GOD
guYasir –> “Enlightenment is simply worship of Lucifer”
After two years of constant research I totally agree. Remember Ata-turk (a freemason and a vehement follower of the enlightenment thoery) is an ideal of Musharraf.