A DIALOGUE WITH AN ANTHROPOLOGIST: PROFESSOR AHMAD RAFIQUE AKHTAR
The Most Important Era in The Human History
A DIALOGUE WITH AN ANTHROPOLOGIST
Professor Ahmad Rafiq Akhter. We are more open to deas, culture, understanding and Islam as a subject has no problem with any science, with any culture, with any understanding. We only say that the Islam has its own discipline within and outside. Wherever we go, whether we go East or the West, we have to follow those disciplines. Some body asked me, “is it o.k. if we eat pork”.I said, “Go ahead, eat it!”. He said, “God forbid it”. Yes, I think if you should love God more, then don't eat it. It is the matter of love. How much love do you have and with whom? If you love God and you think being closer to Him, you cannot eat pork then you won't eat pork. If you will not love Him more and you love pork more then you will eat pork.
Allah says in Quran that it's the matter of love. If you love Me more, then you have to avoid a few things. If you do not love Me, then love the world.
I have one question for you which is about the role of dreaming in Islam.
Professor Ahmad Rafiq Akhter. There are five kinds of dreams reported to us by Sheikh Abdul Qadir Jilani, one of the Greatest Mystic. He has given a very strange kind of dream factory which we call 'Mosaic of Dreams'. This Mosaic of Dreams consist of many parts. And all parts are not uniform and equal in construction. Some of them pretend to be good and some ofthem are very ugly. Some of them represent nothing at all but confusion. So dreams should always be interpreted by somebody who knows all the cultures at the same time. The Western symbol does not hold good in the East and the Easter symbols arcabsolutely useless in the West. Therefore, any interpretation of dreams will not be a Jungian or fruedian in any sense, neither will they be in like Ibn-i-Saleen or like in Imam jafar Sadiq.
We have to deal every dream in its proper situation, place, in its culture and its social attitude. And particularly if you have a little knowledge of background of its human sense also. So you combine in dreams, if you technically look at the dream. It combines together a lot of branches of knowledge and only a master of intellectual can interpret a dream. And again we are not supposed to give a dream a bad way of interpretation. We arc supposed to dig out a better probability from a dream. Don't try to convey a worst kind ofsolution.
Comment:....like with optimistic solution the worldwould be a better place......
Professor Ahmad Rafiq Akhter. Yeah, at times. Sometimes you see a very bad dream, it means good. because the symbol some time is intelligible the way it is. And sometime it is absolutely indifferent. For example, you see a tree in East. It's a good symbol but if you see tree in the West, it's only a sexual symbol.
Comment:
Provided if you are Freudian.
Professor Ahmad Rafiq Akhter. If you arc Freudian (laughing). But ifyou arc a Jungian, I mean to say, then the symbol of mandala figure or what ever it is, we have to call a collective unconscious. And the collective unconscious is not the same. It has also the areas to determine. The West is an area, East is an area. And the areas are fixed in certain collective unconscious attitudes. So we have to again research about that. Particularly like an anthropologist, I may point out a very simple thing to you. Anthropologist makes one major mistake.
Comment:
Just one?
Professor Ahmad Rafiq Akhter. And I hope there are not many. About religion, it makes one major mistake. We offer a solution to the world and interpretations of different societies. For example, let me say, if we saythat in this century, this concept of God existed, we are not looking for any external power coming from sky, giving that thought of a culture in our society. We will be interpreting our society and the needs of society and then we think that this society has created a concept of God.
Comment:
Yeah, I think that is a problem...in anthropology and religion that is not looking at certain social role, religion can be a problem.
Professor Ahmad Rafiq Akhter. It is our idea that God is like this, God should be like this. In certain society God has been created like this.
Comment:
It's an outsider's view.
Professor Ahmad Rafiq Akhter. Yeah, it's not the idea, that there could he a God that might have given a societyand culture. Comment:
Yeah, I agree with you.
Professor Ahmad Rafiq Akhter. I have done that thesis...would you like to smoke anybody?
Comment:
A cigarette?
Professor Ahmad Rafiq Akhter. There is something common between the saint and the satan and that is a cigarette (laughing).
Comment:Cigarette?!
Professor Ahmad Rafiq Akhter.I won't call you that, forgive me. I haven't called you a satan, just given you a phrase.
Comment:
I neither take you as a saint.
Professor Ahmad Rafiq Akhter. Thank you.
Comment:
All my friends have some keen questions for you.
Professor Ahmad Rafiq Akhter. They arc welcome to ask. So many times my religious people do not like my smoking. They asked so many times that why do you smoke cigarette.
Comment:
What do you say?
Professor Ahmad Rafiq Akhter. Well, I had a very good teacher in psychology in my young age and he would say that there are three or four interpretations of smoking a cigarette. One is pretty obscene. He used to call it that cigarette is partly oral, partly anal and partly sexual. But I think that is all a thesis created by an intellectual like an anthropologist gives an idea of God. I think it is a good figure control and a revivalist in your fatigue.
Comment: in your fatigue? It energies you.You know many anthropologists are very spiritual and religious people.
Professor Ahmad Rafiq Akhtcr. Not by choice. I think some of the people refuse to think against God in our society and in your society also. They may be revolutionaries in their ideas but normally, many great scientists have not bothered to think about God, and they simply have believed God.
Question:
I am in search of God also, .... lfit is inner empirical experience.
Professor Ahmad Rafiq Akhtcr. I will tell you. This is your card?
Comment:
Yeah
Professor Ahmad Rafiq Akhter. One thing I know from your name which I have read. You are sensitive and meticulous, and you like to be powerful. You were born sensitive and a very possessive man, and you find it difficulty to leave, relinquish an idea. And gradually you are moving on to further sensitivity to possess. to concentrate and I think you are also called by the name lan.
Comment:
Yes, I am also called by that name. My mother was Scottish.
Professor Ahmad Rafiq Akhter. You arc looking very strong, powerful, emotions and strength and what you like to contribute to ...well, you are a systematic worker but it is not a name who would look for an executive talent. Basically you are an executive talent.
Comment:
Executive?
Professor Ahmad Rafiq Akhter. Yeah, you like to rule. You like to contribute to the offices, to the management. It is one of the best management names. Unluckily, when you do nol get that kind of a management behavior then you fall a little sick within yourself. And meticulously depressed about certain issues and you develop a little sarcastic attitude in your life because you would not like other incompetent people to rule around you. This comparison might make you sometimes a little more sick than you would seem.
Comment:
I am not interested in power, but if power is the lesion of the problem, I would handle power. Professor Ahmad Rafiq Akhter. Well, that is your talent. That is your natural talent, power to handle things. And again one more thing l must say. Should I say it?
Comment:
Great! be my guest.
Professor Ahmad Rafiq Akhter. At times, you are extremely sensitive on self-respect issues. You would be very angry on that.! do not know, ...but there is lot of efforts to control your anger. In the beginning you were aggressive, allegiant, strong mooded and now with time, you have lost your anger. But you have developed a regular irritation. We have got a cure for this if you would like.
Comment:
l know you have(laughing)!
Professor Ahmad Rafiq Akhter. It's not medicine. There are two things, you see. Once not approved, you are very strong, very determined man. But along with, you are very highly prejudice man. You hold an idea, you give full strength to its adherence. ln liking those ideas, your inner self is so strong, it is very, very difficulty to dislodge you from your very, very dug-in ideas.
If you could marry again, I would tell you, you have natural tendency to fall for any woman whose name begin with S or Sh. And l wish you had married some woman.
Despite of high sexual motivation in your young age, you have become disciplined to hold and regulate it. But still, 1 hope you have found a woman of your choice, like in the beginning. Both the name starts with Sh or S. And you ever got a class, lived established, a long marital life with a lady? Looks like again you were touched.
God has not provided you with one of the best choices you had in your life. Emotions are so well dug in so strongly built in, at times they spoil your inner balance. One strong emotion along with your sensitivity, keeps you upset over a long time. 1t’s difficult for you to come out and to balance yourself again. And to be more proportionate than you were before. You hate one thing in you. Over the time you hated one thing in you. You are extra emotional.
Comment:
Extra emotional?
Professor Ahmad Rafiq Akhter. 1 mean more than normal. Normally you are more than emotional. Some times it burst out like a volcano in you.
Comment:
Professor Ahmad Rafiq Akhler. One thing is very true for you. You can be trusted as a good friend and for all the secrets you can keep.
Comment:
That is very true.
Professor Ahmad Rafiq Akhter. So what you have been looking in dreams.
Comment: I have not studied dreams in my academics in Boston. This is my research.
Professor Ahmad Rafiq Akhter. Well, I may tell you, your research should not be polluted with one or two things. Imay say as a friend. Sometimes, we come from outside with a few in built theories. We think that Muslim’s dreams of revival, or survival of some belligerent, militant mood. And most of the people from here, also keep on dreaming of a sage and this is common in all the believers. Just like Christian's dream of a world Christ life and Christ world. One thing that both Christians and Muslims agree on, and it’snot because of their dreams worlds. It's because of their faith. Christianity also presents the reliving of Christ and Islam is very determined, is very, very obvious on this fact that Christ will come back again. Now you see, we have to be very sure whether this kind of order or this kind of fact which existed with God and not with us. We people of the modem world can hardly believe on this issue that Christ will come back again. But on one fact that Christian believe is that Christ relived and Muslim believe that Christ did not die. Both these facts lead to one idea, that Christ was not on earth after he was taken away. Now where does he lie and how would he come back, this lies with God. If He is a power, then we believe that He has lot many things to hide than Christ. And now his coming back, along with a Muslim leader, you may call Mahdi, is not a general idea, is not a common idea, is not a wishful thinking. We have seen a wishful thinking like in the Fall of Grenada. One of the great Muslim general, Musa al Tariry, you might know the name?
Comment:
Professor Ahmad Rafiq Akhter. He fought with Christians, and died in Wadi-e-Kabeer-the river, Wadi-e-Kabeer. The people in Africa and people in Grenada, have been dreaming long after that he will come back again and he will bring his force and he will liberate them from the Christian people. But this concept of Christ and Mahdi is not like that idea. It is not simple wishful thinking. It is a very strong, well dug in religious idea and no body can answer. If you ask me if I believe in God, I believe in every word which is written in the Quran and in the hadith. I do believe this will happen, but not because I am romantic or not because l am a wishful thinker, because I believe in God. Similarly, in Christian theologies, the reliving ofChrist is a fact. We might give a small portion of different shape, so people in times of any crisis, not this crisis and this time, when Muslims are under stress because of the Christian world. Not because of this but if any this time Muslim could dream, overall in the collective unconscious, they might dream of a resurrector. And believe me, when we think of Christ, we don't think Christ of Christian. We think Christ as the prophet of God and we believe in heavens. As we believe in Muhammad (PBU H), we believe in Christ.
Comment: Yes I know.
Professor Ahmad Rafiq Akhter. On this particular aspect, Muslims are open to all prophets; we believe in David. We believe in anybody who has been presented the prophet of God in Islam. So what I am suggesting is simply that people might give you such examples of dreams. Even yesterday somebody told me a dream. The only difference is, when I see a common man passes to me a dream which is not at all linked to him; it has nothing to do with his practical life or private life, I have to rethink this thesis and check why did he dream so? Is it because of larger insecurities which are happening in Muslim world, orhe is over concerned. He is just an uneducated man, busy in earning his life and livelihood from small means. So I would not give him this advantage that he is feeling so insecure. I would certainly think of something else. This idea is being passed to the thousand of Muslims in the same time. No doubt to the Christians at the same time. Comment:
By the dreams?
Professor Ahmad Rafiq Akhter. Yeah, by dreams. And may be, may be we are close, we are close, to the advent of the most important era in the human history where the end of the civilization is already predicted and a new role, and this is the habit of Almighty Allah. There is one very strange thing. If you would understand that civilization were not destroyed when they were poor, hungry and famished. They were destroyed when they were at the peak of their liberties, when they were at the peak of their monitories, benefits, and at the peak of their larger concerns. For example, Pharaohs were not destroyed when they were poor. For example, were not destroyed when they were at the poorest most conditions. So Allah says in the rule, in one word He says:
“We don't destroy poor people. We destroy people when people are very proud of their culture and civilizations.” When they are not, when they stop believing in God and they start believing more in themselves, we destroy people then. And today I feel the exact conditions are being fulfilled. People are more proud of creating their own civilization. They are not even shy of calling homosexuality as homosexuality. They are not shy of creating and imparting law which might destroy. For example, let me say homosexuality does nothing but it will reduce the human kind. It will not reproduce at all. Ifall the human beings become homosexual at the same time and avoid the natural course, we are a lost generation.
So I would simply say that this kind of emotionality now being born in people in East or West, they are those simple people honest people, those creative minds who are wishing for a more balanced and justifiable world They are not Americans. They are not British. They are not Pakistani. The) are believers.
Abdullah ibn Mubarak (r.a)
Abdullah ibn. Mubarak (r.a) was born in second century 726 AD or some scholar quoted that he was born on 736 AD (118 Hijri), just 100 later after the death of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). He collected Hadith, included in Sahih al-Bukhari, Sahih al-Muslim and other six books of Hadith (traditions of the prophet Muhammad) and remained famous for his memory and quest of knowledge. He lived in the age of a prominent jurist Abu Hanifa and some scholar quoted that he used to be the pupil of Imam Abu Hanifa. He was born Mard, a city of Khorasan, then he moved to Iraq, stayed there for a long time. It was the reign of Hisham ibn Abd Al Malik.
Prominent Scholar of Hadith were criticized including Imam Al-Bukhari, even Abu Hanifa and Imam Shafi were criticized for the understanding or selection of Hadith but the only person, never criticized once regarding his selection of Hadith is Abdullah ibn Mubarik. He was a wealthy man, not some ordinary guy.
As we know, he was a wealthy man, from a rich family. Wealthy people seldom pay attention to God and sometimes they never seek any help from God either, because their sources are enough to feed them, people around them are 'mini gods' in every battle of life. Islam is a religion of peace and prosperity and it never welcomed any kind of god instead of God. There is only one, the most beloved and the most High. Once in his luxurious hours, Abdullah ibn Mubarak received a wake-up call from Allah.
He was playing with his friends like some kind of party in the house. When he slept, a dream came to him in which a bird perched on a tree reciting the following verse of the Quran,
"Has not the time come for the hearts of those who believe to be affected by the reminder of Allah, and that, which has been revealed of the truth. (Quran 57:16)"
That was a wake-up call from Allah, to enjoy the worldly life but to remember him day and night.
Interview wid Professor Ahmad Rafique Akhtar: Islam, Sufism, Quran, Hindus, Society, Pakistan
Professor Ahmad Rafique Akhtar's interview for a magazine. In which following questions being asked to him relating to Islam, Sufism, Hinduism, Society, Pakistan. He answered every question in detail. I will be translating these interviews into English langauge, if you want to participate, leave a comment.
Q. 1
What is the basic problem with our analysis regarding west ?
Q. 2
Our Muslim brothers and sister got change in west while a hindue always remain a hindu ?
Q. 3
What is the biggest loss while living with Hindus ?
Q. 4
What is Iman ?
Q. 5
We rejected ancient system of idoltry, is there any new form of it still sruvives in us ?
Q. 6
It's hard to pray five times a day on time ?
Q. 7
People while, while praying at the mosque, mind travels outside. How to get rid of it ?
Q. 8
What is your opinion about Pakistan ?
Q. 9
Some people love people then they die. They will unite after death ?
Q. 10
You said somewhere in your books, "Sufism is the name of complete surrender before God", explain it ?
We have two behaviours regarding the west and both are derailed from the track of normalcy. A lot of more are impressed from the west, although it is true that west has progressed immensly but this progress is not the progress in knowledge, but the progress in the field of technology.
Q. 1
What is the basic problem with our analysis regarding west ?
Q. 2
Our Muslim brothers and sister got change in west while a hindue always remain a hindu ?
Q. 3
What is the biggest loss while living with Hindus ?
Q. 4
What is Iman ?
Q. 5
We rejected ancient system of idoltry, is there any new form of it still sruvives in us ?
Q. 6
It's hard to pray five times a day on time ?
Q. 7
People while, while praying at the mosque, mind travels outside. How to get rid of it ?
Q. 8
What is your opinion about Pakistan ?
Q. 9
Some people love people then they die. They will unite after death ?
Q. 10
You said somewhere in your books, "Sufism is the name of complete surrender before God", explain it ?
We have two behaviours regarding the west and both are derailed from the track of normalcy. A lot of more are impressed from the west, although it is true that west has progressed immensly but this progress is not the progress in knowledge, but the progress in the field of technology.
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