34 Quotes by Pervez Hoodbhoy

In Waziristan people get really upset when there are no drone attacks. Their apprehension is that the US and Pakistani government might enter in an agreement to halt the attacks.

Science is the supreme expression of man’s rationality.

Fire causes burning, lightning causes thunder, winds cause waves, and gravity causes bodies to fall. Such connections between an effect and its cause form the cornerstone of scientific thinking, both modern and classical. But this notion of causality is one which is specifically rejected by Asharite doctrine, and the most articulate and effective opponent of physical causality was AI-Ghazzali.

Muslims – who comprise one-fifth of all humanity – will continue to suffer an undignified and degraded existence if science, and particularly a rational approach to human problems, is considered alien to Islamic culture.

It is a sad commentary on the state of Muslim scholarship that Ibn Khaldun remained a virtual nonentity until he was discovered by Orientalists. Now that he has their stamp of recognition, many scholars – excepting Arab racialists and the extreme orthodox – have entered into a competition to see whose encomiums are the loudest.

Ibn Rushd’s writings were translated into Latin and Hebrew by European scholars. There soon appeared super-commentaries on his commentaries. Many of the writings exist only in these two languages, the original Arabic writings being long lost. This itself is a commentary on the extent to which Ibn Rushd, as a rationalist philosopher, was able to influence the mood of his times.

It is imperative to realize that Muslim culture is inextricably wedded to the past.