Our ultimate problem is an intellectual one: Dr Nomanul Haq

Historian says intellectual vacuum fuelled extremism

KARACHI: A 16-year-old boy scores the highest in German and gets his name published in the papers for his achievement. Filled with glee, he runs up to his uncle to show him the paper.

"Is ka kiya karo gay? Chemistry mein kiya haal hain? Tumharay haath larkiyon jaisay hain. Ganday honay chahiye hain haath. Koi nishaan hi nahin hain tumharay hathon pay, kuch banatay nahin ho kia? [What will you do with this? How are you doing in Chemistry? Your hands are feminine. Hands should be dirty. You don't have any marks on your hands, don't you make anything?]" the uncle replies.



This boy grew up to become historian Prof Dr Nomanul Haq, who teaches at the social sciences and liberal arts department at the Institute of Business Administration. Dr Haq shares this anecdote as he delivers a lecture on 'A Philosophical Approach to the Ills of our Times' at Area Study Centre for Europe in Karachi University on Thursday. It is easy to forgive Dr Haq for his tardiness — he was 20 minutes late to the event — once his engaging discourse, laden with occasional, husky rendition of Urdu poetic verses, begins.

He points out three basic reasons for the ills that prevail in our society, including extremism and radicalisation: rupture with the past, historical dislocation and intellectual vacuum. He believes that these three reasons provide breeding grounds for ills such as extremism to grow.

He addresses the biggest question that has prevailed in all of our lives: barray ho ke kiya bano gay? [What do you aspire to become when you grow up?]. Irked by the nausea the question carries, he describes how he forced himself into vocational sciences just to conform to societal expectations. "I was interested in literature, languages and philosophical thought," he says. "But I used to say 'Oh, I want to become an engineer' as I had to invent something."



Talking about the rupture with the past of our society, Dr Haq gives the example of madressas, ulema and Islamic theologian Ibne Taymiyyia. He clarifies that madressas are not seminaries and ulema are not the clergy — we just tend to borrow foreign concepts without recognising their role and historical position.

"Zubaan-e-ghair se shar e arzoo ho rahi hai [We are expressing ourselves in alien idioms]" he says. Speaking about Ibne Taymiyyia, Dr Haq says the person, who is revered by all schools of thought, was very complex and very liberal at times.

However, because of our rupture with the past, we do not know much about him.

"Ibne Taymiyyia would talk about music therapy … even though it's written outside Baitul Mukarram Masjid that mausiqi [music] is haram [forbidden]," he says, adding examples of how the theologian even allowed a male physician to examine the genitals of a female patient and vice versa.

He explains that he knows Urdu and Farsi because of his education in the West. "Things can never progress in an intellectual vacuum."

Published in The Express Tribune, February 26^th, 2016.