What One Says or Writes

Lately, I prefer not to read postings on the social media because (insulting) reactions to (unusual) claims made by a local professor. What is troubling is perhaps this is not the first time and the person would have known what reactions that will come thereafter. Note that in any claim, the burden of proof is upon the person who makes the claim. The more extraordinary the claim that is being put forward, the bigger is the burden of proof. This is also true within the 'hard' sciences. The bigger the difference with the normative science of the day, the more resistance one expects. This is well understood. I recall having a potential PhD candidate (or was it MSc) who came to see me, wishes to prove that Earth holds a special position in the universe. Knowing modern cosmology's idea that there is no such specal position, I asked the person what is the latest form of cosmological knowledge that the person knew. The person did not respond directly to the question, emphasizing only the faith of the person. Naturally, I would not want the person to be my PhD student. Also, with respect to these claims, I may have some differences in the past with a colleague on some claims but whom I respected because of his Arabic knowledge and the ability to access primary Arabic sources. I do admire his passion of getting (non-English) historical documents, and their careful reading whose contents are largely unknown to many of us who are educated in the West.

Tried to view the whole episode within a larger lens; I remembered the book Black Athena (three volumes) whose claim is that Western civilization has its roots in North Africa and West Asia, not simply from the Greeks. I knew about the book from my reading of its review in Afkar Inquiry magazine. I actually bought its first volume and I still have it, but it is stashed away in the inner depths of my book shelf. While I think it is interesting, given the geographical proximity of the regions involved, history is not really my cup of tea. Talking about proximity, when I first heard about Golden Chersonese during my school days, I was already puzzled how our region gets its way into the literature of the Greeks because of the distances between Greece and South East Asia. This piece of history was learned together with history of Francis Light 'discovered' Penang and Stamford Raffles 'discovered' Singapore. Later, we do understand that these were just the perspectives of the colonialists. So, with respect to history, care must be taken on who is writing them. This is not to say that history has to be left to the whims of the historians. The better evidence, be it in terms of documentations or archaelogical evidences, the better the historical claim i.e. closer to the 'truth'. With respect to this and the Friday today, I remember the Qur'anic ayat:

The Cave (18:22) 

سَيَقُولُونَ ثَلَـٰثَةٌۭ رَّابِعُهُمْ كَلْبُهُمْ وَيَقُولُونَ خَمْسَةٌۭ سَادِسُهُمْ كَلْبُهُمْ رَجْمًۢا بِٱلْغَيْبِ ۖ وَيَقُولُونَ سَبْعَةٌۭ وَثَامِنُهُمْ كَلْبُهُمْ ۚ قُل رَّبِّىٓ أَعْلَمُ بِعِدَّتِهِم مَّا يَعْلَمُهُمْ إِلَّا قَلِيلٌۭ ۗ فَلَا تُمَارِ فِيهِمْ إِلَّا مِرَآءًۭ ظَـٰهِرًۭا وَلَا تَسْتَفْتِ فِيهِم مِّنْهُمْ أَحَدًۭا ٢٢

Some will say, “They were three, their dog was the fourth,” while others will say, “They were five, their dog was the sixth,” ˹only˺ guessing blindly. And others will say, “They were seven and their dog was the eighth.” Say, ˹O Prophet,˺ “My Lord knows best their ˹exact˺ number. Only a few people know as well.” So do not argue about them except with sure knowledge, nor consult any of those ˹who debate˺ about them.

— Dr. Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran (https://quran.com/18/22)

On the above controversy, the best place to dscuss or debate is within academic circles and journals. Social media is not a good place to have intense debate on this and most certainly only degenerate to gang-shaming. Social media is really a domain of attention-seekers, and not truth-seekers.

Social media is also prone to propaganda and narrative wars. I suppose people have the freedom to do these but be careful of what they entail. I saw a lot of Islamophobic narratives or comments. One of them, I saw this morning is about the splitting of the moon miracle (see also here) made by one writer. While not explicit, the intent is essentially to ridicule - the person showed pics of the moon in Arabia (split) but it was whole in other places - one explanation I have seen is that in far away places, they are in different time zones. But 'miracles' or out of the norm events do happen in other religions too, so in a way what the writer did was cherry-picking. There will always be parts of the religion that we do not understand. For me, the honest and humble thing to do is to reflect on places where we are asked to reflect (and not in places where one don't have the depth of understanding - very much the same in science, we leave problematic cases for others or future generations to expound on - or we can wait for the Hereaafter). On this note, muslims are not allowed to insult the religion of others as indicated in the following verse:

The Cattle (6:108) 

وَلَا تَسُبُّوا۟ ٱلَّذِينَ يَدْعُونَ مِن دُونِ ٱللَّهِ فَيَسُبُّوا۟ ٱللَّهَ عَدْوًۢا بِغَيْرِ عِلْمٍۢ ۗ كَذَٰلِكَ زَيَّنَّا لِكُلِّ أُمَّةٍ عَمَلَهُمْ ثُمَّ إِلَىٰ رَبِّهِم مَّرْجِعُهُمْ فَيُنَبِّئُهُم بِمَا كَانُوا۟ يَعْمَلُونَ ١٠٨

˹O believers!˺ Do not insult what they invoke besides Allah or they will insult Allah spitefully out of ignorance. This is how We have made each people’s deeds appealing to them. Then to their Lord is their return, and He will inform them of what they used to do.

— Dr. Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran (https://quran.com/6/108)

I think the ridiculing also happen in less sensitive areas; often we giggled at the fantastic parts of Bollywood films that seem to defy physics. Then my other half reminded me, the same can be said of some Hollywood films, where we don't giggle that much.

Anyway, here is how I felt after reading social media postings in the past week or so.

My youngest son just send me this photo where he had his Friday prayers. May Allah helphim with his studies and I hope he is eating well (have just topped up his pocket money this morning).