Notes from Tuesday, 9/29/09

Maulana Nafees spoke in Urdu. He reminded us of a couple of Traditions
of the Holy Prophet (S) about seeking knowledge: one must seek knowledge
from craddle to grave; and seek knowledge even if it means going to
China.

The knowledge to be sought is supposed to be the knowledge of "Deen",
i.e. religion, and any branch of any field of knowledge that fulfills
some human need, be it social or economic or any other need, is within
the sphere of the knowledge of "Deen".

Knowledge is of two basic kinds: "Roohaani", i.e. Divine; and
"Insaani" i.e. man made, which include all the discipline we study in
our schools and universities, e.g. Economics, History Maths; and the
various types of sciences etc.

History is a translation of "Taareekh" in Arabic language, which means
date e.g. 09/29/2009.
It is one of the oldest subjects of study which relates to events,
answering its 'when', 'why' and 'how'.
The earliest histories are actually the biographies, emphasizing the
good deeds of kings, withouit any ref. to their evil deeds. Or they are
the description of cultures and great personalities. Another group of
historical records are those of wars. It may be from the perspective of the
aggressor or that of the victim. If it is a
victim's version, it is called "Maqatil" where loss of life and property
is depicted, eg. Maqatil of Karbala.

Maulana mentioned about the "Maqatil" of "Khawarij" where Imam Ali (A)
had to fight a group of his own followers who accused him of becoming a
non Muslim. He warned them that he, being the Imam from Allah (SWT) was
certainly following the right course, and therefore, not to rebel
against him. Otherwise his side would lose only ten persons, whereas
the "Kwarij" will lose everybody except ten. The ten saved were those
who had run away from the battle field.

This took most of the time available for the session, so Asad Haider
Sahib had only a few minutes to say something. Only one point was
expalined by me: that History is a very subjective branch of knowledge.