January 22, 2006	Sunday	Zilhaj 21, 1426

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ISLAMABAD, Jan 21: A gathering of the city’s intellectuals on Friday called for promoting the study of philosophy to open the heart and minds closed by dogmatic thinking.

They felt that a people wedded to dogma would remain confused. Reality was ever changing and demanded new solutions to new problems. Philosophy, being “the quintessence of its time, could guide them to a way out”, they said.

The occasion was the launching of the Urdu translation of Bertrand Russell’s History of Western Philosophy by Prof Mohammad Bashir from the joint platform of the Islamabad Cultural Forum and the Islamabad Philosophical Society.

“Our society is not deconstructing. We were victim of the imperialism of religious dogma in the 1980s and are suffering the imperialism of science dogma currently,” Dr Iqbal Afaqi told the gathering, with little hope for a society believing in dogma to break out of its predicaments.

Prof Khwaja Masud said philosophy essentially provided a world view. “Each one of us has a world view. In other words each one of us is a philosopher — even the one who says he is not because rejection itself is a philosophy,” he said.

“To live in real time is to change from moment to moment. Creativity is opposite to repetition and all creativity is free activity,” he added. The Quran, he noted, stresses the unity of iman (faith) and amal (practice).

Writer Aftab Iqbal observed that the age of reason had solved many problems of man but also created some — such as the market economy in the garb of globalization, and neocolonialism.

“I don’t hold the West in awe, nor do I suffer from inferiority complex,” he declared, wondering how Prof Bashir would have analysed the oriental philosophy. “The East has been home to many ancient and great civilizations,” he said.

Islamabad Cultural Forum’s moving spirit Ashfaq Saleem Mirza noted that the robust spirit of inquiry in the early days of Islam produced great philosophers like Imam Ghazali and Ibn Rushd. “Today we see danger for Islam in philosophy and have become a nation steeped in dogma and merrily wallowing in ignorance.”

All speakers praised Prof Bashir’s monumental 900-page translation and called it “a work of love for Russell”.

Prof Bashir, in his thin voice, acknowledged that he was no philosopher but a teacher of English who fell in love with Russell’s works and humanity.

“In 1994 I quit teaching after realizing that my constant lecturing was losing me my voice and causing pain in my chest. After sometime I thought I have lost my voice but I can still write and so worked for seven years on this translation,” he said giving the background of his undertaking.

Prof Bashir owned the typographical mistakes and inadequate translation of some terms which Ashfaq Saleem Mirza had pointed out and hoped to correct them “if the book sees a second edition”.

“Russell was not willing to die for his words because he said ‘I may be wrong’. I say I’m wrong, not may be. I’m not satisfied with my work but I do have the satisfaction that I tried to do something good,” said Prof Bashir and the audience rose to give him a standing ovation.