New scholarship on religion and reform: Part – II
'The latest contribution by Ali Usman Qasmi to the existing scholarship on the history of Pakistan and how religion has influenced citizenship and other issues in the country is Qaum,…
New scholarship on religion and reform: Part – I
Despite a general apathy – or even despondency – about falling academic standards in Pakistan, some relatively young researchers and writers have made their mark in academic circles in the…
Climate and the religious lens
The condition of Pakistani cities shows that we are suffering from an intellectual, professional and moral crisis. There is a sense that the existing government institutions and people cannot be…
A scholar of peace (Part – II)
While discussing Wahiduddin we cannot escape his forays into the realm of the war between religion and science. His book ‘Mazhab aur Science’ – first published in 1971 as a…
A scholar of peace (Part – I)
When, as a young man looking for guidance, Wahiduddin moved from one source of knowledge to another, he realised that the books of the time were not sufficient. So he…
A critique of three scholars
Some of my readers have asked me to write more on historiography in Pakistan other than the writers such as Ali Abbas Jalalpuri, Dr Mubarak Ali, and Sibte Hasan. In…
H M Jafri: a scholar of early Islam
There are not many bookshops in Skardu, but whenever I happen to be there my friend, Aziz Ali Dad, takes me to Soday Books – a compact and fine place…
Hope for a religious corridor
The Sikh community the world over is getting ready to commemorate the 550th birth anniversary in November 2019 of the First Guru of the Sikhs, Guru Nanak Dev. Many would-be…
Mapping religious groups
Extremism and terrorism pose an existential threat to the peace, progress and prosperity of the country. Unfortunately, we have failed to eradicate terrorism despite the fact that we have spent…
The deepening crisis of scholarship
Last week, I ended the first part of this series by sharing my feeling of shock and dismay at the decline we have observed in religious studies and theological development…
