Aziz Ali Dad

Our conceptual ideas, language, perception and logic are influenced by the sociological milieu within which we operate. These ideas, in turn, also affect societies. A cursory glance at the banners and posters dotting the visual landscapes of our major cities and towns reveals that different religious and proselytising groups in Pakistan are engaged in arranging myriad conferences.
The titles of these conferences range from the ‘Cause of the creation of the universe’, ‘Islam Zindabad Conference’, ‘Difa-e-Pakistan Conference’, ‘Fateh-e-Mubin conference’ and ‘Aalami Milad conference’ to ‘Azmat-e-Quran conference’ etc. This trend provides a glimpse into the socio-cultural and religious undercurrents that form the contours of the sociology of knowledge in Pakistan.
The main purpose behind the dissemination of this type of knowledge is to condition the Muslim mind so that it can become representative of a puritanical outlook. In a society plagued by poverty, corruption, violence, injustice and inequality, our ulema try to present their received wisdom through a medium that has only a semblance of knowledge with the trappings of modernity. They -our ulema – are bereft of the required intellectual resources to complete the project of modernity.
The situation has become more challenging with the explosion of information and communication technology during the last two decades. These developments have exposed us to the forces of globalisation that are reshaping our lives. The exposure of a closed society like ours to the outside world means that people are becoming increasingly aware of exogenous ideas, lifestyles and market forces, which tend to weaken the hold of conservatism.
By any moderate reckoning, the number of conferences arranged by religious groups exceeds conferences in our universities and research institutions. Apparently, this should have significantly contributed to the production of knowledge in Pakistan. On the contrary, day by day the dark clouds of ignorance and obscurantism are engulfing our worldview.
The reason for the widening gap between our fidelity to religion and deterioration in other spheres of life lies in our illusion about knowledge. The gap between our religious and ‘practical’ lives is because we have failed to acquaint ourselves with the modern discourse of social sciences and the humanities.
We are under the illusion that the west is a Godless society and has, thus, failed to contribute to scholarship pertaining to religion. However, the fact is that despite entering a post-religious period after the Enlightenment, intellectuals in the west have grappled with the reality of religion in the modern/postmodern world. Their exploration of myths, language, textual strategies and the historical and cultural roots of religion has enabled readers to understand religion through a perspective that is more in sync with modern times.
That is why an understanding of modern disciplines like anthropology, sociology, psychology, literary criticism, archaeology, history, art, political science and area studies is indispensible for making sense of religion. In order to explore new dimensions of interface between the sacred and the modern, it is necessary for religion to be emancipated from the straightjacket of theology.
Although, the domain of exegesis has been traditionally dominated by the ulema, they have failed to provide new ways even in this field. Today their works appear worthless when compared to the contribution to hermeneutics by philosophers like Friedrich Schleiermacher, Wilhelm Dilthey, Soren Kierkegaard, Martin Heiddeger, Karl Jaspers, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Merleau-Ponty, Paul Ricoeur, Hans Kung, Mohammed Arkoun etc. A famous religious scholar from Pakistan has authored 1,000 books, but in terms of his contribution to modern religious discourse and philosophy of religion, his legacy is negligible.
In the context of Pakistan, religious discourse is dominated by clerics who brook no modern ideas. So they walk a path trodden by their predecessors for centuries and have been unable to produce any theoreticians even in the realm of religious discourse. A theorist deconstructs our assumptions of received knowledge. By doing so he provides new frameworks to perceive and interpret reality differently. Therefore, it is not necessary to treat every writer as a theoretician. A theoretician can be a writer but every writer cannot be a theoretician.
‘Nothing comes out of nothing’. Our minds regurgitate received knowledge to make sense of the modern world, but every attempt alienates us from our time and space. In the absence of the required social and intellectual capital for modernity, society resorts to illusions that have only a semblance of knowledge. Only by preparing ourselves to deconstruct our existing framework of knowledge can we free religion from obscurantism and our religious selves from illusions of knowledge.
Stephen Hawking rightly said “the greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.”
The writer is a freelance columnist based in Islamabad.
Email: azizalidad@gmail.com

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