Daily Archives: November 4, 2020

The STEM Read Podcast - Fake Ghosts and Meddling Kids (Oct. 31, 2020)

Its a Halloween Bonus! On this episode of the STEM Read Podcast, well explore Americas deep-seated literary tradition of rationalism as it has played out in more than 150 years of pop culture, from the Dime Novels of the 1870s to Scooby-Doo to the horror novels of today. STEM Read Director Gillian King-Cargile (@gkingcargile) talks with authors and experts who explore, update, and upend our traditions of fake ghosts and meddling kids.

Our guests are archivist and Dime Novel Expert Sata Prescott; author of Daphne and Velma: The Dark Deception Morgan Baden (@MorganBaden); and author of Meddling Kids Edgar Cantero (@punkahoy). Gillian is joined on the episode by Melanie Koss (@melaniekoss), associate professor of literacy at NIUs College of Education. Embrace your inner Velma and geek out with us about the spooky problems science can (and sometimes cant) solve.

Northern Illinois UniversitysSTEM Read is part of theNIU STEAMfamily of programs that explore science, technology, engineering, the arts, and math. Find more great books, lesson plans, and resources atstemread.com.

The STEM Read Podcast is produced in collaboration with WNIJ.

Link:

The STEM Read Podcast - Fake Ghosts and Meddling Kids - WNIJ and WNIU

Written by Shiny Varghese, Edited by Explained Desk | New Delhi | November 3, 2020 1:23:21 pmA girl writes during a class on freedom of expression and secularism, Monday November 2, 2020 in Strasbourg, eastern France. At schools throughout the country, students will read the letter of Jean Jaurs, a 19th century French thinker and politician, to instructors urging them to teach the country's children to "know France, its geography and its history, its body and its soul." (AP Photo: Jean-Francois Badias)

Not often does a country march to the beat, I regret nothing. Its an anthem more than half a century old, but Non, je ne regrette rein by French singer Edith Piaf has crossed borders and languages as a symbol of resistance. Even as France holds its ground in its fight against Islamist separatism, it is a country that has penned, sung, fought and dreamed resistance. Recently, authors, booksellers and publishers asked the French government to make bookshops an essential service.

France gave us writers, philosophers, artists, fashion designers, filmmakers all who left indelible stamps on the world. It has never shied away from provocative expressions. Subversion, scepticism and irreverence has been the countrys cornerstone for centuries.

Subversion

Theres a saying that 19th century Western literature was divided into before Hugo and after Hugo. Victor Hugos widely acclaimed novel Les Miserables (1862), which was written in exile and smuggled to France because he revolted against Napoleon, shook a complacent country out of its romantic reverie to view the poor and disenfranchised people living a tough life. Les Miserable continues to haunt the world stage with its explosive performances.

Nearly three decades later in 1898, another well-known author Emile Zola would publish a letter on the front page of the LAurore newspaper accusing the government of anti-Semitism and the unfair jailing of a Jewish officer, Alfred Dreyfus, who was accused of treason. The letter titled Jaccuse (I accuse) left the country divided between conservative and liberal French. This conundrum gave the world the phrase, Dreyfus Affair, which points to bitter political divisions, and is even being used to explain the upcoming US Election.

Much before them though, the Father of French Revolution, Jean-Jacques Rousseau gave the world The Social Contract (1762). Geneva-born Rousseau made Paris his home and dreamed of a society where governments would allow for freedom for all its citizens. His fundamental question, how can humans live free in society, has shaped the principles of the UN Charter and the US Declaration of Independence.

Parisian salons and cafes were hotspots of new thought and the City of Lights bred many minds during the Age of Enlightenment, which privileged reason and inquiry above all.

Scepticism

It is not without wonder then that when famous philosopher Voltaire turned his guns at every religion, be it Judaism, Islam, or Christianity, the deist in him did not condone the intolerance of any sect. A prime advocate of religious tolerance, he encouraged people through his writings (from 1730s onward) to have a sense of detached rationalism mixed with observation. He also wasnt popular with the royals; he was thrown out of Paris for writing a satire on the French royal family.

This idea of critical self-image carried forward centuries later into the writings of playwright-philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre. When he wrote Hell is other people in his play No Exit (1944), it was this sense of judgement that he decried. He gave the world the theory of existentialism, where he presented that every individual has the power of choice, which comes with consequences. Meanwhile his lover and companion Simone de Beauvoir wrote the seminal book The Second Sex (1949), which looked at the idea of the other and in doing presented the innate sense of distrust people have. This feminist manifesto recognised that one is not born into ones identity, be it being a woman or a man, it is imbibed. And therefore, women have always been in an inferior position in society.

Also in Explained | Frances complex relationship with Islam, and Macrons recent remarks

Irreverence

Thats why when writer Flaubert wrote Madame Bovary (1856), the society was scandalised that she could indulge in extramarital affairs. Flaubert even faced a court trial for the book.

Being irreverent and debunking tradition of every kind has been second nature in French culture. As Marcel Ducamp did, when he shocked the art world with his readmade objects or found objects with a urinal he called Fountain (1917). His objective was to put art back in the service of the mind, which to him had become a slave of the visual. Click to follow Express Explained on Telegram

And finally, the oft-quoted thinker Michel Foucault said power is everywhere. According to him, new governments control people by focusing on their minds. Ultimately, be it Foucault in the 20th century or Rene Descartes in the 17th century, the French have always believed in one fundamental principle: I think, therefore I am.

Also read |Explained: What explains the calls to boycott France in the Muslim world?

The Indian Express is now on Telegram. Click here to join our channel (@indianexpress) and stay updated with the latest headlines

For all the latest Explained News, download Indian Express App.

The Indian Express (P) Ltd

More:

Explained: Why France continues to be provocative - The Indian Express

Look closely. Parts of the American Jewish community are silently committing ideological suicide. Most American Jews have long embraced a liberal American dreamism that allowed many to live well while doing good. They celebrated prosperity and liberty while voting liberal and donating generously. It works surprisingly well for them so why abandon this effective survival strategy so quickly?

Thats what happened this summer. In a matter of weeks, leading parts of the mainstream Jewish community joined the media, major corporations, and their neighbors in swallowing the 1619 Projects perspective of America that racism is systemic, ineradicable, and programmed into the nations DNA.This indictment is not only contestable it also denies the expansive American identity and American Jewish identity that built the United States and American Jewry.

The 1619 Project was a series of New York Times essays pivoting American history around the first major consignment of slaves to arrive in the British North American colonies rather than the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. By repudiating Americas defining historical narrative, the project questions Americas core values. Jews are not targeted here, but American Jewrys narratives and values have become collateral damage.

Many schools are already teaching 1619s dogma. But if Jewish day schools and other Jewish institutions surrender to this worldview uncritically, they will eviscerate whatever Jewishness remains within them while erasing the proud Americanism that has made American Jewry rich, proud, free, and happy.

Noble intentions spurred this act of ideological self-destruction. Following George Floyds brutal murder in May, many Jews tried understanding African-American anguish. Mainstream organizations, including the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, offered educational materials to fight racism. But the anti-racist links they shared peddled this one re-interpretation of American history based, broadly, on a rigid reading of American racism. Clicking on the sources establishment Jewish organizations provided in email after email, I did not find one article offering a liberal perspective or any alternative viewpoint. Instead,the 1619 orthodoxy has apparently become the New Blue American Gospel and the New American Jewish Gospel, too.

Joshua Griffith looks out towards the street as he awaits the start of a candlelight vigil in celebration of George Floyds 47th birthday on October 14, 2020 in New York City. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

American Jews must not sweep racism under the rug. Its time to shine a light on racism in ways that are thought-provoking, not propagandizing, empowering for all Americans, not identity-shattering for most. We need healthy debates about racism that are complex and multi-dimensional, not judgmental or suffocating.

We need healthy debates about racism that are complex and multi-dimensional, not judgmental or suffocating.

By analyzing the anti-racist dogma objectively, American Jews will realize their core identity messaging is under a well-meaning, yet debilitating, attack. Rejecting the false choice between the God damn America version of history and the God bless America version, they should seek the constructive middle ground. No serious educator today peddles the cartoonish feel-good U.S. history our grandparents imbibed so theres no need to overcompensate.

As a history professor, I strive to transcend partisanship, encourage analysis, and free students from the presumption that every moment from yesterday must be exploited to demand change today. Studying history involves assessing, contextualizing, weighing, and wondering: how central are race, slavery, and other sins in understanding America, how do we assess our progress, and what deeper understandings of Americas ideals emerge? In caricaturing America too harshly, 1619 neutralizes the most effective tools Americans used to make America better. These include faith in American ideals, trust in their fellow Americans, and hope that America can continue to become that more perfect union.

A new balance acknowledging racism and racial progress, David Duke and Martin Luther King Jr. will allow us to preserve our story too: emphasizing that Jewish immigrant success was rarely on the backs of others, usually by the sweat of our brows. The American Jewish story is about being accepted (more than less) and about exploring, often expanding, Americas pathways to progress, individually and collectively. We dont deny anti-Semitism. And we shouldnt ignore racism among Jews. But we should view everything in perspective. And we celebrate Jewish distinctiveness, not because were better than others, but because we become better people when we also study our values, continue our traditions, and build our community.

A Racial Reprogramming

In August 2019, the New York Times launched the 1619 Project, which claims that anti-black racism runs in the very DNA of this country. The Pulitzer Center spread educational kits nationwide. This PR campaign created an instant spin for a growing anti-racist movement characterizing America as white supremacist.

1619 now so symbolizes the new backlash against American history that Donald Trump enjoys bashing it. But even leading never-Trumpers critiqued 1619: Princetons Sean Wilentz, who drafted (with Brenda Wineapple) a petition of 750 historians endorsing Trumps impeachment, joined other historians in cataloging the projects inaccuracies. Northwesterns Leslie M. Harris reported in Politico that she fact-checked 1619 and debunked the claim that the patriots fought the American Revolution to preserve slavery; the 1619 Project still published the claim. (The New York Times has since published a note on the fact and belatedly changed the original text to make clear that this was a primary motivation forsome ofthe colonists, not all.)

A headline from the 1619 Project

Nevertheless, many Jewish community resource lists promoted the 1619 articles, curricula, and podcast uncritically as Resources for Discussions about Racism, Inclusion and Justice. Leading organizations invited Jews to Engage in Racial Justice, making sure that youre doing the work, that you begin listening better.

While the pain of the testimonials about racial discrimination is searing and demanding our attention, and while some of the essays were more hopeful about healing, many of these materials were not invitations to thoughtful discussion, but to a reprogramming. In one source, for example, one interviewee deemed America irredeemably racist, finding many Jews guilty of white privilege. One recommended curriculum admitted, theres no neutral here.

Some of todays dominant anti-racist activists decree that racism has been purposely built into the system. The Yale historian Matthew Frye Jacobson claims that immigrants whiteness, not any kind of New World magnanimity opened the Golden Door. Jewish communal bulletins echo Michelle Alexanders charge that Criminal Justice is the New Jim Crow, equating todays lamentable abuses with the sweeping, systemic infrastructure of Southern segregation that oppressed millions for decades. And, in the Atlantic, Ibram X. Kendi, author of the 2019 best-seller How to be an Anti-Racist, reinterprets American individualism as seeking a constitutional freedom to harm epitomized by slaveholding. Kendi concludes that todays murderous individualists refusing to wear masks prove, as the title states, were still living and dying in the slaveholders republic.

These ideologues all promoted on Jewish communal websites keep reframing American history to attack Whiteness as a defining identity that bestows privilege, meaning unquestioned and unearned advantages, entitlements, benefits, that greedily seeks to perpetuate that power through White supremacy culture. This analysis popularizes the three-decade-old critical race theory questioning the very foundations of the liberal order, including equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism and principles of constitutional law and the half-century conversation about identity politics focusing upon our own oppression.

These tendentious articles, books, and worksheets often come packaged in heavy-handed curricula. One popular syllabus that three activist-educators drafted, Scaffolded Anti-Racist Resources, starts with Contact when folks are confronted with active racism or real-world experiences that highlight their whiteness. It builds to Autonomy, where learners have done the work to recognize their own identity, so that they can effectively be anti-racist. This stage offers 22 tests of your solidarity, including becoming a disruptive presence in white spaces, challeng[ing] your countrys values. denounc[ing] our current president, endorsing costly reparations, accepting black rage, and being suspicious of predominantly white institutions.

The Privilege Checklist, the Harvard Racial Bias Test, the Anti-Racist Educator Self-Examination Questionnaire, and other recommended gut-checks monitor individual compliance because you either reinforce the dominant education structure or fight against it. Meanwhile, the Culturally Responsive Curriculum Scorecard tallies up assigned authors racial, gender, and sexual diversity. The scorecards scale ranges from Culturally Destructive which likely centers White or Eurocentric ideas and culture to Culturally Responsive, which is is likely humanizing, liberatory, and equity oriented.

In fairness, important insights spawned each politicized slogan. White privilege and White fragility, for instance, highlight whites invisible advantages in a society still struggling to eliminate racism. But, when weaponized, the concepts become toxic and illiberal, silencing some individuals and ideas, privileging others.

This gloomy Europeanized reading of America is Hobbesian at heart, assuming most lives are solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. It sees zero-sum power games everywhere. But America, at its best, was always Lockean and Jeffersonian. John Locke transcended Hobbesian despair, trusting a democratic social contract, legitimized by the consent of the governed to guarantee individuals life, liberty, and property. Americans cheered Thomas Jeffersons leap forward despite his ownership of slaves transforming property into the pursuit of happiness, affirming that all men are created equal. Thats why Americans traditionally focus on ideas more than power, on opportunities not limitations.

This optimism, this culture and politics of possibility, was one of the great gifts America bestowed on Jews and millions of others. Sadly, the Africans who arrived on slave ships received the opposite. But as Robert F. Kennedy taught, Americans do not see things as they are, and ask why, but dream of things that never were, and ask why not.

American optimism, this culture and politics of possibility, was one of the great gifts America bestowed on Jews and millions of others.

Teaching American Jewish Self-Loathing not Self-Esteem

As my inbox swelled with Jewish communal resources on race, I started wondering how Jewish day schools would now teach American history. The Forward confirmed that some Jewish schools were teaching the perspectives raised by 1619. Can Jewish schools meet the challenge of Black Lives Matter? one headline asked the again assuming unanimity. The article raised other questions: How do you teach students to understand themselves to be both a part of a historically oppressed minority and, in America, beneficiaries of a social and political system built on racism? In that piece, Professor Ronit Stahl asked, Where is the antiracist education that focuses on a reckoning with the Jewish role in American racism? Asking around, I discovered that many day school administrators felt pressured to woke up.

Reinterpreting American history as one long white attempt to suppress Blacks robs American Jews of pride in their own achievements and delight in Americas welcome. Imagine attending Jewish day school today. Your older siblings studied Americas paradoxes in history class. They learned about immigrants who succeeded and who failed. They studied the anguish of being Black in America and the improvements by 2020, compared to 1920 and 1820. They graduated appreciating individuals power, motivated by Americas expansive ideas, to improve themselves, their country, and their world.

They nodded approvingly at Ruth Bader Ginsburgs statement during her 1993 Senate Supreme Court confirmation hearings that her grandparents had the foresight to leave the old country, when Jewish ancestry and faith meant exposure to pogroms and denigration of ones human worth. What has become of me could happen only in America. Like so many others, I owe so much to the entry this Nation afforded to people yearning to breathe free.

Your history class, however, takes 1619s cue. Stewing in the legitimate grievances of Blacks and others, you may be made to feel guilty because you live in a nice house, and your parents can afford to send you to day school. How will that affect you politically, culturally, Jewishly? Now, you may risk being programmed to scoff at Justice Ginsburgs delightful riddle: What is the difference between a bookkeeper in Brooklyn and a Supreme Court Justice one generation.

As a historian, I find the inaccuracies and the simplistic, censorious interpretation dismaying. As a Jew, I find them terrifying.

American individualism has facilitated Jewish material success along with Jewish dignity and safety. Jews fall into our own forms of groupthink, frequently talking about ourselves as Jews. But at our best, this solidarity becomes a communal launching pad for the good life, not a collective life sentence to be forever oppressed. Assuming that how you look determines who you are, how you act, and what you believe is untrue and insulting.

Additionally, encasing Jews in whiteness imposes automatic guilt on Jews by caricaturing them as white, rich, and exploitative. Naturally, because they prize whiteness, true white supremacists dont count Jews as white.

Hen Mazzig identifies as an Israeli Zionist, and a Queer Jew of Color, a Black Lives Matter supporter with grandparents from Iraq and Tunisia. He observes that conversations that center on white supremacy put Jews on the defensive while minimizing the modern surge of anti-Semitism because, in America, racism is always harsher than Jew-hatred.

Its easier to raise proud Americans and proud Jews steeped in three inspiring, empowering Is individualism, ideas, and improvement rather than three toxic, paralyzing Gs groupthink, guilt, and grievance. The Hobbesian pessimism clashes with the Jewish belief in sanctity, in seeking God, goodness and tikkun olam. 1619s determinism, which characterizes America as riddled with ineradicable racist structures, contradicts the American Jewish charge to do your best, try getting ahead, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, and feel good if you succeed.

Branding whiteness an original sin then claiming immigrants only prospered by exploiting Blacks creates a history of blame and despair, not responsibility and redemption. Jews do not view life as one endless power-play. Morality, spirituality, faith, goodness, hope (Hatikvah!) are not just values in Jewish life Jews in America and Israel often activated them as constructive historical forces.

Americans All? Americans Still?

Growing up as the grandson of Eastern European immigrants who reached New York before America started restricting immigrants in the 1920s, I felt we were the Chosen Peoples chosen few. Nazis chose Jews as targets. Israeli Jews chose to fight for Jewish independence in the Middle East cauldron. My grandparents chose to make it to the goldene medina and we benefited from their toughness, wisdom, and good fortune.

As a kid, I loved an already-old book from 1941 called Americans All: A Pageant of Great Americans. The list included women like Clara Barton and immigrants like Alexander Graham Bell, but neither Blacks nor Jews. Still, the title welcomed me, a Jewish kid from Queens, into the American experience. My friends and I knew we had won the Jewish history jackpot. Finally, Jewish kids were born in a country where we werent threatened; we were free, we fit in, we could even follow baseball like everyone else. Most important, we could make it.

Being born into the innocence of Americans All is like being raised believing in God or praying wholeheartedly. Youre anchored for life, rooted profoundly, even if you stray or later learn hard truths muddying the picture.

Clearly, racism deprived most African-Americans of that lofty welcome. Todays long-overdue racial reckoning challenges Jews, as parents, educators, and citizens, to find a nuanced yet patriotic message. But the 1619ers declaration that our democracys founding ideals were false when they were written. Black Americans have fought to make them true is self-defeating. Ideals not yet fulfilled are not untrue. The red-white-and-blue calls for equality, for liberty, for individual dignity as beacons that many Americans in every generation pursued and that, decade by decade, we keep coming closer to realizing. Even if its not yet Americans All, its not Americans Youll Never Be either. As Jews, as Americans, a nuanced, constructive, vision could be Americans Still, even Americans Despite

Toward a New Historical Balance?

Jewish educators should consult with historians and establish blue-ribbon advisory boards to develop philosophies of history, teaching strategies, and curricula. Meanwhile, these texts could help reframe the revisionism:

From Finger-Pointing to Dreaming

Discussing Black-Jewish relations usually romanticizes past cooperation while highlighting current tensions. Lets evolve from one-way finger-pointing exercises between victimized Blacks and guilty Jews to mutual exchanges, wondering how Blacks and Jews fit in and dont fit in as fellow Americans. Piling on accusations alienates; sharing experiences heals and bonds.

1619s framework inflicts sterile conversations; it indicts but doesnt explain. Freezing America in the 1619 past while condemning it in the present risks robbing Americans of a shared future. Jews understand how yesterdays unhealed scars intensify the anguish of bigotry today. As Americans, Jews, educators, our mission is to free our children from historys traumas, never forgetting what we endured while remembering the progress we all have made. The new world we seek and have been building since 1776 requires consensus, not conflict, nuance, not negation, hope, not hatred.

Freezing America in the 1619 past while condemning it in the present risks robbing Americans of a shared future.

Its a leap and a choice. Martin Luther King knew he could react with bitterness or seek to transform the suffering into a creative force. The choice he made proved constructively infectious and epoch-making.

I was lucky. I grew up relatively pain-free, envisioning the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Supreme Court cases that keep refining our freedoms as forming a magical circle, ever-expanding to bless more Americans with more liberty. Tragically, millions of others, especially African-Americans, experienced a noose.

The message of American history and Jewish history is that we all benefit when all Americans can imagine this magic circle, working to widen and strengthen it, rather than surrendering to the haters hatred or their victims understandable, yet often-paralyzing, despair.

Gil Troy is a distinguished scholar in North American History at McGill University. The author of 10 books on presidential history, his latest works include The Age of Clinton: America in the 1990s,and editing the updated version of Arthur Meier Schlesinger, Jr. and Fred L. IsraelsHistory of American Presidential Elections.

More here:

Beware the 1619-ing of American Jewry - Jewish Journal

The author, critic and columnist, and the chairman of the Department of Mass Communications at Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), on his forthcoming book on the legacy of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, the founder of the institution, whose birth anniversary is celebrated on October 17

Your new book, Sir Syed Ahmad Khan: Reason, Religion and Nation (Routledge) looks at the life and times of the founder of AMU, who was a pioneer of modern education among Muslims in India in the 19th century. What are some of his ideas that are still relevant?

Sir Syed Ahmad Khan (1817-1898) is well known as the founder of AMU. However, his real legacy rests in his radical views and adumbrations on a wide range of issues, like the concept of blasphemy, jihad, cow sacrifice, gender equality, conversion, Hindu-Muslim unity and reservation for Muslims. In my book, I discuss his contributions beyond the sphere of education and dwell on his role as a public intellectual, as a multifaceted Muslim renaissance man in 19th century British India, gleaning his concepts from his actions and his writings. I contextualise his ideas and writings in the broader framework of political, social, and religious reforms, nationalism, and the debate on identity and subjugation. Sir Syed focused a lot on liberal values, tolerance and abhorrence of obscurantism.

One of Sir Syeds real legacies that makes him relevant even today is his tolerance and propagation of liberal values he wrote extensively on the various ways to live in a plural society. He was a great advocate of religious tolerance and constantly appealed to Muslims not to be swayed by the rhetoric-prone society of those days. He was the first Muslim scholar who attempted an Urdu commentary on the Bible, Tabin al-al-kalam Fi tafsir altawrat Wa I-injilala millat al Islam (Elucidation of the World in Commentary of the Torah and Gospel According to the Religion of Islam), which was published in three parts between 1860 and 1865. A critic of cow sacrifice, he wrote against it extensively and ensured that beef, which was freely available at that time, was not served in Aligarh.

Sir Syeds stance on blasphemy is also something that holds great relevance today. In the Islamic state, writing against Islam or the Prophet meant writing against the state which attracted capital punishment. Todays sedition law could be seen as the new, secular vocabulary for blasphemy. In 1858, Sir William Muir, a civil servant and orientalist, published two volumes of a contemptible book on Prophet Muhammad The Life of Mahomet and History of Islam to the Era of Hegira it incensed the Muslim community. But Sir Syed believed that instead of burning books, it was important to present a counter argument in the form of another book. In 1870, he came up with his rejoinder, Khutbaat-e-Ahmadiyya, debunking the misconceptions and misunderstandings surrounding the Prophet after the release of Muirs book. This holds out a lesson on the effectiveness of writing back.

Routledge, December 2020

Many of Sir Syeds ideas were iconoclastic. You write that despite having studied theology, he was a rationalist who considered reason to be the deeply purest form of human intelligence that could also be exercised upon faith.

Sir Syed denounced miracles in Islam that the theologians always took as gospel truths. For instance, Gabriel is considered in Islam to be the archangel who was the messenger of God who brought His revelations verbatim to Prophet Muhammad. Besides, the crossing over of the Red Sea by Moses and the drowning of Pharaoh or Firaun (several verses in Quran describe how the Red Sea was split in two and a dry path emerged as Moses banged the water with his stick on divine inspiration), and an abortive attack on Kaaba by Abraha, a Christian ruler of Yemen, in 570 AD, are generally considered to be miracles. Sir Syed questioned these assumptions and offered a rational interpretation for them. He held that Gabriel had come in human form to bring Gods message to Mary and the divine revelation was a kind of noor (light) that glowed in the heart of the Prophet Muhammad. Similarly, Sir Syed argued that when Moses was crossing the 30 km patch known as Bay of Eden, comprising 30 islands and surrounded by mountains, the rise and fall in the level of water was due to the high and low tide. Quran describes that Abrahas army was trampled by a fleet of Ababeel (pebble-carrying birds) that, ordained by God, rained little but deadly stones on them. Contradicting this, Sir Syed claims that Abrahas army was infected with chickenpox.

According to Sir Syed, the world we live in is governed by two sets of promise by God: the word of God or the Holy Quran, and the work of God, that is the law of nature. The whole universe revolves around it. He held that one divine promise cant contradict the other and that there should be no dichotomy between the word of God and the work of God. He looked upon miracles or events that defied cause and effect as going against the elemental mechanism of creation. These interpretations were unprecedented. No Muslim scholar had ever attempted anything of this sort before Sir Syed. His religious thought helped promote rationalism among Muslims, which remains an area of huge concern even today. He wanted reason to be the arbiter of life. He was the only Muslim scholar to have a discourse on reason. Other scholars and reformists like Al-Ghazali and Shah Waliullah were against reason.

Was there any common meeting ground for his radical ideas and religious beliefs?

While advocating rational thinking, scientific temper and free enquiry, Sir Syed argued that religious beliefs, scientific knowledge and morality were mutually consistent. He held that moral values must be inculcated. He talks of truth and ikhlaaq (good behaviour). Today, living in a post-truth world, we create truth through language to fulfil our cultural needs. Sir Syed emphasised on truthfulness two centuries ago. He wrote a great deal on human traits, like sycophancy (khushamad), which he termed as a disease. Before him, nobody had touched upon these issues in Urdu writing. Many of his articles are about tehzeeb (culture), the past and inertia. In a maulvi-oppressed society, Sir Syed was the voice of reason who believed in the convergence of science and faith.

His regressive ideas on women and their education, however, come in for heavy criticism from several quarters. What shaped his views on womens education?

When it came to womens education, Sir Syed exhibited his feudal mindset; in some ways, he became the voice of patriarchy. He wanted tutor-based home education for women. He was also a proponent of purdah; it was his blind spot. He was not a supporter of co-education since he felt that girls reaching the age of puberty would make it hard for them to attend schools during their menstrual period. He wanted separate schools for both genders. He also feared that since girls usually excelled in studies, they would eventually outshine boys and, thus, end up jeopardising the institution of marriage; he considered marriage to be the ultimate goal for girls. This was very ill-conceived. After all, reform had to take place simultaneously. The Prophet didnt ask only men to follow Islam, excluding women and children, but all of them together.

However, just to absolve the social reformer, one could argue that, unlike many Urdu travelogue writers, like Yusuf Husain Kambalposh, who referred to European women as promiscuous, the male gaze is missing in the accounts of Sir Syed, who saw them as empowered. In his writings, Sir Syeds contradicts himself at several places. All great mens lives are mired in contradictions. And he is no different.

Interviewer Nawaid Anjum

What are his contributions as an administrator?

As a member of the Viceroy Council and the Public Service Commission, he stood for the codification of law and for reservation for Muslims at the political level. As an administrator, he didnt discriminate between class or religion or gender. His administrative actions were meant for every Indian. When he became a member of the public service commission, he made two demands: the age limit for the Indian Civil Service be raised to 23 from 21, and the ICS examination to also be held in Delhi or Kolkata.

In 1882, the Local Self-Government Bill spoke of direct franchise that could lead to Hindus electing Hindus and Muslims electing Muslims. He suggested that the government reserve one third seats for minorities so that they could be protected. He wanted reservation for Muslims at the political level, but not at the level of jobs, where one could empower oneself through education. He offered a flexible fee structure to poor students, which showcased how serious he was about education.

Nawaid Anjum is a Delhi-based freelance feature writer, translator and poet.

Visit link:

Interview: Shafey Kidwai, author of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan: Reason, Religion and Nation - Hindustan Times