Excessive use of social media reduces comprehension ability and reading stamina. you can't focus on dense, complex ideas if you are using social media 6-8 hours/day everyday.

even if you read 3-4 hrs and then use social media, you are still damaging your brain and memory. i have been experimenting this recently. the day i use social media a lot, i can't focus on reading for the next 2 days.

i have also noticed during this time, i don't even want to read. it's like my desire for reading dies temporarily.

Elica argues that even if the acts of the IDF were as brutal or terroristic as Hamas we can still make no moral equivalencies. Because the IDF is protecting its people, whereas Hamas wants to kill everyone. The diff. is "INTENTION".

Let's explore this logic of liberal warfare 🧵 Liberalism warfare logic:

Kill as many civilians as you like so long as you express remorse & regret at the end. That's why Guantanamo Bay, the vast network of American torture cells in Europe, the brutal sanctions, etc., were legally and morally justified by liberals.

- Talal Asad, On Suicide Bombing

“Where did the name Palestine come from?”
Answer:
1. “The name ‘Palestine’ is the most commonly used from the Late Bronze Age (1300 BC onwards)”

2. “Throughout the classical age of antiquity (..)classical antiquity to Middle Ages (..)the word ‘Palestine remains the most common.”

https://twitter.com/mosabhasanyosef/status/1938514307458953395

3. “Herodotus was the first historian to denote a region called Palaistinê.”

"5000 years of history" is a myth that the British colonial historiography created where they divided the history of the region into 3 distinct phases: Ancient (Indic), Medieval (Islamic), Modern (British Colonialism).
This was parallel to how West's history was framed during
1/

https://twitter.com/OSINT_Insider/status/1916563070597665041

the Enlightenment era in the West. This historiography justified the colonial rule as a just rule to liberate the "native Indians" from the despotism of the foreigners, i.e., Muslims.

2/

The conflict between natural philosophy and scientific observations/mathematical astronomy was already evident by Ptolemy's time.

In early 11th century, there was a huge public live debate between Ibn Sina and Al-Biruni. The former being the foremost Aristotelian, the latter, +

https://twitter.com/akbereo/status/1896881122178691240

one of the biggest mathematical astronomers of his time. The topic of debate was the relationship between science and philosophy as distinct schools of thought.

Aligarh was not pro-British except for Sir Syed. It produced some of the most vocal anti-colonial figures. The Muslim League leadership were grads of Aligarh.

The Deoband became politically active in the 1920s during the Khilafat movement, which was led mostly by modernists.

1/

https://twitter.com/salmanmohdkhan/status/1753898089633689800

Kalam and Iqbal are also modernists in their theological and political orientations.

Figures like Mahmud Hasan & Ahmed Madani of Deoband were active in the Khilafat movement & had good relationships with modernists like Azad, Shaukat Ali Muhammad Ali and even Hindu figures.

2/

I always respond to counter-arguments when they are backed up by academic references. That's why I have decided to respond to this brother because he made a strong case. Let's begin. Bismillah.
🧵

1/

https://twitter.com/inner_stand/status/1750908682252980237

"Rulers, Religion, and Riches: Why the West Got Rich and the Middle East Did Not" by Jared Ruben: A Critique

[Rubin is an Associate Professor of Economics]

2/

Usually, people ask for the best doctor when they have health problems. But when it comes to knowledge the same people rely on a bunch of YouTubers with little to no expertise.

The truth is these people don't care about knowledge just as much as they care about their health. As Pakistanis, we should think about this carefully. Why do we have a track record of turning any molehill - literally any random person- into a mountain.

This is frankly embarrassing.

Here are some of the best books that I read in 2023. 📚

🧵 Wael Hallaq, The Impossible State

🧵
Enlightenment wasn't about some individuals who just woke and thought of democracy and constitutional govt out of nowhere. This book argues that it was part of centuries of psychological/cultural evolution that led to this.

But there's a huge bindsopt here.
@TheghostofMT

1/ Enlightenment was the time when NW Europe started studying & adopting foreign models of government, sciences & economics.
Chinese forms of govt (Leibnitz)
Islamic Sci. were translated and studied in the universities of Europe.
Indigenous American inspiration: freedom and equality

About a month ago, I was reading these two books together and found that on the topic of hunter-gatherers and the evolution of human societies, these books were arguing for two different points of view about human history.

🧵

Point of contention:

Henrich argues that modern states emerged from chiefdoms, and chiefdoms are based on kinship ties, and that human societies evolved from hunter-gatherers to agriculture societies and later on to empires. This is commonly accepted in anthropology.

Equality is a modern concept. The notion that all human beings regardless of the differences in their culture, tradition, religion, ethnicity, or socioeconomic factors be considered or treated the same is modern.
The right "ordering of things," to borrow a quote from Foucault,
1/ would be to treat humans differently based on their needs. But this will be nearly impossible for any unitary modern state to cater to the different societies.

2/

Jews under the Crescent:
- Jews enjoyed greater security in the Arab lands than Christian
- Jews had their own courts bet din and were welcomed in Muslim courts as well
- Jews "shed Aramic for Arabic" and adopted the culture of Arabs
- Jews studied philosophy & medicine with Muslims in a neutral setting "In economic life—especially during the first six centuries of Islam, the period known as the Golden Age—Jews exhibited substantial occupation. There was nothing in Islamic economic history comparable to the feared Jewish merchant or the despised Jewish moneylender. From its outset, Islam was favorably disposed toward profit seeking. Compared to their coreligionists in Christendom, the Jews of Islam were well integrated into the economic life of society at large."

On the Category of 'Europe'

A thread:🧵 Europe, as a geographical category, simply replaced Latin Christendom in the 18th and 19th centuries, which was coupled with the decline of the Catholic Church and the emergence of the modern states in W. Europe. Rousseau & others were the thinkers to advocate for a united Europe

How Feminism is mobilized against the 3rd world:

"Violence against women (in the West) is blamed on individual criminality rather than cultural factors in the case of white males; for minority groups, it is linked to pathological cultures."

—Grewal, Outsourcing Patriarchy, p. 7 Crimes against women in brown and black cultures are blamed on cultures and traditions. But crimes in the western countries are not blamed on white cultures.

Is this because black and brown cultures are inherently violent and backwards?

Public speakers in 🇵🇰 are generally ignorant about history, philosophy, or any complex subject.
Here, @SyedMuzammilOFL on @Mooroo4 podcast just butchers history as he goes.

This is the reason I'm teaching a free beginner-level course on global history based on good academic 📚. The absurd ideas that "Greeks" (idk what was he referring to? Sparta, Athens, or Macedonia?) developed "critical thinking" because geographically they are open, and that Afghanistan is conservative because it is geographically landlocked is total garbage.

The recent & sudden reactionary struggle of Pakistani Muslims against Western ideologies is partly caused due to decades of carelessness of ulama who did not pay attention to the formulation of a rigorous intellectual Islamic education that can deal with secularism, liberalism, + ultranationalism, etc. By failing to develop a thorough and systematic Islamic education that can deal with such ideologies, the ulama widened the gap between themselves and the general public. The latter was left at the mercy of a dogmatic, amoral, quasi-religious education, +

The problem with Islamic modernism is that it is just a reconstruction of Islam within the framework of Protestant Christianity.
The problem with this is that any time you subject one system to another alien system, you have to distort the former to fit within the latter system.

https://twitter.com/DrJavadTHashmi/status/1674683393454350336

So much so that the system loses its authenticity and its essence.

Also, contrary to popular belief, Islam got too enmeshed with modernity and adopted "too many of its trappings," as Dr Asad says, such that "Islam" as it was historically understood, lost its identity(ies).

Secularity and Experience:🧵
Ref: Taylor, A Secular Age 📚

Secularity, as understood by Taylor, is of 3 kinds. In whatever sense or meaning secularity is defined here, it is in contrast to our past experience as human societies, where religion was of central importance. 1. In the first sense, it is in relation to the public sphere. In today's "secular age," religion has faded away from politics, economics, education, etc.

ISLAM & SCIENCE: 🧵
Islam actually paved the way for scientific advancements. Here is one example of the relationship between Islam and astronomy.

Since Muslim ulema was critical of astrology due to its religious implication, it was always looked down upon. But this led to-
1/ scholars focusing on strict empirical observation and leaving behind the metaphysical and ideological baggage that a lot of people in pre-islamic times used to bring with the study of celestial bodies and stars.
2/

Update: 🧵

While al-Ghazālī still cannot be blamed for "establishing a thought police" in the Muslim world, for reasons I will mention below, it seems al-Ghazālī's fatwa against clandestine apostates (zanidaqa), and Muslims accused of kufr, was the ultimate stage of the legal...

https://twitter.com/_titanslayer_/status/1662750640445988865

...changes that were happening in Islam. It was also a major departure from the previous generations when such matters were considered to be doctrinal issues and not legal.