I was hoping to write about my search for Ibn Khaldun’s house in Fez back in November 2006. Yes, after three days of asking (mainly using sign language) around, I did find the house and took some pictures. I also visited the house of Maimonides.
But it is becoming increasingly difficult to find time to blog. Twenty four hours is not enough. I struggle to find time to jot anything worth publishing.
So, I am going to take some time off blogging.
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Aiseh Abang Wan, not at a time when local media (e.g. The Star) has started quoting you and the Malaysian Think Thank a little bit more frequently lah!
More focused writings will go on Malaysia Think Tank’s website when it is ready.
At the same time, a few people has been calling me up, asking me to write about one particular issue. But I think a good friend has written it more eloquently than I ever can here: http://saifulislam.com/v2/?p=142
I have read the link you mentioned and agree with the content. It is the kind of things I was hoping to get introduced, and be part of the ‘syllabus’. Not only the philosophical works of John Smith, Descartes etc, but also the literary output of, for e.g. Dickens (which anyone with strong political interest should really read), and works produced by Western Muslim intellectuals looking at Western and Islamic civilizations such as Muhammad Asad’s memoir, the Road to Mecca, Murad Hoffman’s Islamic Renaissance in the West, etc. The problem in my humble opinion is the partisan politics has got too deep into it that the benchmark is no longer the quality of the work but whether the author is a membership of certain group or not.
I am glad that there are people like Saiful Islam who has started finding out what is meant by Western civilization. My only regret was it did not happen while he was around in the UK. The good thing though, his webiste is read by many in still in the UK and one could only hope the students take his words into their heart and start affecting changes. The carboots in the UK is a good place to start collecting books written by these authors.
Meanwhile, could I perhaps mention the names Istac, Syed Naquib al-Attas, Osman Bakar, Syed Hossein Nasr for those interested to read on the Orientals from the perspective of Orientals themselves, and on the Occidentals from the lenses of the Orientals? (The first three are Malaysians or in Malaysia, so let’s not repeat the mistake done in the UK).
If we have a very wide reading on this subject, insya-Allah it will soon appear to us that the spirit of revivification is always there amongst traditionalists – as in the case of the Ba’Alawi across the Indian Ocean, the Qadiri of Algeria, the Sanusi of Libya, the Naqshabandi Nuri of Turkey, the Tijani of West Africa etc – although they maintain and promote, and never depart from, the ideology of the traditionalists.
it’s been quite a while now, Abg Wan. When r u going to update your blog?
A bit busy with forming an advisory board, recruiting research associates and trying to sort out a few other bits and pieces for Malaysia Think Tank London. But I will post articles from the Think Tank here in the mean time.