You chose to
communicate in English; it was your own decision.
I didn't care what language you chose to
communicate; to me the important thing was what
you wanted to say. A poor communication can give
wrong ideas to the readers. That is why it's
important to use language carefully and
accurately. It was not my intention to disparrage
you personally because you used bad English. The
slave-master mentality doesn't bother me the
least. I have outgrown from such feelings if I
ever had them. To me, English is an international
language. There are treasures of knowledge written
in English and if you want to benefit from them,
better develop a good comprehension of English.
It's not that I don't like Urdu, Persian or other
languages. I love Iqbal's and Ghalib's poetry and
quote their verses whenever there is any occasion
for it. I don't understand any other language and
that is my own personal loss.
The point you're
making now about "knowing yourself before knowing
God" may not be very relevant because knowledge of
your own self is connected with knowing your God
also. In every human 's life, a time comes when he
(she) starts thinking critically about his
beliefs. At that time, he may discover that faith
in God was handed down to him by his predecessors.
Does he have to believe in it or are their other
rational choices? To me believing in God is not
all that important.
Regarding Iqbal,
I simply cannot ignore him because he played such
an important role in our collective psyche as the
sub continental Muslims. I believe he was a
metaphysical philosopher. He may not have the same
station as Spinoza and Nietzshe as you have
suggested but he influenced our life, both
politically and philosophically, as nobody else
did. I quoted him because I thought his word still
carries much weight with most of us. Most of our
philosophers are re-hashing Iqbal only, without
contributing any thing else in philosophy or
metaphysics.
Mohammad Gill
