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Flowering of religions

Haji 2003

Entry posted by Haji 2003 in Interfaith ·

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Summary

Since the inception of Islam, there had been various sects competing for prominence; many had died out, and the two major ones were Twelver Shia and the Sunni fiqh.

Then suddenly, from the start of the 19th century to the end of that century, we have the emergence of Ahmadiyya, the renewal of Ismailism and the creation of a new faith entirely, Baha ism. Go back a hundred years, and we can add Wahhabism to this list. I identify a common thread amongst all these new religions in this post.

Four religions in a couple of hundred years ... and three Knights

That's an unusually fertile period of spiritual spontaneity by any measure. Or is the explanation for such flowering of faith more mundane and perhaps guided by vested foreign interests or even stimulated by them? Because what marked that period, from the ones that preceded it was the growing recognition by countries from outside the middle eastern region that it was an important geographical location in itself and also for its proximity to the wealth of India. That latter point is important because there is little disagreement that British foreign policy towards the middle east paid due cognisance to the views and interests of the Government of India - of course, that is a pre-independence Government, so wholly controlled by Britain.

Wahhabism

Abdul Wahhab developed what is commonly referred to as an austere interpretation of Islam, one that denounces the rituals and beliefs that he felt had accreted over the centuries. There is a rich vein of (conspiracy) theories, easily found on the internet, that in his travel to Iraq in the early 18th century, he could have come across British agents (specifically a 'Mr Hempher'). Certainly, the British East India Company had been well established at that time, and a British consulate had been established in Iraq in 1802. Less widely commented on is the fact that the famous Danish/German explorer Carsten Niebuhr travelled to Arabia in 1761.

But leaving conspiracy theories aside, it's possible to develop an argument about foreign involvement based on far less controversial ideas. Britain may not have been a midwife to Wahhabism, but I think people of all geo-political persuasions would agree that Britain was a helpful nanny.

The person with whom the British did have extensive dealings was Ibn Saud, who had entered into a pact with Abdul Wahhab in 1744. British sources said he persistently approached Britain for support and was generally rebuffed. Saud was a political leader who continued to promote the Wahhabi philosophy after the death of its founder. Saud was no cleric. But he was shrewd enough to mould the ideology as the basis for providing a motivation for conquest and a glue that would hold his fighters together. British records show that he took responsibility for hiring and firing clerics based on his political agenda.

My source for this and some other information about Wahhabism that is presented here is a PhD dissertation submitted to King's College London in 2002 by Hassan Syed Abedin, titled "Abdul Aziz Al-Saud and the great game in Arabia, 1896-1946".

Ibn Saud (who would in due course be given the British title 'Knight Commander of the Most Eminent Order of the Indian Empire') was ultimately successful in his goal of receiving support from Britain in 1914 when Britain needed to have someone distracting the Ottomans so that they could devote fewer resources to World War I taking place in Europe.

Prior to that, it's argued that Ibn Saud had spent considerable efforts in achieving a status similar to the one held by Mubarak Al Sabah, the emir of Kuwait. This ideal status would have meant that Sauds and their territories would have been subjects of the Ottoman empire, but who would be given the protection of the British.

This version of events does not look very good for Ibn Saud, presenting him as someone who is willing to do business with non-Muslims in order to undermine a Muslim ruler, and he'd serve a useful role in helping Britain with the following objective:

What we want is not a United Arabia; but a weak and disunited Arabia, split up into little principalities so far as possible under our suzerainty-but incapable of coordinated action against us, forming a buffer against powers in the west.

Crewe private telegram to Hardinge, Viceroy of India, November 12,1914, cited in Busch Britain, India and the Arabs: 1914-1921, p. 62.

Ismailis

Further, east we find the rise of the modern-day Nizari Ismailis, whose Aga Khan in the mid-19th century created a new role for himself in providing services to the British Empire (Aga Khan I would receive an annual British pension of £20,000 per year). Mihir Bose (a noted writer on the subject) says that the Aga Khan had to plead his case for some time before the British took him seriously since they wanted to be sure that they were backing a local ally who'd present them with better value than the alternatives. His grandson Aga Khan III would be bestowed the title of 'Knight Grand Commander of the Order of the Star of India'. Their esoteric faith was totally at odds with the one promulgated by Wahhab, but regardless of that difference served a useful purpose.

It must be known that the Aga Khan had tried to convince Nasir Khan, the Talpur Amir of Kalat, to cede Karachi to the British. Nasir Khan refused it; therefore, the Aga Khan disclosed his battle plan to Major James Outram. As a result, the British camp was saved from a night attack. The Aga Khan had also placed his cavalry at the disposal of the British. For his valuable services in Afghanistan and Sind, the Aga Khan was granted an annual pension of 2000 pounds with an honorific title of His Highness.
http://ismaili.net/Source/jerruk/1.html

Regardless of the support he gave, the British were aware of the hypocrisy of his religious position:

He is a God—his income immense. He lets none of his sect kiss his hand under twenty rupees, and is the greatest rascal possible, that is, a clever brave man, but being a God makes a virtue of any sin he likes to commit. I speak truly when saying that his followers do not and dare not refuse him any favour he asks, wives, daughters, slaves, money, houses, furniture, are all his, and he doesn’t let the privilege grow rusty. He could kill me if he pleased, he has only to say the word and one of his people would do the job in a twinkling and go straight to heaven for the same. He is too shrewd for that however, and they all have a great fear of me since the battles.

Sir Charles Napier to Governor-General of India, Earl of Ellenborough, 1843

The period around the 1840s is interesting for the following reason, as the following letter makes clear:

“It is desirable to hold an instrument by which we may at any time throw the South of Persia into rebellion and thus paralyze any attempt at an advance from Tehran to the Eastward. . . . The Aga Khan’s residence in Indian territories will certainly be viewed with extreme jealousy by Persia.” 17

Purohit, T. (2012) The Aga Khan Case (religion and identity in colonial India). Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass.

The writer of the letter is Major Henry Rawlinson, the military officer who worked for the commission in Persia from 1834 to 1838 and subsequently served as a political agent in Qandahar. So the British were interested in there being dislocation in Iran at around this time because of a perceived threat to their interests in Afghanistan.

This makes the genesis and development of the third religion covered here all the more interesting.

Bahai'ism

In roughly the same period, the mid-nineteenth century, we also see the rise of the Bahai faith in Iran. Mirza Ali Mohammad was born in 1820 and was executed in 1850. A focus of his attention was economic inequality in Iran. There were clear political implications, as  noted by the middle eastern commentator Juan Cole:

In the nineteenth century Iran, in contrast, the Bahais were a radical-reformist group advocating banned ideas such as parliamentary elections, some of their members held high political office, and they had not been forbidden to join political groupings or (later) parties.
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jrcole/bahai/2000/urbanbh2.htm

The socio-economic aspect of Bab's teachings are also explained here:

In the teaching of Babiism it was said: the poverty of the peasants had brought the rich to wealth. "Now, the oppressed people of Iran... arise...",32 These practical teachings gained considerable support among the impoverished masses of the rural and urban areas.

In Gillan, Mazandaran and Khorasan the peasants joined the Babi movement in large numbers. In the cities people refused to pay taxes. In Zanjan, people attacked the prisons, attempting to free those imprisoned for failing to pay their taxes.33 The wide support the Babi movement received was an indication of the alienation of both the state and the ulama from the people. Even considerable numbers of the lower-ranking ulama joined the Babi movement. The total strength of the movement was estimated by competent authorities at nearly one and a half million or about twenty percent of the total population of Iran.

Mansoor Moaddel (1986) The Shi'i Ulama and the State in Iran. Theory and Society, Vol. 15, No. 4 (Jul., 1986), pp. 519-556. This extract: p526.

This socio-religio-poliitcal impact of a new faith did not go unnoticed by the colonial powers of the time and gained ground as a result of their support as a means of destabilising the Qajar dynasty. Like Ibn Saud, Abdul Baha, eldest son of the Baha'u'llah, would also be awarded the title of Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire, ostensibly for his work in alleviating famine.

 

Quote

In the history of modern Iran, the Babi movement was the first manifestation of popular protest that challenged both the Qajar monarchy and the Shi’i clerical establishment. It gradually not only broke away from Shi’ism and Islam but also laid the foundations for a new religion—the Baha’i faith.

Russian diplomats tried to follow important events in Iran and informed their superiors at the so-called Persian desk or Persian section in the Asian department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Thus, when the early information about the Bab, his teachings, and his movement reached the Russian embassy in Tehran, it was immediately forwarded to St. Petersburg.

Sensing this Iranian sensitivity, Russia came to see in the new faith, its exiled leaders, and the local community as a means of pressuring the Iranian government.

Shahvar, S. (2018) ‘Oppression of Religious Minority Groups in Times of Great Upheaval in Late Qajar Iran: The 1892 Persecution of Jews and Baha’is of Jewish Origin in Hamadan Based on Two Newly Discovered Letters’, The Jewish quarterly review. University of Pennsylvania Press, 108(2), pp. 225–251.

 

Ahmadiyya

 

Going further east, we find the third innovation in the Muslim religion towards the end of the 19th century and one that would lead to charges of being the creation of a new religion entirely. The Ahmadis would destabilise Muslims in the Indian sub-continent. Their support for the British in India is expressed in their texts:

We acknowledge with great regret that Islam’s maulavis have focused on an improper definition of jihad and have taught the Frontier Region’s tribes to unjustly harm this friendly [British] government by spilling the blood of its honourable officers.

For example, every other day the Frontier Region’s violent tribes kill the British officers who are protecting their lives and property, as well as that of their Muslim brethren.
http://www.alislam.org/library/books/BritishGovt-and-Jihad.pdf

There is a reason for this approach; unlike the established religions of the Indian sub-continent, the leader of this new religion needed legitimacy. By acquiescing to the needs of the invaders, he sought to achieve that. For the established religions doing the same would have been challenging because they would have lost the legitimacy of their many existing followers; the new religion with far fewer followers had much less to lose in this respect but potentially a great deal more to gain. 

Conclusion

I am not saying that the British went into the middle east with the prior notion of introducing new faiths. However, it is reasonable to say that in an environment where there were new powers in the region, for someone starting a new faith, the potential for a symbiotic relationship with these new arrivals was obvious. 

For the invaders, these new religions provided a ready-made supportive constituency with which to challenge the established order, whether it be the Ottomans, the Qajars or the established religious order in India.

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Haji 2003
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Mirza Ghulam Ahmed

A couple of questions that I asked of chatgpt worth posting here in addition to the answers.

Q. Does the Ahmadiyya movement have beliefs supportive of the British occupation of India?

A. 

Quote

 

The Ahmadiyya movement, a relatively recent Islamic movement founded in the late 19th century in India, did not have a unified stance on the issue of British occupation of India. While some members of the movement supported British colonial rule and worked closely with the British government, others opposed British occupation and advocated for Indian independence.

The founder of the Ahmadiyya movement, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, initially expressed support for British colonial rule, seeing it as a means of protecting Muslims in India from persecution and promoting social and religious reforms. Ahmad believed that British rule would help to modernize Indian society and bring an end to the traditional caste system and other forms of social inequality.

However, as the movement grew and became more politically active, its stance on British rule became more complex. Some members of the movement became increasingly critical of British policies, such as the partition of Bengal in 1905, and advocated for Indian independence. Others continued to support British colonial rule and worked closely with the British government, including serving in the Indian Civil Service and other administrative roles.

Overall, the Ahmadiyya movement did not have a uniform stance on the issue of British occupation of India, and different members of the movement held different views and positions.

 

 

I tried again and this time got the answer I was looking for. Text below that is relevant to my argument is underlined.

 

Q. Did Mirza Ghulam Ahmad instruct followers not to attack the British in India?

Quote

 

Yes, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, the founder of the Ahmadiyya movement, did instruct his followers not to attack the British in India. Ahmad believed that violence was not the solution to the problems facing the Indian people, and that non-violent resistance and peaceful protest were the best ways to bring about social and political change.

Ahmad emphasized the importance of loyalty to the British government and encouraged his followers to work within the system to effect change. He believed that the British could be persuaded to make reforms and that the Indian people should seek to engage with the government rather than oppose it.

In a letter to British officials in 1899, Ahmad wrote: "I am firmly convinced that the British Government is the means for the progress and well-being of India and that is why I offer it my heartfelt devotion and loyalty." He also urged his followers to cooperate with the British government and to support its efforts to bring about social and economic reforms in India.

Overall, Ahmad's teachings emphasized the importance of peaceful resistance and non-violence, and he encouraged his followers to work within the system to bring about change rather than resorting to violence or armed rebellion.

 

 

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Aga Khan I

I asked chatgpt

Q. What help did Aga Khan I render the British Empire?

The answer was:

Quote

 

Aga Khan I, the 46th Imam of the Nizari Ismaili community, was known for his loyalty to the British Empire and his willingness to cooperate with the colonial authorities. He rendered several forms of assistance to the British Empire during his lifetime, including:

Military support: Aga Khan I provided military support to the British Empire during the Indian Rebellion of 1857, also known as the Sepoy Mutiny. He mobilized his followers and raised a force of several thousand Ismaili soldiers to fight against the rebellion, and his forces were instrumental in helping to suppress the rebellion and restore British control over India.

Diplomatic support: Aga Khan I provided diplomatic support to the British Empire in its negotiations with other colonial powers. He used his influence and connections to help broker diplomatic agreements and alliances between Britain and other countries, including Persia and Afghanistan.

Financial support: Aga Khan I provided financial support to the British Empire through his business and banking connections. He invested in British businesses and provided loans and other forms of financial assistance to British colonial officials and institutions.

Overall, Aga Khan I's support for the British Empire was significant and helped to strengthen British control over India and other parts of the world. While his actions were controversial and sparked criticism from some members of the Ismaili community, they were seen as a reflection of his commitment to maintaining peace and stability in the regions under British colonial rule.

 

 

This was interesting because I was unaware of the support chatgpt says he gave the British during the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857. So I searched on Google Scholar and nothing obvious came up!

So I went back to chatgpt and asked:

What is the evidence that Aga Khan I mobilised troops to help the British suppress the mutiny in 1857?

The answer was as follows, somewhat more nuanced than the answer above, but chatgpt does make reference to specific texts which can be tracked down.

Quote

 

There is historical evidence to suggest that Aga Khan I, the 46th Imam of the Nizari Ismaili community, mobilized his followers to support the British in suppressing the Indian Rebellion of 1857, also known as the Sepoy Mutiny.

One of the primary sources for this information is the memoirs of Sir Bartle Frere, a British colonial administrator who served in India during the 19th century. In his memoirs, Frere describes how he met with Aga Khan I during the early stages of the rebellion and urged him to support the British cause. According to Frere, Aga Khan I responded by mobilizing his followers and raising a force of several thousand Ismaili soldiers to fight against the rebellion.

Other historical accounts also support the idea that Aga Khan I supported the British in suppressing the rebellion. For example, in the book "Aga Khan III: Selected Speeches and Writings of Sir Sultan Muhammad Shah," author Hasan Ali Khan cites several contemporary accounts that describe how Aga Khan I provided military support to the British during the rebellion.

While the precise nature and extent of Aga Khan I's support for the British during the Indian Rebellion of 1857 may be a matter of historical debate, there is certainly evidence to suggest that he played a role in mobilizing his followers and supporting the British cause during this tumultuous period in Indian history.

 

 

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      The problem
      https://www.forbes.com/profile/sam-bankman-fried/?sh=2e43415d4449
      The firm grew to this size because of investments by large, well-known and reputable organisations, which in turn drew in investments from many other smaller investors. One of those reputable investors was Temasek (the Singapore state investment firm). These investors were understood to have undertaken professional 'due dligence' before investing. Due diligence is where an investor examines the finances, management and other salient aspects of the venture in which it is investing.
       
      https://www.channelnewsasia.com/business/ftx-collapse-investors-temasek-due-diligence-corporate-governance-red-flags-3097916
       
      Temasek explained its failure as follows (from the link above):
       
      Analysis of the problem
      An analysis of the above would tell us the following. Smaller investors invested in FTX because large investors like Temaseak were already invested and they trusted these blue chip investors. The basis for trusing Temasek was:
      It is reputable (due to its track record of smart investment) It claims to have done its due diligence on FTX It works within a regulatory environment where the government monitors But did Temasek really do due diligence in the way that it should have done? The following is from an FT video.
      https://www.ft.com/video/f7a7fad1-f3ed-41ee-94a7-e1311989aa7e
       
      The answer is likely that Temasek and Blackrock etc. did not do their due diligence in the way that they should have done.
       
      So what drove Temasek's behaviour and that of other reputable investors?
       
      Firms like Temasek did not invest after undertaking due diligence, they invested because they had a fear of missing out. There's also the issue that the sum invested by Temasek and Blackrock etc. was not significant in terms of the size of those organisations.
       
      The takeaway for the rest of us
      Most of us are not in a position to be investing millions in crypto or following Temasek's lead! Sow what takeaway do we have?
      If you are following the advice and behaviour of someone else - you need to understand the motivation for their actions.
      It's not enough to rely on their reputation (track-record) and their expertise.
      This applies to everything, whether it is advice from a doctor, lawyer or mar'je.
    • Haji 2003
      Reconfiguring Happy
      By Haji 2003 in Contemporania
         2
      I thought I’d put this together based on the discussion in laith’s spirituality thread.
      The issue of happiness arose because striving for spirituality can involve lifestyle changes and I think a barrier to that can be a feeling that such a lifestyle will diminish one’s enjoyment of life.
      Which leads us to wondering what it means to be happy and whether that can be changed.
      Looking around me I see all sorts of people doing very different things and many of them at least claim to be happy. There’s the uncle who is not rich in any financial sense, but who spends entire days in Pakistan playing golf. There’s the barrister cousin who’s forever preparing for a very important court case or my mum who’ll cook for a hundred ladies for a majlis at our home.
      In each instance, as I see it, these people have configured what it is that will make them happy and then gone about achieving it. In each instance what’s really smart is that they’ve configured happy in such a way that it is stretching but also actually achievable.
      Achievable in the sense that given the environment and circumstances that they have and about which we can often do little, they’ve taken charge of those things which they can control, defined what happiness means on the basis of these and constructed it in such a way that they can get it. Stretching is also important because without it there can be no sense of achievement.
      Most importantly, in each instance I can see that while they are happy there’ll be other people who can just as easily see that this is not the lifestyle that would make them happy. I would go mad if my daily routine involved taking a stick and repeatedly hitting into a small hole an even smaller ball. 
      Some of that definition of happiness depends on the meanings that we attach to things. I’ve explained what golf means to me. But for my uncle there’s clearly a sense of physical achievement, there’s the sportsman’s image he has of himself that’s reinforced and there are the meanings he associates with golf as an exclusive sport. For my mother the meanings are associated with the religious symbols, the wajib, the mustahab, the sawab and so on.
      In each instance there’s also the social kudos. My uncle gets to meet the ‘higher-ups’ in Pakistani society and the approval of this social network is obviously important. The same goes for my mum. I wind her up by saying that I don’t see much difference between what motivates her and the Hindu and Sikh women I come across who put in a lot of effort to cook the meals at their local temples to win the appreciation of their social circles. 
      In each instance happiness has been configured in such a way that there’s an easily accessible social network of people who will appreciate what the individual can do. My mum’s social network of Shia ladies has developed organically over decades. My uncle’s social network was acquired when he left the UK and moved to Pakistan, joined the local golf club and impressed them with his skill.
      Social networks are important because happiness is often co-created with the people around us. Those symbols and meanings often only really work when there is someone to share them with. Someone who can understand what they mean and what their significance is and with whom it’s possible to have a conversation about that shared interest and indeed to develop it.
      Of course you can have symbols that have meaning only for you and where there may be no one else to share them with, but then the inner satisfaction will have to suffice. Many years ago I met Yousuf Karsh and I have an autographed book of his photos, but that name means nothing to anyone else that I know, but the knowledge of having met him gives me an inner glow. Sometimes there may be no symbols at all and also no-one else to share them with, I know of fairly anonymous investors who make lots of money and they’re quite happy with the anonymity or alternatively there are academics who have a lot of professional recognition, but much less money.
      Yaani it’s L’Oreal and Wallahi you’re worth it
      SoSolidShia who has since left Shiachat, (or was he banned?) used to have that as part of his avatar and I always thought it was quite clever. But it does remind us of how the messages we see every day remind us that thinking of the self is justified and that there is a cause and effect relationship between spending money and being happy.
      Of course, there isn’t but many people are taken in by it. Is there a magic pill? If there is one the effects are only short-term before you need to spend again in order to get the next high.
      To take the example of another type of product, what was initially presented as an occasional treat because of its high calorific value or sugar content, is promoted in such a way that it becomes part of our regular consumption and happy is replaced by habit and the company behind it has a bigger share of our wallet, which was always the intention.
      When we buy happy then, it has to be on an irregular basis for it to keep delivering happiness.
      Can buying happiness ever really pay off? When its consumption isn’t easy, when it requires some prior effort or engagement I think it can.
      I remember spending hours sitting in theatres watching live performances of Shakespearean and other Jacobean plays. I am pretty sure there were more entertaining things to do for a sixteen-year-old. But it was very worthy. Certainly it wasn’t as much fun as the latest Hollywood blockbuster and obviously, it wasn’t as accessible. But it did make the study of English literature easier and yes, after a fashion it was actually enjoyable, especially when you knew the script and could decode the jokes. The prior study increased the enjoyment. Years later I can still remember some performances, but I can't remember any movies I watched at the time. So there's the added payoff of happy memories.
      Something else that occupied my teenage years and was immensely fun was wet processing photographic film and photos. It was an interesting combination of art and science. I think all the people who have hobbies can understand. The people whose entertainment is mainly passive, such as watching television, might not.
      The funny thing though is that the people with the hobbies may not necessarily be doing them to achieve happiness, it just happens as a by-product. In contrast, the people who switch on the television are chasing after happiness and yet when they find it, it’s likely to be more transient than for those people who just happened upon it.
      There are two types of people today, those who create content and those who consume it. I think the creators are happier than the consumers.
      And where there is an effort in achieving happy I think there is also the likelihood of satiety, the feeling of fulfillment and the need to do something else. In contrast, where the consumption of happiness is easy, where it is simply bought and passively consumed, the lack of satiety means that overconsumption is possible.  We see some people watching inordinate amounts of television, we see increasing levels of obesity and rising levels of debt as people eat and buy themselves happy.
      Happy about what?
      I remember playing with car racing sets as a kid. It was never a satisfactory experience. One car in the set would always be intrinsically faster than the other, you could predict who would win the race depending on what car they had.
      There was clearly a difference between what those, admittedly cheap, sets could deliver and what my expectations were. Expectations that are higher than what we can realistically receive will always end in disappointment. Happy people have their expectations met or exceeded. But setting expectations that are too low may lead to people serially taking advantage of you since you never complain.
      What’s the solution here?
      It’s a question of differentiating between what matters and what does not. And even, more importantly, it’s a matter of assessing whether the people we are dealing with can actually deliver what they promise.
      Too often we are willing to suspend disbelief, take people at their word and believe their promises. They patently cannot deliver, but we refuse to believe that, sometimes this is because of our own ignorance or greed. The possible gain seems so attractive that we fall for the lie. Conmen do this all the time. Often what is at stake is either money or love because in both areas we really find it difficult to behave rationally. The Nigerian 419 scam goes for people who believe that you can get large sums of money easily and men from various developing countries make promises of love to older, richer single white women in the West via the internet, which usually involves a trip to the local branch of western union. These are extreme examples, but it happens to a lesser extent for different products and services all the time.
      Then there’s the issue of differentiating between what matters and what does not. Life is too short, you cannot complain about everything. Indeed, it may well be the case that you took someone at their word, perhaps even knowing that they could not and would not deliver everything that they promised, but you knew deep down that this did not really matter, but you were confident that what you really were interested in would actually be delivered.
      In my opinion, this marks the difference between two types of people who go on the hajj. The knowledgeable ones know what constitutes for a good hajj, where you were guided correctly by the alim with you and where the requirements were fulfilled correctly. These people also know what questions to ask different hajj organisers in order to ensure that their expectations about the fulfilment of their obligations are met. They can hear the promises about the hotel, but they know deep down that whether or not these are fulfilled, does not really matter.
      On the other hand, there are people who may not really know what their religious obligations are. These are the people who lose focus and are the ones who are unhappy about not getting enough food at Mina, the waiting around and the quality of the hotel. Not only are they unhappy but they are unhappy about the wrong things and perhaps even happy at the wrong things as well!
      Reconfiguring happy then, is a matter of being clear what we should be happy about, ensuring that we get that and not worrying when other promises that people make are not delivered.
      The disappointment of loss
       Too often people set expectations about what it is that will make them happy that is either unachievable or costly in a variety of other ways. The trick perhaps is to focus on what we can directly achieve by ourselves with the minimum of resources. It’s being able to do what is costless better than before and deriving satisfaction from it. And the only costless activity, over which we have complete control, in my opinion, is prayer.
       At the same time, it’s not a matter of eschewing or rejecting what the world has to offer. Rather it’s the ability to be happy if you have the material goods but not disappointed if you don’t. It’s being able to walk away dispassionately in the face of material loss. I'll deal with the latter issue in this post.
      Equanimity in the face of loss takes practice.
      The practice comes from giving charity. Each time we do it, we cut our bonds from the material, so that when losses occur as a result of circumstances over which we have no control they affect us less and we do not suffer unhappiness.
      Psychologically humans hate incurring losses. It’s part of our DNA. Nobel prize winning research has shown this. We do all sorts of crazy things in order to avoid losses. Give someone the option of paying $1.30 for a gallon of gas and receiving a $0.10 rebate if they pay by cash or instead paying $1.20 by credit card and incurring a $0.20 surcharge and they’ll always go for the $1.30 option. The cash buyers will do it for obvious reasons and the people paying by credit card will do it as well because paying the $1.30 as a default option is far less psychologically painful than seeing a base price of $1.20 and then realising that choosing to pay by credit card will involve incurring an additional $0.20.
      There have been a number of other studies along similar lines, all demonstrating that we will often engage in irrational actions to avoid losses. I’ve previously linked to a lecture given by Robert Shiller at Princeton where he refers to people taking out (really bad value) insurance policies for individual flights in order not to incur a loss.
      Another often quoted example in this area is to do with how much value we attach to things we own. Experiments show that if people own something they’ll ascribe a higher value to it than other people who do not. 
      Giving to charity then or detaching ourselves from what we own, is difficult for humans. It is part of the human condition. And yet IIRC the Qur’an mentions charity every time it mentions prayer.
      I think it works in a number of different ways. I’ve outlined one and another that comes to mind is my view that the Qur’an is recognising that wherever someone has gains (on which charity can be paid), they will invariably at some point suffer a loss. When people who have had gains give some of them away as charity when the invariable losses do happen, they will, at least, have the comfort in knowing that while they had it, they spent it on assets for the akhira.
      Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda
       A discussion about achievements in life or the lack of them in the Thoughts threads reminded me of this.
       We often think about what we could have done, would have done or should have done. This can become a maudlin exercise full of regrets and unhappy thoughts.
       Often such thinking can lead to issues about what we’ll do now to address this and I wonder whether the options discussed are always advisable.
       Just because we did not do a certain degree 15 years ago, does that mean we’ll be any better off or happier doing it now? The world when the decision was taken not to do the degree or when the opportunity was missed, was a different world to the one we are in now. The benefits of that degree may well have changed. The costs of doing it now may well be different to what they would have been in the past, so the value of the whole exercise may be different as well.
       In hankering after what could have been and in trying to get it back we could be losing focus on what else we could be achieving now in the time that we have left that may offer greater value.
       The whole process of looking backwards is one that assumes we are now older than we were before. As we get older the reduction in the time that we have left becomes more acute – the focus now really has to be on what really matters.
       So as we get older the very process of worrying about previously missed material gains and losses may actually compound the problem rather than make it better. The goals have to be different now.
       The benefit that age brings is that older people can compare the achievements and mistakes of people that they have known over a long period of time. Young people cannot do this. They can be told about it, but personal experience often has more resonance.
       Older people can see where their peers started, what they did in terms of materialistic and spiritual activities and observe where they have ended up. That longitudinal perspective is one whose benefit you don’t have if you are young.
        In the final calculation when you start attending the funerals of people you have known for a long-time, you realise how futile material achievements are, especially at the margins. If an individual has acquired enough material success to have been self-sustaining (including any family) surely any assessments of success and failure over the life led thus far need to be in terms of spiritual and moral mistakes and future rectifications?
      Thought of in this way, reflections about the past become an intensely productive, positive and indeed happy activity. Because whatever happened in the past that enabled us to arrive at a destination where there is a realisation (niyat) that rectification is necessary, surely that has been a positive result? 
      These are the only changes that I can think of which are not rendered irrelevant by changing circumstances in the same way as the ones I mentioned at the start of this post.
    • Haji 2003
      Flowering of religions
      By Haji 2003 in Contemporania
         4
      Summary
      Since the inception of Islam, there had been various sects competing for prominence; many had died out, and the two major ones were Twelver Shia and the Sunni fiqh.
      Then suddenly, from the start of the 19th century to the end of that century, we have the emergence of Ahmadiyya, the renewal of Ismailism and the creation of a new faith entirely, Baha ism. Go back a hundred years, and we can add Wahhabism to this list. I identify a common thread amongst all these new religions in this post.
      Four religions in a couple of hundred years ... and three Knights
      That's an unusually fertile period of spiritual spontaneity by any measure. Or is the explanation for such flowering of faith more mundane and perhaps guided by vested foreign interests or even stimulated by them? Because what marked that period, from the ones that preceded it was the growing recognition by countries from outside the middle eastern region that it was an important geographical location in itself and also for its proximity to the wealth of India. That latter point is important because there is little disagreement that British foreign policy towards the middle east paid due cognisance to the views and interests of the Government of India - of course, that is a pre-independence Government, so wholly controlled by Britain.
      Wahhabism
      Abdul Wahhab developed what is commonly referred to as an austere interpretation of Islam, one that denounces the rituals and beliefs that he felt had accreted over the centuries. There is a rich vein of (conspiracy) theories, easily found on the internet, that in his travel to Iraq in the early 18th century, he could have come across British agents (specifically a 'Mr Hempher'). Certainly, the British East India Company had been well established at that time, and a British consulate had been established in Iraq in 1802. Less widely commented on is the fact that the famous Danish/German explorer Carsten Niebuhr travelled to Arabia in 1761.
      But leaving conspiracy theories aside, it's possible to develop an argument about foreign involvement based on far less controversial ideas. Britain may not have been a midwife to Wahhabism, but I think people of all geo-political persuasions would agree that Britain was a helpful nanny.
      The person with whom the British did have extensive dealings was Ibn Saud, who had entered into a pact with Abdul Wahhab in 1744. British sources said he persistently approached Britain for support and was generally rebuffed. Saud was a political leader who continued to promote the Wahhabi philosophy after the death of its founder. Saud was no cleric. But he was shrewd enough to mould the ideology as the basis for providing a motivation for conquest and a glue that would hold his fighters together. British records show that he took responsibility for hiring and firing clerics based on his political agenda.
      My source for this and some other information about Wahhabism that is presented here is a PhD dissertation submitted to King's College London in 2002 by Hassan Syed Abedin, titled "Abdul Aziz Al-Saud and the great game in Arabia, 1896-1946".
      Ibn Saud (who would in due course be given the British title 'Knight Commander of the Most Eminent Order of the Indian Empire') was ultimately successful in his goal of receiving support from Britain in 1914 when Britain needed to have someone distracting the Ottomans so that they could devote fewer resources to World War I taking place in Europe.
      Prior to that, it's argued that Ibn Saud had spent considerable efforts in achieving a status similar to the one held by Mubarak Al Sabah, the emir of Kuwait. This ideal status would have meant that Sauds and their territories would have been subjects of the Ottoman empire, but who would be given the protection of the British.
      This version of events does not look very good for Ibn Saud, presenting him as someone who is willing to do business with non-Muslims in order to undermine a Muslim ruler, and he'd serve a useful role in helping Britain with the following objective:
      Crewe private telegram to Hardinge, Viceroy of India, November 12,1914, cited in Busch Britain, India and the Arabs: 1914-1921, p. 62.
      Ismailis
      Further, east we find the rise of the modern-day Nizari Ismailis, whose Aga Khan in the mid-19th century created a new role for himself in providing services to the British Empire (Aga Khan I would receive an annual British pension of £20,000 per year). Mihir Bose (a noted writer on the subject) says that the Aga Khan had to plead his case for some time before the British took him seriously since they wanted to be sure that they were backing a local ally who'd present them with better value than the alternatives. His grandson Aga Khan III would be bestowed the title of 'Knight Grand Commander of the Order of the Star of India'. Their esoteric faith was totally at odds with the one promulgated by Wahhab, but regardless of that difference served a useful purpose.
      Regardless of the support he gave, the British were aware of the hypocrisy of his religious position:
      Sir Charles Napier to Governor-General of India, Earl of Ellenborough, 1843
      The period around the 1840s is interesting for the following reason, as the following letter makes clear:
      Purohit, T. (2012) The Aga Khan Case (religion and identity in colonial India). Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass.
      The writer of the letter is Major Henry Rawlinson, the military officer who worked for the commission in Persia from 1834 to 1838 and subsequently served as a political agent in Qandahar. So the British were interested in there being dislocation in Iran at around this time because of a perceived threat to their interests in Afghanistan.
      This makes the genesis and development of the third religion covered here all the more interesting.
      Bahai'ism
      In roughly the same period, the mid-nineteenth century, we also see the rise of the Bahai faith in Iran. Mirza Ali Mohammad was born in 1820 and was executed in 1850. A focus of his attention was economic inequality in Iran. There were clear political implications, as  noted by the middle eastern commentator Juan Cole:
      The socio-economic aspect of Bab's teachings are also explained here:
      Mansoor Moaddel (1986) The Shi'i Ulama and the State in Iran. Theory and Society, Vol. 15, No. 4 (Jul., 1986), pp. 519-556. This extract: p526.
      This socio-religio-poliitcal impact of a new faith did not go unnoticed by the colonial powers of the time and gained ground as a result of their support as a means of destabilising the Qajar dynasty. Like Ibn Saud, Abdul Baha, eldest son of the Baha'u'llah, would also be awarded the title of Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire, ostensibly for his work in alleviating famine.
       
      Shahvar, S. (2018) ‘Oppression of Religious Minority Groups in Times of Great Upheaval in Late Qajar Iran: The 1892 Persecution of Jews and Baha’is of Jewish Origin in Hamadan Based on Two Newly Discovered Letters’, The Jewish quarterly review. University of Pennsylvania Press, 108(2), pp. 225–251.
       
      Ahmadiyya
       
      Going further east, we find the third innovation in the Muslim religion towards the end of the 19th century and one that would lead to charges of being the creation of a new religion entirely. The Ahmadis would destabilise Muslims in the Indian sub-continent. Their support for the British in India is expressed in their texts:
      There is a reason for this approach; unlike the established religions of the Indian sub-continent, the leader of this new religion needed legitimacy. By acquiescing to the needs of the invaders, he sought to achieve that. For the established religions doing the same would have been challenging because they would have lost the legitimacy of their many existing followers; the new religion with far fewer followers had much less to lose in this respect but potentially a great deal more to gain. 
      Conclusion
      I am not saying that the British went into the middle east with the prior notion of introducing new faiths. However, it is reasonable to say that in an environment where there were new powers in the region, for someone starting a new faith, the potential for a symbiotic relationship with these new arrivals was obvious. 
      For the invaders, these new religions provided a ready-made supportive constituency with which to challenge the established order, whether it be the Ottomans, the Qajars or the established religious order in India.
    • Haji 2003
      Prophet Nuh (عليه السلام) an early social entrepreneur
      By Haji 2003 in Contemporania
         0
      Putting 2 and 2 together
      I have some knowledge of what social entrepreneurship is and like most of you I have read the story of Prophet Nuh ((عليه السلام).) in the Qur'an and Bible. At this point, I would start googling like crazy to build up the argument, but I decided to take a short-cut and asked chatgpt the following question:
      Can Noah and his construction of the ark be considered a form of social entrepreneurship?
       
      Now there are aspects of social entrepreneurship that are important that chatgpt has missed out, and to be honest they are pretty crucial to the link between his story and the concept of social entrepreneurship and I'll add them later. So I asked chatGPT:
      How does social entrepreneurship differ from entrepreneurship?
       
      This is taking us in the right direction. Looking at each of the above bullets in turn: 
      Prophet Nuh ((عليه السلام).) was focusing on social change (saving people from sin) and obviously had an environmental goal in mind (overcoming the dangers posed by the flood).  Social entrepreneurs target marginalised groups and Prophet Nuh ((عليه السلام).) was going for people who were sinners. The new product he had created was the ark His metric for success was the number of people saved.  

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