PHD: Islam and enlightenment

I'm not sure how this is relevant to my thesis but here it is anyway.

So there's this historical time and process in Europe called "the Enlightenment". It has been defined by many philosophers including Immanuel Kant who published an essay in December 1784 entitled An Answer To The Question: What Is Enlightenment?

He defines the European Enlightenment as "man's emergence from a self-imposed immaturity". An enlightened man "had the courage to use his own understanding" and not be shackled by dogma or tradition.

According to Dr MA Muqtedar Khan, in Islamic terms Kant was speaking about ijtihad which Khan defines not in the narrow jurisprudential sense but rather in a broader sense as "independent thinking". 

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MAM Khan, "What Is Enlightenment? An Islamic Perspective" in The Journal of Religion & Society Volume 16 (2014)

PHD: Scallopsh*t

Salam, Shalom, Namasthey, Satch sri akaal and G'day.

I've been away from this blog for quite sometime. Quite a bit has happened since then. I'm taking steps to become a scholar though the likely end result is that I'll end up as little more than a scallop.

I've enrolled in a PhD program at Deakin University in Melbourne. My broad topic was jihad but know it has changed to the idea of umma or transnational religious belonging and obligation, a bit like the notion of "the church" though without as many hierarchical and institutional trappings. That is a really really broad topic. I've devoted a separate blog to jihad. It isn't the fanciest thing on the planet but it will do.

Anyway, I figured I could use this blog to deal with other stuff not just related to jihad. Hope you don't mind. It is my attempt at scholarship, though it will probably end up reading more like scallopsh*t. Ho ho.

Each post will be accompanied by a totally random photo.