malm sultanpuri?

Discussion in 'Poetry' started by abu Hasan, Jul 11, 2021.

Draft saved Draft deleted
  1. YaMustafa

    YaMustafa Well-Known Member

    Important not to “dumb down the audience”. People are capable of following difficult concepts so long as its explained in a logical manner. Shaykh Asrar often does use technical terms but he always explains/defines these. His talks are also on point and be delves straight in to the topic with no ‘time-wasting’. With many speakers after listening to hamd and salawat I skip the 10 or so mins that follows it
     
  2. Surati

    Surati Well-Known Member

    Glad we are on the same page. Shaykh Asrar’s target audience is educated adults who have an interest in theology not the “youth” (under 20s) as he would like to think or should be targeting.

    Gen-Z and Millenials read Harry Potter because it is in simple English with an engaging story.

    If you feel the problem is not Shaykh Asrar’s pragmatics then I suggest that as an experiment, you ask the youth and people outside of your circle what they think of his delivery in speech and in writing.

    Have you read Shaykh Asrar’s book? He utilises labyrinthine, arcane locutions to expound his arguments, rendering them tortuous (See, I could have said the same sentence in a much simpler way. A few lines might be okay but the entirety of a book? Tiring. Exhausting even).

    You would appreciate that word choice is integral to the reader's experience as it highly impacts on how the content flows, and on the reader's attention.

    There is no need to hide his amazing ideas/contributions behind such language which puts off the reader. If your reader is having to stop at every other line to ponder on what you mean then they’ll soon put the book down.

    Would it hurt to write the same thing in a simple fashion such that any reader can understand it? Maybe then he would truly be targeting the “youth”.

    I am presuming from your answers that you don’t have kids. AH’s vocabulary in his books is accessible to most teens. Even if there may be some harder words, the way he writes grabs your attention for a much longer time.

    Be like Abu Hasan. Write once, write well.

    79EC8876-2D5F-4CB1-A6FE-B7CCDC26EBE0.jpeg
     
    Chishti Nizami and Unbeknown like this.
  3. Unbeknown

    Unbeknown Senior Moderator

    well, if the situation is really as you say it is, then this could be categorised as a problem unique to gen-z (or whichever letter they are currently on) - otherwise who is consuming all the well-written information scattered across the internet (a lot of it paid as well)?

    I don't think this applies to educated adults - especially if they have lived in the West since birth.

    besides, though some dismiss them as cliché-studded superficial reads, popular fiction (like the Harry Potter series, for example), seems to suggest that the problem is not one of vocabulary or language - but of subject matter, motivation and interest.

    again, I feel that the subject matter and the cultural environment are to blame (or credit, depending on how you take it) rather than the terse voacabulary of those who speak on religion.

    I'd be happy if people "enjoyed" ridawipress titles. afterall, these are well-written.

    But the irony is that, people complain against mawlana's books too. There are those who say that it's difficult to parse them. I have personally received one such feedback.

    If you say that Mawlana's vocabulary is digestible and sh. asrar's is not, then I would again conjecture that the problem lies elsewhere, instead of vocabulary or sentence structure.

    again, an average over that wide a sample space tells us precious little about the actual state of affairs viz a viz the target audience of Anglo-Muslim speakers/authors.

    I don't think that is a fair comparison. Politics is a game of smokes and mirrors - and there are different motivations at play on both sides.

    ---
    I ain't saying there is no problem - but I think we need a deeper diagnosis - from several perspectives.

    wa Allahu a'alam
     
  4. AbdalQadir

    AbdalQadir time to move along! will check pm's.

    Yes, most sales courses teach and copywriters know that the average adult's reading and comprehension is at the level of a 13 yr old (school year 8), regardless if you're explaining to them the benefits of iPhone pro max, or if you're explaining to them the Shar3i daleels for the permissibility of chehlum.
     
  5. Surati

    Surati Well-Known Member

    Nopes, not just legal technicalities, his English in general. For youngsters, I don’t think language is the only barrier. Being engaging to them involves a complex interplay of factors.

    I enjoyed Shaykh Asrar’s book however it is not for a 14-15 year old (whose friend at school is bombarding him with Atheist rhetorics).

    As a contrast, kids can easily understand Abu Hasan’s books. Mastery of a topic’s delivery in writing (especially if your target is the “youth”) entails being able to be easily understood and not break the concentration of your reader.
     
  6. Surati

    Surati Well-Known Member

    Yup. People are not as “academically oriented” nowadays. Welcome to the world. This was more in relation to his book, btw.

    Hamza Yusuf and Abdul Hakim Murad have the same problem as Shaykh Asrar. Their delivery is more suited to academically oriented young adults/older crowd. Even though all three of them might think they are targeting youngsters (by this I mean younger than 20s when their personalities are forming), that’s not the reality.

    I don’t think it is. However, people in the West have found ways to make topics like LGBTQ, gender fluidity, feminism, and Atheism appealing and palatable to youngsters, including the Muslim youth. Why? And most importantly, how?

    . . .
    Language need not be too complicated to have a profound impact or be engaging. Take politics for example, why do short simple slogans work?
     
    Last edited: Jun 12, 2021
  7. AbdalQadir

    AbdalQadir time to move along! will check pm's.

    As in Shar3i mustalahat? Or in what sense...
     
  8. Unbeknown

    Unbeknown Senior Moderator

    I must confess myself surprised - are we speaking about people in the UK?

    I have heard sh. asrar mention on multiple occasions that his target audience are those youth for whom English is almost a first language - and who don't understand much Urdu. And he often faults speakers who don't deliver in English - despite several decades in the UK - for alienating the youth and/or failing to build a rapport with them, whereas the wahabis have plenty of English speaking "da'ees".

    Besides, how is his language any more polished than say people like hanson or winters?

    also, is this challenge limited to Muslim youth alone - and if so - why?

    --

    Shaykh asrar is among the very few whom I don't just "endure" but actually feel good about - for having them in our midst.

    It would be another disappointment to know that UK sunnis are far below even this level!

    And I feel I have already gathered a truckload of disappointments regarding the intellectual state and tastes of our people - enough to stuff a museum with.
     
  9. Surati

    Surati Well-Known Member

    My teens tell me that they would love to listen to someone like Shaykh Asrar, but find that his language is too technical. They are highly interested in learning about the topics that he speaks about because they are affected daily by it in school (like Atheism) but just can’t access it. Leave kids, I have even heard adults say that they need a dictionary to understand Shaykh Asrar.
    ماشاء الله he is well read and possesses a sophisticated lexicon, however one wonders what’s the point if his messages are only fully understood by a few clever people.

    The point of speeches/writing is to convey your thoughts and ideas and transfer knowledge, not to put people off. Now, one might argue that these people need to up their vocabulary but how realistic is this, especially if you want to reach out to as many people as possible.

    A good example of this is health professionals who use medical terminology amongst themselves; we wouldn’t expect them to use the same level of language with patients nor tell the patient they need to up their vocabulary but would expect things to be simplified and explained in simple terms so the problem is easily understood.

    If we expect that level of professionalism and care from the doctor of the physical form, should we not expect better from someone who is the doctor of our soul?

    Some other things kids mentioned are length of speeches, monotonous speakers or just plain irrelevant topics being spoken that don’t really affect them.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jun 11, 2021
    Chishti Nizami and abu Hasan like this.
  10. abu Hasan

    abu Hasan Administrator

    and a brother sent me this link:





    ---
    these are their stars! the moron does not know that "can do" [bol sakta hai] and qudrat is the same thing.

    ye jo behuda ilzamat hain ma'azAllah
    Allah jhoot bol sakte hain
    ye 100 fee sad ghalat hai
    baaz log aysa ibarat pesh karte hain
    to us ibarat ka matlab ye hai ke
    Allah ko jhoot ki qudrat hai
    qudrat to Allah ko har kaam ki hai

    jhoot bol sakne ka matlab
    bolne ki qudrat hai
    bol sakte nahin hain
    yaani bolte nahin hain

    kyun ke "wa man aSdaqu minAllahi qeelaa"
    Allah se ziyada kis ki baat theek ho sakti hai

    to aysi ibarat ka matlab jis ka sahi matlab bhi nikal sakta hai
    ghalat matlab bhi nikalta hai
    fitna parast log usko ghalat matlab ki taraf le kar jaate hain

    to qudrat to Allah ko har cheez ki hai
    neki ki bhi burayi ki bhi
    lekin Allah burayi nahin karte
    jhoot nahin bolte
    dhoka nahin dete
    qudrat to Allah ko har cheez ki hai
    kyun ke woh qadir e muTlaq hai

    ===
    the jaahil also does not know that 'neki burayi' are for you not for Allah ta'ala.
     
    Last edited: Jun 9, 2021
    Umar99 likes this.
  11. abu Hasan

    abu Hasan Administrator

    why are you harping on deobandi 'fiqh'?

    the first thing all devbandis have to learn is the correct belief about Allah ta'ala.

    that Allah sub'Hanahu wa ta'ala is transcendent from having a flaw; and that the Speech of Allah ta'ala is not only absolute truth but there is no possibility of falsehood occuring in Divine Speech.

    all the devbandi heretics - no matter how much learning they boast about (their claim...) need to first learn a basic aqidah: the Divine Power of Allah ta'ala is not related to muHalat and wajibat.

    until then their opinion about homosexuality or music is of little consequence.

    ---
    also somebody should tell the devbandis the definition of nifaaq.
     
    Last edited: Jun 7, 2021
  12. AbdalQadir

    AbdalQadir time to move along! will check pm's.

    actually, upon reading properly, i think that letter can be interpreted differently by the likes of malm.

    they could have done a better job of it had they not been devbandis!

    upload_2021-6-7_13-56-11.png

    this is dangerous and has potential to be abused by the likes of malm. the issue of music is not as objective and decisive as mut3ah, gold jewelry for men, and homosexuality, so these can't all be clubbed together!

    and what's "majority" supposed to mean in this context? are there "minority" opinions too on let's say homosexuality? is it the same level of seriousness as eating hyenas? is there any "minority" opinion in Ahlus Sunnah on homosexuality?

    why mention the word extant? did any of the obsolete schools of thought permit such stuff?
     
    Last edited: Jun 7, 2021
  13. AbdalQadir

    AbdalQadir time to move along! will check pm's.

    his alleged alma mater should distance from him by name and not just by offering generic refutations, because he flaunts binoria as far as i know

    1386368562894344201 is not a valid tweet id


    zameel doesn't appreciate him

    https://ahlussunnah.boards.net/thread/774/more-nahiem-ajmal-aktham-homosexuality
     
  14. Unbeknown

    Unbeknown Senior Moderator

    I haven't watched it either - but know several people who do.

    Yes it's got be-purdah women. And it poses as a 'sufi' themed series - so quiet an easy target for wahabis to discredit Sunnis.

    There's also a character who plays ibn 'arabic and makes regular appearances.

    But my main grouse is that it detaches people from real-life - there's the invincible protagonist and the 1-Dimensional sitting duck enemy. One flick of the 'axe' and down he goes.

    Real life is difficult and people should be mentally prepared to face it - not break down at the first touch of misery.

    Perhaps a better training would be to watch the gritty people of gaza.

    Allah knows best.
     
  15. AbdalQadir

    AbdalQadir time to move along! will check pm's.

    this is a good example to refute Hadith deniers and others like them (atabek, malm, atheists et al), without being apologetic.
     
  16. Abdullah Ahmed

    Abdullah Ahmed Veteran

    On the other hand, another knowledgable brother mentioned (from an SMS message):

    "Stick with and focus on what the Prophet (Salla Allahu alayhi wa sallam) asked us to focus on. These other things (such as istigatha) are not for the awam to debate about. Let the Ulema deal with it. The reason why Ahle Sunnat is busy proving these matters is because parties accuse them of shirk/kufr, etc., because of this practice. So they are forced to defend this practice, as well as stand up to prevent the awam from joining the accusing party (i.e the wahabis). The reason why these wahabis use istigatha is not because they actually care about peoples iman. Initially it was to recruit people into their armies to kill other Muslim and take over land (modern day Saudi) and eventually it became part of their movement to be very against this...the reality is that the more you foucs on the main pillars of Iman (e.g talking about rewards and punishment of Akhira, talking about Prophet salla Allahu alayhi wa sallam) prayer, charity, good deeds, good akhlaq, the more people will be attracted to Ahle Sunnah. It is almost always better not to debate anyone. I would say 99.99% of the time.
    If our people in our Masjid just focused on their tongues and kept the promised they made, didnt backbite others, stood up for the truth, engaged in truthful business contracts...i guarantee to you that the whole Muslim community would be attending our Masjid...but like I said, we dont focus on what the Prophet Salla Allahu Alayhi Wa sallam told us to focus on."
     
  17. Abdullah Ahmed

    Abdullah Ahmed Veteran

    Perhaps a similar approach needs to be taken with MALM. Refute him in such a manner that he is ridiculed and looks even more ridiculous than he already is, i.e incorporate a bit of sarcasm and satire, sprinkled with some indirect (or direct) ad-hominems. I believe this will definitely attract youth.
    Allamah Khadim Hussain Rahmatullahi alayh used to do this as well. Many youth were affected by him ما شاء الله .
     
  18. Abdullah Ahmed

    Abdullah Ahmed Veteran

    beshak.
    And when Ala Hazrat did refute, he did it with such tact and genius that it automatically became glaringly obvious that the ones being refuted were in fact "dumb monkeys."
     
  19. AbdalQadir

    AbdalQadir time to move along! will check pm's.

    I agree with @Aqdas post # 20; as well as get the point @Unbeknown was trying to make

    Alhamdulillah we're all on the same page, and brainstorming is good, even if some topics get intertwined.

    this is a real concern.

    going with Ala Hazrat's example mentioned by @Unbeknown, he could have pretty much offered a summary dismissal of every deviant in his time with a simple comment 'he's a dumb monkey not worth my time or knowledge'. but he didn't. he offered refutations, sound ones, and being an Allah fearing scholar drew a line somewhere.

    we are not him and neither in his times, we could probably extend that line a little bit further without compromising on our dignity, unlike malm - like for example, teaching our kids to engage in such topics in school debates or youth camps or something. we certainly can't take our cause to mtv, or even bbc for that matter without making a mockery of ourselves or deen!

    i can't speak for the efficacy of the ertugrul ghazi example, but i can say that it is raising a certain level of awareness. neither that nor firebrand speeches on the merits of Hazrat Umar or Salahuddin radi Allahu 3anhum are goading our youth into massive action. so the massive action gets canceled out on both sides of the equation and we are left with the question - is the ertugrul series worth it or not? does it have the same efficacy as a maulana's speech? i haven't seen it but know of its popularity. i'm assuming being in the tv media, it will certainly have hijabless females (correct me if i'm wrong). assuming it doesn't have hijabless females, would we say it is worth it? (serious question for maslaha, i'm not positing/implying any opinion). even if it does have hijabless females, without justifying or supporting such a measure, i will say that it would most probably be a lesser evil than bad "shuyukh" like malm hanson et al.

    this is the key question here.

    you can't satisfy all the people in the world.

    broadly, the target audience can be broken down into 3 or 4 main groups

    1. the hard-core deviants (the likes of malm, tahir, hanson, tariq zaleel etc.) and their hard core fanboys

    2. the common Sunnis (Ash3aris/Barelvis) who are being blasted with confusion day in and day out (your average desi guy from a Sunni family who minds his own worldly business but can't escape coming across the deviances of the above group and their dodgy daleels)

    3. the common awam who identify as Sunnis without going into the depth of the deviancy of their leaders (the counterpart to demographic 2 mentioned above. everyday common people who are either Sunni-dev neutral, or follow devbandis without knowing the kufriyat of the elders, or maududi, or identify themselves as salafis, and so on. a lot of times, among such people it will be a fashion statement to bash "Barelvis" but in my experience, if you give them a knowledge based daleel, they accept it or at least mellow down on that particular topic.)

    on the modernism, secularism, feminism, liberalism etc. front - demographics 2 & 3 are one and the same for all practical intents and purposes.

    they are marginally different demographics only on the Sunni/dev/wahabi/tafzili front

    both these demographics (2 & 3) are unapproachable by MOST Sunni shuyukh, peers, muftis, illa ma sha Allah a few - and they are the one's we need to connect with the most. in all honesty preaching to them is not as much hard work as breaking your head with a dumb animal from demographic 1 wherein unless Allah has written some miraculous recovery in their fate, all the daleels in the world won't work on them

    ---

    let me give a real life example from a whatsapp group of hard core Maslake Ala Hazrat Sunnis (awam as well as ulema)

    some non-scholar commoner brother posts a video of a man citing the Bukhari hadith recommending consuming camel milk and urine for curing a condition; and the video was with an anti-Islamic/hadith denial caption citing the "reason" the usual enemies of deen cite. now this brother is a sincere Sunni brother looking to refute the argument in the video, either directly to send the forwarder or for his own intellectual curiosity.

    one aalim/mufti saab, a principal/in-charge of a madrassa moreso, just dismisses it with a brilliant line that went something like this - 'yeh masala nahin ghasala hai! Huzoor 3alaihis salam ki nigahe nubuwwat ne pehle hi dekh liya tha ke yelog baad mein murtad ho jayenge, is liye unko ijazat de di. is qism ke masail qadiani haramzade (sic) uthate hain hadith ka inkar karne ke liye'

    i was shocked like - seriously? does this mufti saab even know that this permission exists in 3 Sunni mazhabs albeit not ours? what if i twist this same logic on him - whatever is sanctioned or commanded by Huzoor 3alaihis salam is good for me. end of story. don't we pride ourselves on being Sag-e-Madinah? what will this mufti saab's response be to that?

    luckily another mufti saab based in an Arab country corrected him, and said this is a real masala and does have ikhtilaf. other 3 mazhabs do permit it as do the salafis, and none of them are qadianis, so the former mufti saab did rujoo3! but even this mufti saab who corrected the former one, wouldn't tolerate someone calling out the other mufti saab. it's almost as if they're all in a union and are off-limits to the awam both in terms of approachability as well as criticism.

    this is as deadly blow to the propagation of Sunniyat or Islam in general.

    i have left that group since long, 'coz i'm not capable of putting up with sacred cows!

    ---

    as an aside, most of the wahabis and devbandis proselytization work focuses on converting demographic 2 (Sunni common folk) into their maslak, and as usual, we're lagging behind a lot!
     
    Unbeknown likes this.
  20. Aqdas

    Aqdas Staff Member

    I think people are discussing a few different things here.

    1. Abu Lies and his heresy
    2. Should we tackle it or not?
    3. How should we tackle it?
    4. Our speakers not being engaging enough.

    @Unbeknown seems to be talking about 3 and @Surati 4.

    Unbeknown is saying we shouldn't stoop to his level of shamelessness but should refute his ideas.

    Surati is asking:

    1. Why are people attracted to people like him
    2. Our speakers need to change how they deliver in order to engage more people.

    Unbeknown is saying people like Abu Lies will get followers in this age because people want that sort of Islam. Like minhajis - they want an easy, all things allowed Islam. This is the trump card of such speakers. They know people want ease.

    But Surati is saying, even if we accept that, the point is, and even if we take malm et al totally out the picture; our speakers are generally not engaging enough, illa ماشاء الله.
     
    Last edited: Jun 6, 2021

Share This Page