Tag: soul
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Akbarian Metaphysics: A Brief Elaboration
The locus of cognition, in all senses, is the heart, which comprises a litany of layers that cognize different aspects of reality, from the material to the metaphysical, and the rational to the supra-rational. The dualism modernity promotes — one wherein the two components may never be combined harmoniously — rips matter and spirit apart,…
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A Book Review of ‘Infamies of the Soul and Their Treatments’
Matters of the body are relatively straightforward: if an organ or limb or tissue is afflicted, medical expertise is sought, and then one hopes for an effective treatment, perhaps in the form of a pill or medical procedure. Humans understand the consequences and pain of neglecting a physical ailment. We intuitively recognize the necessity of…
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Ramadan: Beyond the Nafs, Towards the Lord
The reduction of Islamic practices to an incentive of material or individualist well-being is in effect a liberal remaking of Islam. In essence fasting cultivates a self that is conscious of the truth: that we do not have the right to food, water, and sex when Allah decrees such. The feeling of hunger and thirst,…
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Reflections on Dualism in Blade Runner 2049
Is it possible to know what it is like to want to be desired or loved, without a soul? This thought-provoking question is grappled with throughout the film Blade Runner 2049 (Denis Villeneuve, 2017). The protagonist Officer K (Ryan Gosling) is a Nexus-9 replicant who works for the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) and secretly…
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Technology as a Mode of Secular-Liberal Theology
It has become a redundant trope among critical Muslims within Islam and the non-Muslim critics of Islam to gleefully point out what they consider to be the absolute passivity of “the Islamic world” in the fields of science and technology.