because the “alfiyyah”, it’s really a high school level text. it isn’t meant for advanced students. graduating from azhar 200 years ago was meant to equip students to debate with sibawayh. now people read the “ajrumiyyah” and tell me they want to understand qur’anic arabic with it. habibi, you aren’t going to understand the qur’an with the “ajrumiyyah”.
- shaykh talal ahdab, yesterday
worldly criticism is held by many europeans to be an unassailable right. but all is not well, for although the rights-bearing subject is assumed to be free (and worldly criticism is part of her freedom) and required to authenticate herself, she is at the same time subjected to the normalizing effects of uncontrollable powers: the security state and the neo-liberal market. when she speaks it is in someone else’s words, when she is silent it is someone else’s silence. the future holds out promises and also denies them.
- talal asad, “reflections on blasphemy and secular criticism”, in religion: beyond a concept, ed. hent de vries (fordham UP, 2008)
shaykh anas teaches the alfiyya sometimes at khuzayma. (: i saw him reading a book (a whole book….also, it was not very small) on “al mabni lilmajhool”. i was flabbergasted.
sigh
i miss shaykh anas.
the sessions with sh.talal reminded me of much i’d forgotten. i’ve said this before but the difference, now, is that i’m trying to do something about it. (: make du’a
Admiration = Murder
i knew you’d get it.
(also, “talal” (mis)translates as “admirable”. these are two talals, then, for whom sanguinary desire rises.)