Ripping History- Regarding Dahir’s Alleged Incest

It is one of the most favourite subjects of official historians in Pakistan.  Their books tell us that Dahir was a brutal and promiscuous ruler who had married his sister.  It is indeed true that he had married his sister but the official historians deliberately leave out two important points.

1. The marriage was never consummated.

As Chachnama states:

It was he who, by the advice of a credulous minister, solemnised his marriage with his own sister, to prevent the working of a prediction. The marriage was not intended to be consummated, and, as a matter of fact, it was not consummated. [1]

2. That the act was socially abominable in that society and Dahir had his brother alienated from him due to this act.

Dahir’s brother Daharsiah wrote the following to Dahir when he learnt of this news:

What you have done is wicked and infamous. Whether you did it through necessity or of your own free will, you can never be excused, and whether you considered it allowable to do such an illegal and detestable act, in order to secure worldly pomp and power, or took the initial step by reason of the temptation of the devil, what you now ought to do is to turn from your evil ways, to forswear year sin, and to grieve (for your transgression), so that you may not be shut off from (the communion of) our religion, and our alliance with you may not be cancelled. If you fail to turn from this sin, in accordance with our suggestion and advice, you will make yourself deserving of opprobrium and will receive (your) punishment. You would have then to thank yourself for the consequences of these ugly deeds. [1]

By leaving these two subtle but important points, official historians create a generalization which implies that incest was a norm of that society. One can easily find such impressions upon conversing with people who have been exposed to such biased version of history. Such intellectual dishonesty helps in creating an image of the promiscuous, immoral, barbarian ‘Other’ that our ruling elites to create in order to produce and sustain hatred against Hindus.

The above lines from Chachnama clearly indicate that Dahir’s act was clearly a deviance and not a norm of that culture.  Though this conclusion does not even require a background in history if one is aware of some basic principles of biology, genetics and evolutionary psychology. The taboo against incest is not only social but it also lies deep within our biology. The abhorrence we feel towards it is embedded into us by the nature. No society or culture could have survived if it had made incest a norm as the biological penalty is extremely high. Nature is a cruel administrator and that we can observe in our society where excessive cousin marriages have led to fatal blood diseases in extreme cases and minor aberrations in others.

Notes

[1] The Chachnama-An Ancient History of Sind

Ripping History – Muhammad bin Qasim and Lúhánah Jats

From The Chachnama-An Ancient History of Sind

Muhammad Kásim, then complied with the prayer made by the people in the suburbs of Braminábád, and permanently settled their affairs in the same way and on the same lines, as had been followed in the case of the Jews, Fireworshippers, Nazarenes and Magians of Irák and Syria. He then sent them back to their homes; and to their headmen he gave the generic name of Ráná.* He then sent for Wazír Siyákar and Mókah Basáyeh, and asked them as to how the Jats of the Lúhánah tribe had been treated by Chach and Dáhar, and how matters now stood in regard to them. Wazír Siyákar replied in the presence of Mókah Basáyeh:

“In the reign of Rái Chach the Lúhánahs, that is, the Lákháhs and the Sammáhs* were not allowed to use soft clothe of silk or velvet. On the contrary they used to wear a rough black blanket, and put on a rough coarse scarf on their shoulders, and they went about with bare head and feet. If any one of them wore some soft stuff, he was fined, and when they went out of their houses, they used to take a dog with them, in order that they might easily be distinguished from the other tribes. None of their elders or chiefs was allowed to ride a horse. If any guides were required anywhere by any prince, they served as such. In fact it was their business to show the way as guides upto the limits of another tribe. If any headman or Ráná was obliged to use a horse, he rode it without any saddle or reins, and with only a blanket on its back. If an accident occurred to any traveller, the Jat tribes were called to help, and it was the duty of their headmen to see that such help was given readily. If any one of them committed theft, his children  and the other members of his family were thrown into flames and burnt. They guided caravans on their way both during day time and at night. Among them there is no distinction of high and low; they are all of the wild nature of brutes. They have always been refractory and disobedient to the rulers; and are in the habit of committing highway robberies. In the robberies committed some time ago on the high roads of Debal, they were probably concerned as accomplices. It was also a duty of theirs to supply firewood for the royal kitchen, to collect provisions for the personal use of the king, and to keep watch over his person, as his body guards.”

A tradition

Hearing this account of the Lúhánah Jats, Muhammad Kásim is said to have
remarked:

“what a villainous set of people these are. They are quite like the
wild men, living in some villages of Fárs and Mount Payeh, and they should now be treated as such.”

Muhammad Kásim, therefore, thought it proper to deal with them exactly in the same way, and following the rule made applicable by the commander of the faithful, Umār, son of Khattab, (may the great God be pleased with him) to the people of Syria, he ordered that if any stranger or a traveller should arrive within their limits, they were bound to entertain him with food as a guest for a day and night, and if he fell sick, for three days.

Rebuttal to Zakir Naik – I

by Awais Masood

I always believed that there are limits to credulity and ignorance but I was proven wrong when I watched Zakir Naik presenting ‘arguments’ against evolution. [1]

It was difficult for me to digest that a large number of people present in the live audience and watching on screens could buy into such third grade arguments. Moreover one can raise strong questions regarding the credibility of such a (pseudo) scholar. It is understandable – in the context of low literacy rates, much lower rates of scientific education and suppression of rational inquiry in our region – that general public could misunderstand science and take things for granted but it is criminally ignorant to let people like Zakir Naik churn out rubbish in the name of science.

In this series of rebuttals, I intend to take on Naik’s arguments, statement by statement and debunk those claims and expose what I perceive as either abject ignorance or criminal trickery.

Argument : Zakir Naik claims that evolution is a theory and not a fact [1]

It is perhaps the most popular and actually the most ridiculous argument presented by creationists. It actually exhibits a complete ignorance of science and scientific method and raises serious questions regarding the academic credentials of Naik who claims to be a doctor of medicine.

Anybody who has gone through elementary courses in science knows that there are other ‘theories’ of science such as ‘Theory of Gravitation’ and ‘Electromagnetic Theory’ but nobody declares gravity to be theory and jumps of a thirty storey building in a hope that he/she will start floating in mid-air rather than falling downwards.

The reality is that in scientific jargon, the terms ‘theory’ and ‘fact’ carry very different meanings. The colloquial usage of term ‘theory’ which stands for unsubstantiated claims is not valid for the scientific theories of Evolution, Electromagnetism and Gravity.

What is then a scientific theory? Biochemist, Science Fiction writer and popularizer of science, Isaac Asimov explains:

Creationists frequently stress the fact that evolution is “only a theory,” giving the impression that a theory is an idle guess. A scientist, one gathers, arising one morning with nothing particular to do, decided that perhaps the moon is made of Roquefort cheese and instantly advances the Roquefort-cheese theory.

A theory (as the word is used by scientists) is a detailed description of some facet of the universe’s workings that is based on long observation and, where possible, experiment. It is the result of careful reasoning from these observations and experiments that has survived the critical study of scientists generally.

For example, we have the description of the cellular nature of living organisms (the “cell theory”); of objects attracting each other according to fixed rule (the “theory of gravitation”); of energy behaving in discrete bits (the “quantum theory”); of light traveling through a vacuum at a fixed measurable velocity (the “theory of relativity”), and so on.
All are theories; all are firmly founded; all are accepted as valid descriptions of this or that aspect of the universe. They are neither guesses nor speculations. And no theory is better founded, more closely examined, more critically argued and more thoroughly accepted, than the theory of evolution. If it is “only” a theory, that is all it has to be. [2]

Similarly, Paleontologist Stephen J. Gould states:

If the vernacular word FACT has any currency in science, it can only be defined as “confirmed to so high a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent.”   By this definition, evolution – the observation that all organisms are connected by unbroken ties of genealogy – is as much a fact as anything discovered by science – as well confirmed as Copernicus’s claim that the Earth moves around the sun.[3]

Gould states at another place:

Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world’s data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts do not go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein’s theory of gravitation replaced Newton’s, but apples did not suspend themselves in mid-air, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from apelike ancestors whether they did so by Darwin’s proposed mechanism or by some other, yet to be discovered.

Moreover, “fact” does not mean “absolute certainty.” The final proofs of logic and mathematics flow deductively from stated premises and achieve certainty only because they are not about the empirical world. Evolutionists make no claim for perpetual truth, though creationists often do (and then attack us for a style of argument that they themselves favor). In science, “fact” can only mean “confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent.” I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms. [4]

Skeptic, Psychologist and historian of science Michael Shermer comment on scientific thinking:

Scientists agree that the following elements are involved in thinking scientifically:

Induction: Forming a hypothesis by drawing general conclusions from existing data.

Deduction: Making specific predictions based on the hypotheses.

Observation: Gathering data, driven by hypotheses that tell us what to
look for in nature.

Verification: Testing the predictions against further observations to confirm or falsify the initial hypotheses.

Science, of course, is not this rigid; and no scientist consciously goes through “steps.” The process is a constant interaction of making observations, drawing conclusions, making predictions, and checking them against evidence. [5]

Shermer further explains:

Through the scientific method, we may form the following generalizations:

Hypothesis: A testable statement accounting for a set of observations.

Theory: A well-supported and well-tested hypothesis or set of
hypotheses.

Fact: A conclusion confirmed to such an extent that it would be
reasonable to offer provisional agreement.

A theory may be contrasted with a construct: a nontestable statement to
account for a set of observations.The living organisms on Earth may be
accounted for by the statement “God made them” or the statement “They evolved.” The first statement is a construct, the second a theory. Most biologists would even call evolution a fact.

Through the scientific method, we aim for objectivity: basing conclusions on external validation. And we avoid mysticism: basing conclusions on personal insights that elude external validation.[5]

Conclusion

I consider the above arguments enough to explain why Naik’s statement holds no ground. It may seem wasteful to spend so much time refuting a single statement (rest of them will be refuted too in future) but I find it important as it leads us to another important question. Is he totally ignorant of the scientific method or he deliberately uses false statements  in front of his audience. In first scenario he comes out to be a totally ignorant speaker who holds no credibility to take part in debates regarding science. His shameless arrogance is appalling in this regard. How could he stand in front of millions of people in audience and argue regarding things, he is totally ignorant of? Is such a man worth listening to? If he is deliberately lying, the case becomes more severe. He is charlatan who cheats and deceives his audience with verbal trickery and false arguments and all that in the name of religion!

References

1. Zakir Naik on Evolution, Video

2. Asimov, Isaac, The “Threat of Creationism”, New York Times Magazine, 14 June 1981

3. Gould, Stephen J,  ‘Creation Science ‘ is an Oxymoron, Skeptical Inquirer Vol. XI, no. 2 / Winter 1986-87

4. Gould, Stephen J, Evolution as Fact and Theory, Discover 2 (May 1981): 34-37

5. Shermer, Michael, Why people believe weird things: pseudoscience, superstition, and other confusions of our time, 2002

Creationism and Science

Editor’s Note:

Zakir Naik aka The Ignorant

As the world moves forward, our society still faces the twin curses of ignorance and superstition. Science serves as a tool for expanding our knowledge of the natural world and it is the best tool we have. Only a scientific outlook based upon the the urge to learn and reason can take us out of the misery we find ourselves in. It is a tragedy that education of masses has been deliberately neglected by our ruling elite. Science is a special target of the oppressors as it can free minds from obscurantism, superstition and ignorance which in itself can endanger the very rule of these oppressors.

We suffer from a double tragedy when our educated youth falls victim to ignorant idiots such as Zakir Naik who do not know anything about science and scientific method but are readily available to malign, distort and destroy science. The basic underlying values of science such as Empiricism, Skepticism and Rational Inquiry are absent from the skewed worldview of Zakir Naik and his blind followers who shamelessly indulge in ridiculous retrospective evidentialism.

I present here a brief by renowned paleontologist late Stephen Jay Gould that puts light on scientific methodology and explains why Creation Science (a pseudo-science invented by fundamentalist Christians in USA) is a threat to science. The arguments, though mainly deal with US education system, are quite valid in Pakistan where creationism is still a holy truth for the majority.

Stephen J. Gould

‘Creation Science’ is an Oxymoron

By Stephen Jay Gould

Skeptical Inquirer
Vol. XI, no. 2 / Winter 1986-87
p 152-153

Science, above all, is a methodology for acquiring testable knowledge about the natural world – “the art of the soluble,” in Sir Peter Medawar’s apt phrase.  It is not, and cannot be, a compendium of certain knowledge. If the vernacular word FACT has any currency in science, it can only be defined as “confirmed to so high a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent.”   By this definition, evolution – the observation that all organisms are connected by unbroken ties of genealogy – is as much a fact as anything discovered by science – as well confirmed as Copernicus’s claim that the Earth moves around the sun. Evolutionary biologists argue intensely about mechanisms of evolutionary change – and such meaty debates are the soul of exciting science, the chief sign of its good health – but we all accept the fundamental fact of genealogical connection.

As a methodology of research, science adopts as its cardinal postulate – proved fruitful by its enormous success since the time of Galileo, Newton, and Descartes – the commitment to explain empirical phenomena by reference to invariant laws of nature and to avoid appeals to the miraculous, defined as suspension of those laws, for particular events. The notion of “abrupt appearance” – the origin of complex somethings from previous nothings – resides in this domain of miracle and is not part of science.  Punctuated equilibrium, catastrophic theories of mass extinction, hopeful monsters, and a variety of hypotheses about rapid rates of change in continuous sequences – not about unintelligible abrupt appearances – are part of scientific debate and bear no relationship to the nonscientific notion of abrupt appearance, despite pernicious and wishful attempts by many creationists to distort such claims and misquote and half-quote to their alien purposes.  Punctuated equilibrium, in particular, is a claim that evolutionary trends have a geometry that resembles a climb up a staircase, rather than a slide up an inclined plane.  It is, in other words, an alternative theory about the nature of intermediate stages in evolutionary trends, not, as creationists have claimed, a denial of those stages.

As a term, CREATION SCIENCE is an oxymoron – a self-contradictory and meaningless phrase – a whitewash for a specific, particular, and minority religious view in America, biblical literalism. As a religious idea, it differs sharply from the tenets of most other faiths – from the enormously lengthy cycles of repetition in Hindu thought, from the usual interpretation of origins in my own Jewish faith, and the allegorical readings of the Bible accepted by Catholics since the time of St. Augustine.  Biblical literalism, like all notions in the diverse array of faiths professed by Americans, belongs in the homes and churches – not in legislatively mandated curricula of science courses in public schools.

It is particularly tragic that public understanding of science should be so threatened just when science has become so central and crucial in all our lives.  This battle is for science itself, not only for the right of teachers to teach a fact of nature unimpeded by state commands. How can Americans hope to understand the nature of science if a partisan and minority religious doctrine, completely outside the norms and procedures of science, be taught as science, against the conscience and convictions of trained teachers, in the nation’s schools.

Great Design?

Excerpted from Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion by David Hume (1711-1776 AD)

David Hume

Look round this universe. What an immense profusion of beings, animated and organised, sensible and active! You admire this prodigious variety and fecundity. But inspect a little more narrowly these living existences, the only beings worth regarding. How hostile and destructive to each other! How insufficient all of them for their own happiness! How contemptible or odious to the spectator! The whole presents nothing but the idea of a blind Nature, impregnated by a great vivifying principle, and pouring forth from her lap, without discernment or parental care, her maimed and abortive children!

It must be acknowledged, that there are few parts of the universe, which seem not to serve some purpose, and whose removal would not produce a visible defect and disorder in the whole. The parts hang all together; nor can one be touched without affecting the rest, in a greater or less degree. But at the same time, it must be observed, that none of these parts or principles, however useful, are so accurately adjusted, as to keep precisely within those bounds in which their utility consists; but they are, all of them, apt, on every occasion, to run into the one extreme or the other. One would imagine, that this grand production had not received the last hand of the maker; so little finished is ev

ery part, and so coarse are the strokes with which it is executed. Thus, the winds are requisite to convey the vapours along the surface of the globe, and to assist men in navigation: but how oft, rising up to tempests and hurricanes, do they become pernicious? Rains are necessary to nourish all the plants and animals of the earth: but how often are they defective? how often excessive? Heat is requisite to all life and vegetation; but is not always found in the due proportion. On the mixture and secretion of the humours and juices of the body depend the health and prosperity of the animal: but the parts perform not regularly their proper function. What more useful than all the passions of the mind, ambition, vanity, love, anger? But how oft do they break their bounds, and cause the greatest convulsions in society? There is nothing so advantageous in the universe, but what frequently becomes pernicious, by its excess or defect; nor has Nature guarded, with the requisite accuracy, against all disorder or confusion. The irregularity is never perhaps so great as to destroy any species; but is often sufficient to involve the individuals in ruin and misery.