Pervez Hoodbhoy

Pervez Amirali Hoodbhoy (born 11 July 1950) is a Pakistani nuclear physicist, author, media commentator, and social activist. He is generally considered one of the most vocal, progressive and liberal members of the Pakistani intelligentsia.

Quotes

 * In my childhood, the traditional ulema [clerics] – who are so powerful today – were regarded as rather quaint objects and often ridiculed in private. Centuries ago the greatest poets of Persia, like Hafiz and Rumi, stripped away the mullahs’ religious pretensions and exposed their stupidity. Today, however, those same mullahs have taken control of the Iranian republic. The answer lies just as much in the domain of world politics as in theology. Khomeini developed the doctrine known as “guardianship of the clergy,” which gives the mullahs much wider powers than they generally exercised in the past. Instead of being simple religious leaders, they now became political leaders as well. This echoes the broader Islamic fusion of the spiritual and the temporal.… The traditional ulema are indeed a problem, but they are not the biggest one; the biggest problem is Islamism, a radical and often militant interpretation of Islam that spills over from the theological domain into national and international politics. Whenever and wherever religious fundamentalism dominates, blind faith clouds objective and rational thinking. If such forces take hold in a society, they create a mindset unfavourable for critical inquiry, including scientific inquiry, with its need to question received wisdom.
 * Pervez Amirali Hoodbhoy, “Islam and Science Have Parted Ways,” Middle East Quarterly (Winter 2010), pp. 69–70, http://www.meforum.org/2593/pervez-amirali-hoodbhoy-islam-science.
 * quoted in Tarek Fatah - The Jew is Not My Enemy_ Unveiling the Myths that Fuel Muslim Anti-Semitism-Signal (2011)