About Ismaili Ignition
As Ismailis, we consider our faith an intellectual one. But what does that actually mean, an "intellectual faith?" Does it just mean translating and studying what has come down to us from towering intellects of our past, like Kirmani, Sijistani, Khusraw, Tusi and others? If so, then what works from prior Ismaili giants did they study and translate? And why then, did they push the intellectual landscape of their times, creating new original works with new thought, new perspectives, new ideas relevant to their intellectual context and times and not just study what was handed down to them? And why did they debate their perspectives when they didn't agree? In other words, are we to believe that our faith, as just one subject, has now been fully explained by them for all time and, indeed, all times, and there is nothing new to discover, no new perspectives or meanings to search for and gain insight and wisdom from?
And so, Ismaili Ignition believes our intellectual tradition does not lie in just studying the fruits of other people's intellectual activity -- such as the works handed down from our past luminaries -- but, rather, in the intellectual process itself. That is, the actual intellectual activity which produced those works that embodied new thinking, bold new ideas and perspectives or challenged established ideas. In other words, we believe, our intellectual tradition is not so much about what is produced, but that it was produced in the first place.
Click here for an in depth discussion of our perspective of the meaning "intellectual tradition."
Although Mawlana Hazar Imam says we must learn to "constantly review and revise and renew what we think we know" he also says that "knowledge is constantly changing, must ever be challenged and extended." Pushing the envelope, forging bold new, innovative directions and perspectives, are not just nice platitudes but a fundamental and imperative attitude every community needs to adopt if it wishes to protect itself from inadvertently developing an unhealthy corpus of unchallengeable dogma -- whether in faith and philosophy, ethics, administration, etc. -- which would otherwise inevitably choke thought and adaptability, and stifle progress, perhaps for generations.
With Ismaili Ignition we want to help create the space to encourage people to push the boundaries to think about issues and matters related to our community and express their opinions because this -- thinking and expressing one's thoughts, one's opinions -- is at the heart of our understanding of the Ismaili intellectual tradition.
And this is why Ismaili Ignition's vision is simply:
Help reignite the passion to think for ourselves and encourage each intellect to express itself.
Note a subtle, but important nuance in the above vision statement: we do not specifically seek solutions or specific answers to problems. This is not the essence nor spirit of Ismaili Ignition, but just a potential consequence. Indeed, we may not find any solutions, and it would be presumptuous to assume we will. Rather, we merely suggest novel perspectives for everyone to contemplate and reflect over, first individually and then with a few friends, over coffee, or in small gatherings, such as book clubs, classrooms, institutional committees.
Ismaili Ignition may highlight what we feel might be unrecognized challenges or issues and offer our opinions, ideas or alternative perspectives (in a sense, just thought experiments), however, we do not insist on either our opinions over the challenges or our alternative perspectives. Although we merely float them all for everyone's consideration, some may find our opinions helpful. Nevertheless, we hope the new and alternative perspectives will spark others to build upon them in an effort to find innovative answers which we hope they will share with the community. Indeed, many of the questions, even faith related questions, and perspectives we float are universal and not unique to our faith so other faith communities may also find them useful and thought provoking.
The spirit and essence of Ismaili Ignition is to try and inspire everyone in the Jamat to have the confidence to think for themselves and genuinely honour and respect each intellect -- when they choose to express or explain themselves. We hope, thereby, to help bring every intellect in the Jamat to bear on, and reflect on community issues so we can better understand them in today's intellectual context. We also hope this will unlock the inspiration Allah has blessed us with because we do not know which intellect He has inspired with which visions and ideas that may not just improve the community, but fundamentally and profoundly alter its trajectory for decades or even centuries, or even the change course of history.
It is our profound conviction the most inspired visions and ideas our community needs to address our problems -- indeed, to first even correctly diagnose a situation and, thereby, first identify the real problems to address -- will be revealed if each of us, individually, not only have the will but also the courage to live lives which embrace the highest virtues that underlie the human condition and which give life depth and meaning: confidence, humility, courage, honour, dignity, valour, patience, temperance, perseverance, and most importantly, a deep and profound respect for each person's intellect.
And so, through Ismaili Ignition, we will seek to inspire each of us to rise to this standard expected of us so the community may reap the rewards of an intellectual landscape that truly respects and embraces intellectual diversity. Where visions and ideas are given their due respect and consideration, no matter where they come from.
As Hazar Imam said of the purpose and structure of Aga Khan Architecture Award, so too Ismaili Ignition is inspired by the same sentiments and purpose:
The goal was to create an intellectual space -- something we might think of as a beautiful bustan
- in which there would be no possibility of suffocation from the dying weeds of dogma, whether professional or ideological;
- where the flowers of articulation and challenging ideas could grow without restraint;
- where the new plants of creativity and risk-taking could blossom in the full light of day;
- where beauty would be seen in the articulation of difference and for seeking diverse solutions in the form of plants of different sizes, shapes, textures and colours, presented in new configurations and arrangements;
a bustan whose glory would stem from the value and legitimacy of the pluralism of the infinite manifestations of culture in the human community.... The goal should be to turn this great resource into an intellectual trampoline to generate ideas for building the future productively and constructively in terms that will be meaningful and beneficial for Muslims generally.
Ismaili Ignition is also inspired by Hazar Imam's advice at the 1964 First World Socio-Economic Conference address (Karachi, Pakistan):
In the first place we must be morally and materially strong and united. The world which we live on is indeed getting smaller every day, there is increased communication between human beings of different areas and we can already see how the technical intelligentsia of the world, regardless of all existing barriers, are joining together ... If we, as a small community, are to face the challenge of the future and overcome it and make sense of it and use it for our own good, we must leave no stone unturned to strengthen ourselves in the years ahead.
Individual groups, separated by thousands of miles, can no longer attempt separately to mould new ideas and new concepts into intelligible and acceptable forms. It is necessary, therefore, to have more and more consultation, discussion and investigation so as to find out what institutions, what organisations and on what foundations we can prepare ourselves to make good use of the future which Allah allows us to perceive.
We were further encouraged and inspired by Hazar Imam's recent comments, in 2017, where he said:
So I hope every murid that has a competence will be willing to share that competence with the Jamats around the world. And modern technologies enable you, of course, to do that. (2017, Pakistan)
To achieve our vision, we rely on the following tools, explained further, below, that is either new and unique or has an innovative twist:
- Ignition Paradigm Proposals
- Ignition Interviews
- Ignition Questions
Through each of these we will float new perspectives, new ideas and new insights on various matters and issues related to the community -- visions, philosophy, administration, etc. -- to inspire the Jamat to contemplate and consider issues from the perspective of first principles, to inspire us to think deeper, to go below the superficial surface and seek and understand the relevant essences and principles at play.
Ismaili Ignition may also highlight what we feel might be unrecognized challenges or issues and offer our opinions or alternative perspectives (in a sense, just thought experiments), however, we do not insist on either our opinions over the challenges or our alternative perspectives. Although we merely float them all for everyone's consideration, some may find our opinions helpful. Nevertheless, we hope the new and alternative perspectives will spark others to build upon them in an effort to find innovative answers which we hope they will share with the community.
Some may wonder why we do not host an on-line discussion forum. While these are sometimes useful, we feel discussions in such forums tend to be dominated by the opinions of a few individuals and disagreements often lead to a toxic, stressful environment not conducive to quiet contemplation and individual reflection we seek and necessary for true innovation, which is also born out by real world experience and research:
When you're working in a group, it's hard to know what you truly think. We're such social animals that we instinctively mimic others' opinions, often without realizing we're doing it. And when we do disagree consciously, we pay a psychic price.... Take the example of brainstorming sessions, which have been wildly popular in corporate America since the 1950s, when they were pioneered by a charismatic ad executive named Alex Osborn. Forty years of research shows that brainstorming in groups is a terrible way to produce creative ideas. The organizational psychologist Adrian Furnham puts it pretty bluntly: The "evidence from science suggests that business people must be insane to use brainstorming groups. If you have talented and motivated people, they should be encouraged to work alone when creativity or efficiency is the highest priority." This is not to say that we should abolish groupwork. But we should use it a lot more judiciously than we do today. (2012, Scientific American)
If there was just one message we wished for everyone to take away from Ismaili Ignition, it would be understand the absolutely essential need for individuals to begin reflecting on community issues on their own, alone, by themselves. We feel this is so critical we formalised this notion in Ismaili Ignition's vision statement.
Often we think we don't we have the confidence or knowledge or experience to do think for ourselves, or that only "experts" should think about such things, but that is, in our view, fundamentally mistaken and, we believe, precisely why Mawlana Hazar Imam said in Pakistan in 1989:
[H]ave confidence in your own judgement, confidence in your ability to analyse problems, confidence in your ability to develop solutions to those problems.... Listen to ideas, develop ideas, create ideas and bring them forward for the service of the jamat. (1989, Pakistan)
Time and time again he has emphasised this and again in Pakistan, in 2017, when he said
... we are seeking community wisdom, the wisdom of the Jamat, as to what are its needs, and how best we can serve those needs.
In our view, there is no greater tragedy than to waste human intellectual resources and capacity, for whatever reason. Since we do not know who Allah has inspired with what ideas, we feel, therefore, as both an article of faith and out of basic human respect, it is imperative that we honour and cherish each and every intellect of the community. We should do everything possible to encourage everyone in the Jamat to have the confidence to not only think for themselves, but also provide them -- and most especially the quieter ones among us, who are often the deepest thinkers -- a space to express themselves so we can all learn and benefit from their insights.
We talk a lot about pluralism but, for us, sincerely honouring each intellect is where the hardest form of pluralism, intellectual pluralism and the intellectual courage and humility it requires, starts.
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Ignition Paradigm Proposals are where we float our own novel perspectives, ideas and insights, all grounded in Mawlana Hazar Imam's advices for everyone to reflect over, first individually and then with a few friends, over coffee, or in small gatherings, such as book clubs, classrooms, institutional committees.
Proposals may highlight what we feel might be unrecognized challenges or issues and offer our opinions, ideas or alternative perspectives (in a sense, just thought experiments), however, we do not insist on either our opinions over the challenges or our alternative perspectives. Nevertheless, some may find our opinions helpful and we hope the new and alternative perspectives will spark others to build upon them in an effort to find innovative answers which we hope they will share with the community.
Hazar Imam's advices are universal, profoundly astute, penetratingly insightful and years, if not decades, ahead of conventional thinking and wisdom. Although we would do well to not only understand them, deeply, but also act upon them, some quarters, however, are of the opinion that Hazar Imam's public messages -- his advices to organisations and nations on how to be more ethical, more effective, more responsive, more flexible, more humanistic, more accountable, more creative, more innovative, more bold, more nuanced and sophisticated in thinking -- do not apply within the community. We, however, are of the opposite view for Hazar Imam's advice, from 50 years ago, to the community is clear and specific that "we must leave no stone unturned to strengthen ourselves."
Ignition Paradigm Proposals are inspired by Hazar Imam's guidance in Pakistan, 1989:
Bring forward your ideas. It is only a stupid person who does not listen to ideas. It means he is like a horse ... who lives with blinkers [and] all they can see ahead of them is a little tiny dimension of light.... It is only that sort of a horse that goes straight, straight, straight, straight, straight and it never looks for a new direction, a new idea, something creative. Let's not be a horse with blinkers.... No, that is not for our Jamat. (1989, Pakistan)
Ismaili Ignition interviews attempt to draw from our guests their best ideas, insights and perspectives on the full spectrum of issues and topics related to the community. As Mawlana Hazar Imam said in 1964:
If we, as a small community, are to face the challenge of the future and overcome it and make sense of it and use it for our own good, we must leave no stone unturned to strengthen ourselves in the years ahead. Individual groups, separated by thousands of miles, can no longer attempt separately to mould new ideas and new concepts into intelligible and acceptable forms. It is necessary, therefore, to have more and more consultation, discussion and investigation so as to find out what institutions, what organisations and on what foundations we can prepare ourselves to make good use of the future which Allah allows us to perceive. (1964, Pakistan)
Our guests are independent thinkers, well read members of the Jamat -- irrespective of their station in life or station in the community institutions (in keeping with our vision to honour and encourage each intellect) -- that have vision, insight, well reasoned opinions and the courage to offer them candidly. Individuals with creative, innovative, practical, solutions, or who are able to pinpoint and identify areas for improvement, or who are unafraid to challenge conventional wisdom, or who are able to identify important trends and have a genuine desire to help the Jamat move forward. As Hazar Imam said in Canada in 2016 and Pakistan in 2017:
Public wisdom is not dependent on education. (2016, Canada)
So we are seeking community wisdom, the wisdom of the Jamat ... (2017, Pakistan)
Essentially, we seek astute insight and wisdom from our guests. If you know someone you think we would be interested in interviewing please contact us here and only those we select will be contacted. Note, however, we reserve the unfettered right to choose, at our sole discretion, with or without further explanation, the guests we wish to interview.
During the interviews we may highlight what we feel might be unrecognized challenges or issues and offer our opinions, ideas or alternative perspectives (in a sense, just thought experiments) for our guests to comment on, however, we do not insist on our opinions, although some may find our opinions helpful. Nevertheless, we hope the new and alternative perspectives will spark others to build upon them in an effort to find innovative answers which we hope they will share with the community.
To facilitate our interview objectives, we developed our own unique interview protocol to, firstly, draw out our guests' best and most thoughtful insights and, secondly, ensure they are at complete ease, and not fear they will be ambushed or be victims of "gotcha journalism," caught off guard and "on the record." Specifically:
- We provide our guests with the broad topics and themes we wish to discuss in addition to our actual questions we will ask (of course, spontaneous follow ups are asked as warranted). By providing these in advance, our guests are able to reflect over their responses and hopefully, thereby, provide you, the audience, with more valuable insights.
- We invite our guests to offer their feedback on the topics and questions, and afford them the opportunity to advise us of any questions they would prefer rephrased or, if they do not at feel comfortable answering, even removed altogether, so as to help have a more substantive, relaxed conversation.
- Finally, and again in the interests of our guests’ peace of mind, prior to publication, we provide our guests with the audio and/or transcript to review and approve to ensure there are no remarks which perhaps, on reflection, they’d prefer to re-phrase, or even remove altogether, so our visitors can have confidence what they read or hear is what our guests intended to say.
We recognize some guests may be more comfortable providing written answers to our questions. If you would prefer to provide written answers to interview questions, please contact us for additional guidelines, so we can ensure answers retain a conversational tone and more likely to be read.
Ignition Questions are a unique tool we have conceived of and developed that will serve as the primary method through which we hope to realise our vision to "help reignite the passion to think for ourselves and encourage each intellect to express itself."
Ignition Questions offer forward looking questions, related to our community, for the Jamat to reflect over, first individually and then with a few friends, over coffee, or in small gatherings, such as book clubs, classrooms, institutional committees. We encourage these discussions to be driven by a spirit of humility as expressed in this proverb:
Discussions are always better than arguments, because an argument is to find out who is right, and a discussion is to find out what is right.
Some Ignition Questions may highlight what we feel might be unrecognized challenges or issues and offer our opinions, ideas or alternative perspectives (in a sense, just thought experiments), however, we do not insist on either our opinions over the challenges or our alternative perspectives. Although we merely float them all for everyone's consideration, some may find our opinions helpful. Nevertheless, we hope the new and alternative perspectives will spark others to build upon them in an effort to find innovative answers which we hope they will share with the community.
Many of these questions arise from our interviews and similarly many are used repeatedly in our interviews to help draw out the widest range of insights from both the Jamat and our interview guests. Similarly, our interview guests may draw attention to important challenges in their answers which we will re-frame as new Ignition Questions for broader reflection.
Ignition Questions are inspired by Mawlana Hazar Imam's following guidance:
The goal, I am persuaded, ... is not to teach people answers, but to teach them to ask the right questions. (1988, Zanzibar)
But seeking advice, even if the advice is neither complete nor perfect, may articulate for you new directions of thought, new opportunities, new questions. And as it is said very often, many times the solution to a problem is asking the right question. (1989, Pakistan)
In dealing with the issues that lie ahead of us, we will look at them straight in the face, we will ask the hard questions. If we cannot find immediate answers, we will go on asking the same questions until Inshallah, we are inspired to find the answers, but we will not give up. We will not go back to an obscurantism, to a form of intellectual retreat into something which is neither beneficial for the present and certainly not constructive for the future.... What we are really talking about is the way in which our Tariqah and indeed Islam deals with the modern world of the industrialised society. It is that simple. And we must have the courage to ask the questions and to seek the answers. (1986, USA)
[H]ave confidence in your own judgement, confidence in your ability to analyse problems, confidence in your ability to develop solutions to those problems, [to] listen to ideas, develop ideas, create ideas and bring them forward for the service of the jamat. (1989, Pakistan)
Ignition Questions are also inspired by Hazar Imam's recent guidance:
And you should express your needs to [our] institutions. There should be a dialogue between the Jamat and our institutions, and this dialogue should be an ongoing process of thinking together, of what will best serve the Jamat ... So we are seeking community wisdom, the wisdom of the Jamat, as to what are its needs, and how best we can serve those needs. (2017, Pakistan)
Perhaps the institutions and others -- who really appreciate the profound personal, intellectual growth we hope Ignition Questions will instigate -- will also start framing similar, deep questions. If they do, we hope they will do so, like we try, to frame questions that encourage and inspire intellectual growth by offering fresh perspectives to reflect on, as well as encourage mutual understanding, compassion and respect rather than pose questions which create discord, undermine community cohesion, or further personal agendas.
About Faith Related Ignition Questions
When it comes to faith related Ignition Questions, we would be cautious over claims suggesting that such and such is the "authoritative," "definitive," "proven," "true," "final", etc. answer. The exception being when Hazar Imam’s guidance directly answers the question. Similarly, we would be equally cautious over suggestions that there are no definitive answers, as if all interpretations, even opposing ones, are not just equally legitimate, but also equally correct because we are each on our "personal searches." This essentially recasts relativism (which Hazar Imam has specifically denounced to be "unprincipled") as personal search.
To better understand this issue, we recommend reviewing the Ignition Question "No Black & White Answers, Absolute Proof or Intellectual Satisfaction. Where Does the Ismaili Tariqah Stand?" (click here), which suggests shortcomings of both of these extremes and proposes a new perspective that perhaps might reconcile the two.
Ismaili Ignition is a non-commercial, non-profit, voluntary, public service endeavour. It is neither associated with, nor operates on behalf of, His Highness the Aga Khan, the Ismaili community, or any of their institutions.
And, just as the Institute of Ismaili Studies clarifies, here, in respect of its own publications, that:
In facilitating these and other publications, the Institute's purpose is to encourage original research and analysis of relevant issues. While every effort is made to ensure that the publications are of a high academic standard, there is naturally bound to be a diversity of views, ideas and interpretations. As such, the opinions expressed in these publications must be understood as belonging to their authors alone.
so too, all views, ideas, interpretations and opinions expressed here must be understood as belonging to the authors or Ismaili Ignition, alone, and not of the Ismaili community.
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