Ismaili Ignition

In Part 1, of this two-part Ignition Question, we highlighted remarks from Imams that advise us that we may indeed make mistakes in our own, personal interpretations of our faith. However, knowing we may be mistaken, in theory, is one thing. Admitting we are wrong, and changing a deeply held position or belief or worldview on some issue, is quite another. Here, in Part 2, we introduce a new perspective on open-mindness and see what "abandoning false conceptions" about faith, as Mawlana Sultan Muhammad Shah advises us to do, actually looks like in practice.

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We often hear "there are no wrong interpretations" of our faith. But is this idea at odds with what Mawlana Hazar Imam and Mawlana Sultan Muhammad Shah have told us about our personal interpretations? Or has the emotional, spiritual, experiential side of faith (where mistakes can't happen) been confused with its intellectual side (where mistakes can happen)? And has the "right to interpret" been confused with "being right?" In Part 1, of this two-part Ignition Question, we look at these questions and suggest we should not focus our personal efforts on trying to be "right" about our interpretations -- but simply "less wrong."

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While cosmopolitan ethics may sound very complicated, scholarly, arcane or enigmatic to some, we would like to propose, for reflection and discussion, a more practical and comprehensible perspective of cosmopolitan ethics based on Hazar Imam's clear explanations about them. Part 1, of this two part Ignition Question, reviews what appears to be at the heart of Hazar Imam's notion of Cosmopolitan Ethics.

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