What does the term intellectual mean?

[Matkey]

Originally posted by Entrepreneur:

Matkey, Baashi and the rest of you thanks for the responses.

My bro, you are very welcome. I should be thanking you for engaging us to discuss this topic.

[Coloow]

Matkey bro, arrintaan waa arrin aan sanooyin ka fikiraayey. Markaad fiirisid somalidda kii xoogaa wax soo bartaba waxaa lagu magacaabo "aqoonyahay" oo waxaa laga soocaa ummadda intee kale. Bal fiiri inta qof oo somali ah oo lagu tilmaamo doktor, injineer, taliye, duuliye etc.

 

Cilmigu caqli ma siyaadiye ee waxaa siyaadiya noolosha. Tusaale hooyoyinkeena waxaay soo koriyeen caruur badan iyagoo aan weligooda galin iskool. marka ma waxaa lagu tilmaami karaa "intellectual" ma aha?

 

Marka markale, waad ku mahadsantihiin dhamaantiina fikradaha aad ka dhiibateen mowduucan.

[Dalni]

According to Antonio Gramsci, anyone who 'knows' how to use a "yaambo" is an intellectual as much as I am an intellectual since I excel in the 'knowledge' of typing a response - however 'shallow' this may sound - to you.

[Khayr]

Salaamz,

Maaaan, I'm getting flashbacks to days when I actually had to do research when making posts in here and other nomads would make meaningful contributions. Needless to say, times have changed and I guess Winter is Done because we hardly engage in these discussions anymore. SOL is mostly a Gender war ridden site.

I can't believe I wrote some of those posts, Allahu Akbir! I'm impressed at what other nomads and I have use to write, MashaAllah!

 

Fi Amanillah

[NGONGE]

This is a juicy discussion. Though it seems that the Nomads have decided to each attach their own ‘definition’ to the word ‘Intellectual’.

 

Can a Muslim not be an intellectual? I would have thought people like Ibn Khalduun, Ibn Sina, Ibn Rushed and the many various Muslim writers/poets/scientists throughout history were all the proud owners of the title. I’m keen to find out what the Nomads would class such men as?

[Baashi]

^My understanding is the author is asking what comes to our mind when we hear this term not necessarily the formal definition of the term intellectual.

 

As to the question, yes these men can be called intellectual if the formal definition must be used. I myself prefer scholars or enlightened men or something along these lines.

 

Signore Ngonge what comes to ur mind when u hear the term?

[NGONGE]

Believe it or not, whenever I hear that term, I always think of Imam Al Shafci! I have a warped mind that goes through it’s own convoluted process deduction to reach some wild conclusions, saaxib. I think it’s because I’ve read many of his poems where he encourages learning and study.

 

On the other hand, I also think of people such as Orwell, Bernard-Show, Hume and Russell (pardon the Brit influence there heh).

 

Sure, some of these people did not believe in God. However, it’s not their beliefs that led me to regard them as intellectuals but their knowledge and thirst for more.

 

 

When Galileo said that the Earth is not the centre of the universe and that is revolves around the Sun, he was vilified and put under house arrest. He did not question God; he questioned the teachings of the church. I believe in questioning things. If they’re good, they’ll stand up to scrutiny and if they’re flawed, they’ll crumple like the church’s theory crumpled in the face of Galileo’s proof. To be an intellectual (not that I’m pretentious enough to claim to be one) one has to look at and question everything around him. Even Allah invites us to ponder, think, look, view and consider his creations and message. I believe those that ‘accept’ such an invitation are what one should call intellectuals.

[Ariadne]

what is the dividing line? talent, creativity, brains etc? Education?

You see, I would have thought that creativity, brains and education were on the same page and weren't really divided in some way.... creativity comes from the brain and education is what feeds it but apparently they are different things....

 

how do you become an intellectual are so called intellectuals more talented than the non-intellectuals?

 

Have you ever seen one? ?

Yes, follow me quietly thorugh the urban jungle were on the hunt for the elusive yet cunning intellectual..... where is there habitat ... what do they eat? do they stay in packs or have a secret contempt for one another and are alone?

 

I think the best thing to do when you gather all of this information would be to make a mockumentary on Intelectuals and all about their semi-secret existance.... like the bug they get bitten by and all they do is research and reguritate... and sometimes even give lectures of over compensation... and get dark lines under thier eyes consume coffee and intellectually beat on others.

They begin to hold their nose high in the air.

and start getting nieck cricks from doing that.

And to do it in the voice of the biology guy ...the guy that does the voice overs for the biology movies.

[Elysian]

^^^^^

 

NGONE, wouldn’t you refer the one’s you listed (Ibn Khalduun, Ibn Sina, Ibn Rushed, Orwell, Bernard-Show, Hume, Russell) as great thinkers, rather than just intellectuals?

 

And isn’t it so that most of the intellectuals, in the present and past, are mere puppets of those in power to control “the ignorant massesâ€, while a great thinker questions the prevailing ideas among the intellectuals?

[NGONGE]

^^^^^^

 

Here, let me tell you a story.

 

When I was much much younger than I am today, I used to be obsessed with the game of football. I’d play it every day. I’d watch any and every game I see. Sometimes, I’d be walking back home from school and would notice a bunch of kids playing football. I’d usually stop and join them or just watch (if I don’t know who they were).

 

Between the ages of eight to eighteen, I hung around the same group of friends and we always played football together. Our main striker was a guy called Cali. He was very skilful and quick. He would score goals from all angles and with every part of his body. In addition, he had an amazing left foot. Cali was not very powerfully built and did not have a big frame. However, that left foot of his was the most powerful I’ve ever seen. If he took a free kick or a penalty, everyone knew he would score. That left foot was amazing. We used to give him the usual titles: Maradonna, Pele, Keegan, Zico, etc..

 

Cali, (who by the way had grown up to be a very fat man) didn’t much care for the comparisons with all those famous people. He thought he was better than everyone and didn’t like to be compared to ‘old’ people. Still, I digress, the point I was trying to make by the telling of this story was as follows:

 

Cali had a name for that left foot of his. He called it Jaguar! This was in relation to the British motor car and not the South American big cat. Though I’m loath to explain the obvious here, I realise that some Americans and Canadians will be reading this and would not work out the connection. In football, left-footers are a rare breed; good left footers are even rarer. Cali was a left-footer and loved reminding everyone that he was. A Jaguar is a British car, the Brits drive on the left and Cali’s best foot was his left one, like a Jaguar on a British Motorway (highway for the north Americans amongst us). When he was younger, he would usually ‘vroom vroom’ before taking a shot at goal.

 

For years afterwards, we all thought of Cali’s foot when we heard the word Jaguar. Though we also knew that it referred to British cars and Big Cats. Cali on the other hand refused to acknowledge the cats or cars and insisted that the only Jaguar was his self-assigned one referring to his left foot!

 

That Cali believed it to be so, did/does not mean the rest of the world would.

 

Now, back to our discussion and the meaning of the word intellectual.....

[- Femme -]

To me...an intellectual is any person who can read a post by either Mutakalim or Sophist without crumbling, cursing savagely and spending precious minutes flipping the oxford dictionary with a frown and/or headache.

 

Being intellegent is successfully getting yourself out of a box. Whatever the box might represent.

[Elysian]

NGONE Although I belong to the womenfolk who has difficulties relating to sport metaphors (especially soccer) I clearly understood your anecdote.

 

I’ll go back to the sub’s bench, and hope the more fitting topic “The Responsibility of Intellectuals†pops up in the future, so that I can get a game against the SOL giants and perhaps improve my amateur skills. (…bad, bad metaphor, but I’m doing my best)

[Haddad]

I would say someone who has read and absorbed million(s) of words is an intellectual.

[Baashi]

Morning,

 

Diversity in opinions is always good and we got quite plenty of it in here. As u all concede men are endowed with intellect and almost all of them make use of it in some form or another. Some dedicate their lives in advancing human knowledge others deal with abstracts and try to impose their point of view as the only valid way to understand things. Others made career to deny the existence of the Creator and wrote volumes on the subject.

 

One wonders where is the dividing line? Is it having a degree from accredited institution that one gives the credentials to qualify the title or is it the fact that being skeptic on what the prevalent view of the age dictates what does the trick or perhaps having inquiring mind that speaks about what one makes of what one examines?

 

Some of you associate Intellectuals with intelligent men whose ideas and ideologies are quite different from someone who believes say in active God who manages and directs the world affair. I’m not impressed by Atheists in any way, shape, or form . Couple that with the fact that the word has lost its maening and nowadays espouses all kinds of connotations.

 

Some of you have seen the TV and their talking heads and pundits. One can’t help but notice the overuse of the word “expert†some of them who in making their case for some cause reference to an intellectual whose views are in line with the goals they want to advance. Heck! Paul Wolfowitz is an intellectual in the eyes of many. Now, today the ones that get showered with these labels: “experts†and “intellectuals†have not written an encyclopedic treaties nor have they invented a useful scientific gadget nor have they advanced the human knowledge and yet they are given the title.

 

Whenever I hear the term, I can’t help but think of the current bearers of the term..

[Khayr]

Salams,

 

Originally posted by NGONGE:

 

When Galileo said that the Earth is not the centre of the universe and that is revolves around the Sun, he was vilified and put under house arrest. He did not question God; he questioned the teachings of the church. I believe in questioning things. If they’re good, they’ll stand up to scrutiny and if they’re flawed, they’ll crumple like the church’s theory crumpled in the face of Galileo’s proof.

Galileo committed a grave error in his line of thinking, finding because he wanted to invalidate the Christian view of the universe that taught that the Earth was the centre of the Universe, Center of the Cosmos and by saying that the 'Earth' was not the CENTER of the Cosmos, Galileo was saying that MAN is just a mere creature among others and that MAN is not what

RELIGION definies MAN to be. For if Earth is not the Center of the Universe, then what the Scriptures say is INVALID and infact a 'LIE'

and MAN is not connected to the HEAVENS but rather just one small, unconnected part of the Cosmos.

 

The View from NOWHERE

 

'MAN is disengaged from teh world in which he is ineluctably included and able to the world by himself from a God like vantage point'

 

Reference Page

 

 

On another note,

 

The term 'INTELLECTUAL' is a modern that is often

 

affliated with MODERN and often Agnostic, if not outright Atheist thinkers.

 

So Imam Shafiic, would be considered an ALIM and not an Intellectual. As muslims, we have our own terminology to describe our leading thinkers and sages.

To be cont'd.....

 

Fi Amanillah