On Those Who Suffer from the Illusion of Knowledge
By Naseer Ahmed, New Age Islam
12 November 2025
Introduction
The loudest crusaders against “the illusion of knowledge” on this forum are, ironically, the two most captive to it. Their accusations rest on zero evidence, zero method, and zero intellectual discipline. In doing so, they reveal precisely what they claim to expose in others.
The two in question are Sumit Paul and Ghulam Mohiyuddin, and their failures are case studies in the psychology of projection.
I. Sumit and the Fabrication of Authority
1. The Iqbal Misquotations
Sumit recently published an article on Iqbal’s birth anniversary, repeating two quotes he falsely attributed to Iqbal:
- “The greatest obstacle to progress is not ignorance, but the illusion of knowledge.”
– In his earlier article, he attributed the same line to Michael Crichton. - “Strive for excellence, not perfection.”
– This belongs to H. Jackson Brown Jr.
Neither appears anywhere in Iqbal’s canon — not in the Persian works, not in the Urdu poetry, not in the Reconstruction lectures.
Both appear on a low-quality quote-aggregation page that also attributes the following to Iqbal:
- Peter Drucker’s “The best way to predict the future is to create it.”
- James Allen’s “The power to think is the power to create.”
- John Wooden’s “Failure is not fatal…”
- Churchill’s “A nation that forgets its history…”
- Margaret Mead’s famous line on small groups changing the world.
This is not research.
This is not carelessness.
This is parroting algorithmic garbage.
2. Why Anyone Familiar With Iqbal Instantly Recognises the Fraud
Had Sumit actually read Iqbal, he would have recognised that these lines do not even approximate Iqbal’s:
- Diction,
- Metaphysics,
- Literary Signature,
- Intellectual Tradition.
Iqbal does not speak in motivational-poster English. His philosophy draws from:
- Qur’anic Ontology,
- Persian Mystical Symbolism,
- German Idealism,
- A Rigorous Vocabulary Grounded In Metaphysics And Ethics.
Whenever Iqbal held a view profound enough to express, he articulated it repeatedly across his corpus. He did not scatter orphaned “inspirational quotes” across the internet.
If a line has no footprint in his works, no doctrinal continuity, no thematic resonance, then the verdict is simple:
Iqbal never said it.
Sumit simply didn’t know the difference.
A person who has read Iqbal recognises his voice instantly.
A person who hasn’t ends up quoting H. Jackson Brown Jr. and Michael Crichton — and calling it “Iqbal.”
II. The Solzhenitsyn Blunder: Ignorance in Pure Form
Sumit’s habit is not confined to Iqbal. He once attributed this line to Solzhenitsyn:
“It’s erroneous to say that no belief is also a belief or a conviction. Ex Nihilo Nihil Fit.”
This attribution collapses under the slightest scrutiny.
1. The Quote Is Philosophically Incompatible
The line is a sterile, atheist-positivist cliché — language Solzhenitsyn never used. His entire post-Gulag worldview is anchored in:
- Moral Realism,
- Christian Metaphysics,
- The Spiritual Foundations Of Ethical Life.
Solzhenitsyn does not use academic Latin to make pseudo-philosophical points. His tone is Dostoevskian, moral, and spiritually charged.
2. Anyone Who Has Read Even One Solzhenitsyn Work Knows This
Anyone with even passing familiarity with:
- The Gulag Archipelago
- Cancer Ward
- Letter to the Soviet Leaders
- the Harvard Address
would recognise immediately that the quoted line is impossible. The misattribution is so tone-deaf it exposes complete unfamiliarity with Solzhenitsyn’s thought-world.
Once again, Sumit simply googled something that sounded “intellectual” and pasted it without comprehension.
He cannot distinguish:
- an atheist cliché from a Christian metaphysician,
- a management guru from a religious poet-philosopher.
Because he is not reading thinkers.
He is hunting for clever-sounding lines.
And that is why he keeps failing.
III. Ghulam Mohiyuddin: The Illusion of Knowledge as a Personal Philosophy
Ghulam’s illusions are of a different kind. His declared method of verifying the Iqbal quote was:
“My AI confirms it is a well-known quote attributed to Iqbal.”
This is the full extent of his research methodology.
He does not ask:
- In which book?
- Which essay?
- Which poem?
- Which lecture?
He does not check primary sources because he has no interest in facts. His goal is to seed doubt, not resolve it.
His habitual incompetence surfaced most clearly during his attempted psychoanalysis of Prophet Ibrahim. When confronted:
- he panicked,
- leapt from Freud to Adler to Jung in frantic succession,
- then dumped ChatGPT output without understanding it,
- and when his contradictions were exposed,
- he declared the discipline itself flawed.
That was not scholarship.
That was intellectual cosplay — in a field he claims to practice professionally.
He confuses belief with knowledge, opinion with analysis, and AI regurgitation with intellectual work.
IV. The Core Problem: Confidence Without Comprehension
There is a pattern uniting both men:
- They do not understand the thinkers they quote.
- They do not verify sources.
- They do not grasp the philosophical worlds behind the words.
- They mistake borrowed lines for insight and borrowed confidence for knowledge.
This is the textbook illusion of knowledge.
Anyone can collect clever sentences.
Only real engagement with a thinker develops the ability to recognise what they could or could not have said.
The tragedy — and comedy — of Sumit and Ghulam is that they do not realise how transparent their pretence is to anyone who actually reads.
Conclusion
The illusion of knowledge is not about error. Everyone errs.
It is about confidence without understanding, certainty without evidence, scholarship without study.
It is what turns:
- motivational quotes into “Iqbal,”
- atheist clichés into “Solzhenitsyn,”
- ChatGPT printouts into “psychoanalysis,”
- and personal insecurity into aggressive intellectual posturing.
Those who actually study thinkers recognise their voices instantly.
Those who don’t — inevitably — end up quoting Peter Drucker, Michael Crichton, James Allen, Churchill, Wooden, and Margaret Mead under the name of Allama Iqbal.
And they fall flat every single time.
------
Naseer Ahmed writes on Qur’anic theology, moral philosophy, and the historical record of Islamic civilisation.
URl: https://www.newageislam.com/spiritual-meditations/suffer-illusion-knowledge/d/137604
New Age Islam, Islam Online, Islamic Website, African Muslim News, Arab World News, South Asia News, Indian Muslim News, World Muslim News, Women in Islam, Islamic Feminism, Arab Women, Women In Arab, Islamophobia in America, Muslim Women in West, Islam Women and Feminism