Why do we adhere fanatically to the compartmentalisation of knowledge – secular or canonical? Those who write secular literature – fiction or non-fiction – dread being declared orthodox if they quote from the scriptures and clerical contents. Similarly, the clergy deem all the non-clerical repositories of knowledge downright inferior and unworthy to be quoted in their religious treatises. Both schools of thought gravitate towards extremism without offering any receptive space to the opposite extreme and without assaying it on the touchstone of rationality.

This polarisation of knowledge becomes more poignant in the content of newspapers, particularly English ones. An English writer assumes the avatar of a secularist and avoids quoting references from the revealed books and the sayings of the prophets. S/he resorts to the Western thinkers because the more referenced the latter are, the more scholarly, scholastic in reality, the former appears to be. It's quite misleading that being believers in the revealed books, we hesitate to tap into the........

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