SYED
MUHAMMAD NAQUIB AL-ATTAS
Ancestors of Syed
Muhammad Naquib al-Attas
Syed Muhammad al-Attas
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Syed Muhsin al-Attas
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Syed Abdullah al-Attas
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Syed Ali al-Attas
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Rugayyah Hanum
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Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas
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Sharifah Raquan al-Aydarus
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Syed Muhammad al
Naquib bin Ali al-Attas
(born September 5, 1931) is a prominent contemporary Muslim
philosopher and thinker from Malaysia.
He is one of the few contemporary scholars who is thoroughly rooted
in the traditional Islamic sciences and who is equally competent in
theology, philosophy, metaphysics, history, and literature. He is
considered to be the pioneer in proposing the idea of Islamization
of knowledge.
Al-Attas' philosophy and methodology of education have one goal:
Islamization of the mind, body and soul and its effects on the
personal and collective life on Muslims as well as others, including
the spiritual and physical non-human environment. He is the author of
twenty-seven authoritative works on various aspects of Islamic
thought and civilization, particularly on Sufism,
cosmology,
metaphysics,
philosophy
and Malay
language
and literature.
Early life and education
Syed
Muhammad Naquib al-Attas was born in Bogor,
Java[Indonesia]
into a family with a history of illustrious ancestors, saints.[1]
He was the second of three sons; his older brother, Syed
Hussein Alatas
later became an academian and politician, and also had a younger
brother, Syed Zedal.[2]
He has also at least one known cousin, namely the academician Ungku
Abdul Aziz.
Syed Naquib received
a thorough education in Islamic sciences, Malay language, literature
and culture. His formal primary education began at age 5 in Johor,
Malaya
(later known as Malaysia),
but during the Japanese occupation of the peninsular, he went to
school in Java, in Madrasah
Al-`Urwatu’l-wuthqa,
studying in Arabic.
After World
War II,
in 1946 he returned to Johor to complete his secondary education. He
was exposed to Malay
literature, history, religion, and western classics in English, and
in a cultured social atmosphere developed a keen aesthetic
sensitivity. This nurtured in al-Attas an exquisite style and precise
vocabulary that were unique to his Malay writings and language.
After al-Attas
finished secondary school in 1951, he entered the Malay Regiment as
cadet officer no. 6675. There he was selected to study at Eton
Hall,
Chester,
England and later at the Royal
Military Academy, Sandhurst,
UK
(1952–1955). This gave him insight into the spirit and style of
British society. During this time he was drawn to the metaphysics of
the Sufis, especially works of Jami, which he found in the library of
the Academy. He traveled widely, drawn especially to Spain and North
Africa where Islamic heritage had a profound influence on him.
Al-Attas felt the need to study, and voluntarily resigned from the
King’s Commission to serve in the Royal Malay Regiment, in order to
pursue studies at the University
of Malaya
in Singapore (1957–1959).
While an
undergraduate at University of Malaya, he wrote Rangkaian
Ruba`iyat, a literary work,
and Some Aspects of Sufism
as Understood and Practised among the Malays.
He was awarded the Canada Council Fellowship for three years of study
at the Institute of Islamic Studies at McGill
University
in Montreal.
He received the M.A. degree with distinction in Islamic philosophy in
1962, with his thesis Raniri
and the Wujudiyyah of 17th Century Acheh.
Al-Attas went on to the School
of Oriental and African Studies,
University
of London
where he worked with Professor A.J.
Arberry
of Cambridge and Dr. Martin
Lings.
His doctoral thesis (1962) was a two-volume work on the mysticism of
Hamzah
Fansuri.
In 1965, al-Attas
returned to Malaysia and became Head of the Division of Literature in
the Department of Malay Studies at the University of Malay, Kuala
Lumpur. He was Dean of the Faculty of Arts from 1968 until 1970,
where he reformed the academic structure of the Faculty requiring
each department to plan and organise its academic activities in
consultation with each other, rather than independently, as had been
the practice hitherto.
Thereafter he moved
to the new National
University of Malaysia,
as Head of the Department of Malay Language and Literature and then
Dean of the Faculty of Arts. He strongly advocated the use of Malay
as the language of instruction at the university level and proposed
an integrated method of studying Malay language, literature and
culture so that the role and influence of Islam and its relationship
with other languages and cultures would be studied with clarity. He
founded and directed the Institute of Malay Language, Literature, and
Culture (IBKKM) at the National University of Malaysia in 1973 to
carry out his vision.
In 1987, with
al-Attas as founder and director, the International
Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization
(ISTAC)
was established in Kuala
Lumpur.
This institution strives to bring an integrated Islamization into the
consciousness of its students and faculty. Al-Attas envisioned the
plan and design of every aspect of ISTAC, and has incorporated
Islamic artistic and architectural principles throughout the campus
and grounds.
Malay Literature and Sufism
He authored Rangkaian
Ruba’iyyat a literary
work that was among the first ever published in 1959 and the classic
work, Some Aspects of
Sufism as Understood and Practised Among the Malays,
in 1963. His two-volume
doctoral thesis on The
Mysticism of Hamzah
Fansuri,
which is the most important and comprehensive work to date on one of
the greatest and perhaps the most controversial Sufi scholars in the
Malay world earned him the Ph.D in the UK in 1965.
Al-Attas engaged in
polemics on the subjects of Islamic history, philology, and Malay
literary history, which have resulted in the opening of new avenues
for known as the Sha’ir, and have established that Hamzah Fansuri
was the originator of the Malay Sha’ir. He has also set forth his
ideas on the categorization of Malay literature and periodization of
its literary history. He has contributed importantly to the history
and origin of the modern Malay language.
His commentaries on
the ideas of Fansuri and al-Raniri are the first definitive ones on
early Malay Sufis based on 16th and 17th century manuscripts. In fact
he discovered and published his meticulous research on the oldest
extant Malay manuscript, wherein among other important matters, he
also solved the riddle of the correct arrangement of the
Malay-Islamic cyclical calendar. He was also responsible for the
formulation and conceptualisation of the role of the Malay language
in nation building during debates with political leaders in 1968.
This formulation and conceptualisation was one of the important
factors that led to the consolidation of Malay as the national
language of Malaysia. As the Dean of the Faculty of Arts, University
of Malaya, he personally initiated its implementation and mobilized
the Faculty and the student organizations toward the systematic
implementation of Malay as an intellectual and academic language. In
fact, al-Attas's writings in Malay on Islamic subjects are unique in
their poetic prose, and serve as literary models for the
Islamic-oriented scholars and writers of Malaysia. This marks the
first time that modern Malay is used intellectually and
philosophically, thereby creating a new style of language.
Islam and Metaphysics
Al-Attas maintains
that modern science sees things as mere things, and that it has
reduced the study of the phenomenal world to an end in itself.
Certainly this has brought material benefits, however it is
accompanied by an uncontrollable and insatiable propensity to destroy
nature itself. Al-Attas maintains a firm critique that to study and
use nature without a higher spiritual end has brought mankind to the
state of thinking that men are gods or His co-partners. "Devoid
of real purpose, the pursuit of knowledge becomes a deviation from
the truth, which necessarily puts into question the validity of such
knowledge." [Islam and
Secularism, p. 36]
Al-Attas views
Western civilization as constantly changing and ‘becoming’
without ever achieving 'being'. He analyzes that many institutions
and nations are influenced by this spirit of the West and they
continually revise and change their basic developmental goals and
educational objectives to follow the trends from the West. He points
to Islamic metaphysics which shows that Reality is composed of both
permanence and change; the underlying permanent aspects of the
external world are perpetually undergoing change [Islam and
Secularism, p. 82]
For al-Attas, Islamic
metaphysics
is a unified system that discloses the ultimate nature of Reality in
positive terms, integrating reason and experience with other higher
orders in the suprarational and transempirical levels of human
consciousness. He sees this from the perspective of philosophical
Sufism. Al-Attas also says that the Essentialist and the
Existentialists schools of the Islamic tradition address the nature
of reality. The first is represented by philosophers and theologians,
and the latter by Sufis. The Essentialists cling to the principle of
mahiyyah
(quiddity), whereas the Existentialists are rooted in wujud
(the fundamental reality of existence) which is direct intuitive
experience, not merely based on rational analysis or discursive
reasoning. This has undoubtedly led philosophical and scientific
speculations to be preoccupied with things and their essences at the
expense of existence itself, thereby making the study of nature an
end in itself. Al-Attas maintains that in the extra-mental reality,
it is wujud
(Existence) that is the real "essences" of things and that
what is conceptually posited as mahiyyah ("essences" or
"quiddities") are in reality accidents of existence.
The process of
creation or bringing into existence and annihilation or returning to
non-existence, and recreation of similars is a dynamic existential
movement. There is a principle of unity and a principle of diversity
in creation. "The
multiplicity of existents that results is not in the one reality of
existence, but in the manifold aspects of the recipients of existence
in the various degrees, each according to its strength or weakness,
perfection or imperfection, and priority or posteriority. Thus the
multiplicity of existents does not impair the unity of existence, for
each existent is a mode of existence and does not have a separate
ontological
status".[citation
needed]
He clarifies that the Essence of God is absolutely transcendent and
is unknown and unknowable, except to Himself, whereas the essence or
reality of a thing consists of a mode of existence providing the
permanent aspect of the thing, and its quiddity, endowing it with its
changing qualities.
Al-Attas' view of Islamic Science
Al-Attas makes no
attempts to accommodate modern Western scientific spirit through a
reinterpretation of Islam, or to import Western technological skills
and products while simultaneously keeping intact the traditional
understanding of religion. Problems in the world, he says, are not
because of illiteracy or ignorance of modern knowledge; the reasons
are epistemological
and metaphysical. Modern sciences must be acquired, but their
philosophical foundations must be recast into the Islamic
metaphysical framework.
- "We do affirm that religion is in harmony with science. But this does not mean that religion is in harmony with modern scientific methodology and philosophy of science. Since there is no science that is free of value, we must intelligently investigate and study the values and judgments that are inherent in, or aligned to, the presuppositions and interpretations of modern science. We must not indifferently and uncritically accept each new scientific or philosophical theory without first understanding its implication and testing the validity of values that go along with the theory. Islam possesses within itself the source of its claim to truth, and does not need scientific or philosophical theories to justify such a claim. Moreover, it is not the concern of Islam to fear scientific discoveries that could contradict the validity of its truth."[Prolegomena, p. 38]
Islamic science must interpret the
facts of existence in correspondence with the Qur'anic system of
conceptual interrelations and its methods of interpretation, not the
other way around, by interpreting the system in correspondence with
the facts. Since the role of science is to be descriptive of facts,
and facts undergo continual change by virtue of their underlying
reality which is process, modern philosophy and science, in a secular
way, consider change to be the ultimate nature of reality. Al-Attas
maintains that reality is at once both permanence and change, not in
the sense that change is permanent, but in the sense that there is
something permanent whereby change occurs. Change does not occur at
the level of phenomenal things, for they are ever-perishing, but at
the level of their realities which contain within themselves all
their future states.
Philosophy of knowledge
Al-Attas advocates
that the categories of knowledge which were fundamental to the
Islamic tradition are fundamental to any real modern education. In
the traditional Islamic worldview, knowledge was of two kinds, the
open-ended fard kifayah
knowledge, which includes the natural, physical and applied sciences,
and the fard `ayn,
the absolute nature of the knowledge pertaining to God and the
spiritual realities and moral truths. Fard
`ayn knowledge is not
static, but dynamic, and it increases according to the spiritual and
intellectual abilities as well as social and professional
responsibilities of a person. Contemporary modern knowledge needs to
be delivered from its interpretations based on secular ideology. This
requires:
- "...a critical examination of the methods of modern science; its concepts, presuppositions, and symbols; its empirical and rational aspects, and those impinging upon values and ethics; its interpretations of origins; its theory of knowledge; its presuppositions on the existence of an external world, of the uniformity of nature and of the rationality of natural processes; its theory of the universe; its classification of the sciences; its limitations and inter-relations with one another of the sciences, and its social relations" [Prolegomena, p. 114].
Science, according to Al-Attas, is a
kind of ta’wil
or allegorical interpretation of the empirical things that constitute
the world of nature [Islam and the Philosophy of Science, p. 116].
The natural world is a book with knowledge; but that knowledge is not
evident merely from the physical phenomena; they are nothing but
signs, the meaning of which can be understood by those who are
equipped with proper knowledge, wisdom and spiritual discernment.
Some natural phenomena are obvious as to their meaning, while other
natural things are ambiguous; similarly there are clear verses
(muhkamat)
of the Qur'an, while other verses are ambiguous (mutashabihat).
The scientifically relevant verses in the Qur'an necessarily open
themselves for further interpretation, based on the cumulative
knowledge of future generations. He says that the fact that the early
Muslims were not cognizant of the many scientific truths embedded in
the Qur'an proves that the discoveries of these truths will not
contradict its universal spiritual and religious-moral teachings.
Al-Attas says that
the constituent parts of the fundamental bases of Islamic metaphysics
are: the primacy of the reality of existence; the dynamic nature of
this reality that is continually unfolding itself in systematic
gradation from the degrees of absoluteness to those of manifestation;
determination, and individuation; the perpetual process of the new
creation; the absence of a necessary relation between cause and
effect and its explanation in the Divine causality; the third
metaphysical category between existence and non-existence (the realm
of the permanent entities); and the metaphysics of change and
permanence pertaining to the realities. It is within the framework of
this metaphysics that the philosophy of science must be formulated.
Awards and achievements
Al-Attas developed a
style and precise vocabulary that uniquely characterized his Malay
writings and language. In 1970, al-Attas was one of the senior
founders of the National
University of Malaysia,
which sought to replace the English language with the Malay language
as the medium of instruction at the tertiary level of education. In
1973, he founded and directed the Institute of Malay Language,
Literature, and Culture (IBKKM) at the new University.
Al-Attas has won
international recognition by orient lists and scholars of Islamic and
Malay civilisations. He has chaired the panel on Islam in Southeast
Asia at the 29th Congress International des Orientalistes in Paris
in 1973. In 1975, he was conferred Fellow of the Imperial
Iranian Academy of Philosophy
for outstanding contribution in the field of comparative philosophy.
He was a Principal Consultant to the World of Islam Festival held in
London in 1976, and was speaker and delegate at the International
Islamic Conference held concurrently at the same place. He was also a
speaker and an active participant at the First World Conference on
Islamic Education held at Mecca
in 1977, where he chaired the Committee on Aims and Definitions of
Islamic Education. From 1976-77, he was a Visiting Professor of
Islamic at Temple
University,
Philadelphia,
United
States.
In 1978. He chaired the UNESCO
meeting of experts on Islamic history held at Aleppo,
Syria,
and in the following year the President of Pakistan,
General Muhammad
Zia ul-Haq,
conferred upon him the Iqbal Centenary Commemorative Medal.[citation
needed]
He occupies a
position of intellectual eminence in his country as the first holder
of the Chair of Malay Language and Literature at the National
University of Malaysia (1970–84), and as the first holder of the
Tun
Abdul Razak Chair
of Southeast Asian Studies at Ohio
University,
U.S.A. (1980–82) and as the Founder-Director of the International
Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization (ISTAC), Malaysia
(since 1987). He has delivered more than 400 lectures throughout
Europe, the United States, Japan, and the Far East and the Muslim
world. And in 1993, in recognition of his many important and
far-reaching contributions to contemporary Islamic thought, Anwar
Ibrahim,
as the Chairman of ISTAC and the President of the International
Islamic University Malaysia has appointed al-Attas as the first
holder of the Abu Hamid al-Ghazali Chair of Islamic Thought at ISTAC.
King
Hussein of Jordan
made him a Member of the Royal Academy of Jordan in 1994, and in June
1995 the University of Khartoum conferred upon him the Degree of
Honorary Doctorate of Arts (D. Litt.).
He is also an able
calligrapher,
and his work was exhibited at the Tropenmuseum
in Amsterdam
in 1954. He has also published three Basmalah
renditions on a living subject (kingfisher,
1970; chanticleer,
1972; fish,
1980) in some of his books. He also planned and designed the building
of ISTAC (1991), the unique scroll of the al-Ghazali
Chair (1993), the auditorium and the mosque of ISTAC (1994), as well
as their landscaping and interior decor, imbuing them with a unique
Islamic, traditional, and cosmopolitan character.
Ancestry
Syed
Naquib is of mixed ancestry; His father, Syed Ali al-Attas, was the
son of a Hadhrami
Arab
preacher
and a Circassian
noblewoman. from his father's side, Syed Naquib's was the son of a
Hadhrami
Arab
and a Sundanese
noblewoman.[3]
Bibliography
A
list of works by Syed Muhammad Naquib Al-Attas is as follows. He
authored more than two dozen books and monographs, and a lot of
articles.[4]
Books and Monographs
- (1959) Rangkaian Ruba'iyat (Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka).
- (1963) Some Aspects of Sufism as Understood and Practised among the Malays (Singapore: Malaysian Sociological Research Institute).
- (1969) Raniri and the Wujudiyyah of the 17th Century Acheh (Kuala Lumpur: Monographs of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society).
- (1970) The Mysticism of Hamzah Fansuri (Kuala Lumpur: University of Malaya Press).
- (1970) The Correct Date of the Terengganu Inscription (Kuala Lumpur: Museum Department).
- (1972) Islam dalam Sejarah dan Kebudayaan Melayu (Kuala Lumpur: Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia).
- (1975) Comments on the Re-Examination of Al-Raniri’s Hujjatu’l Siddiq: A Refutation (Kuala Lumpur: Museum Department).
- (1978) Islam and Secularism (Kuala Lumpur: Muslim Youth Movement of Malaysia (ABIM); reprint, Kuala Lumpur: International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization (ISTAC), 1993).
- (1980) The Concept of Education in Islam (Kuala Lumpur: Muslim Youth Movement of Malaysia (ABIM); reprint, Kuala Lumpur: International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization (ISTAC)).
- (1986) A Commentary on the Hujjat al-Siddiq of Nur al-Din al-Raniri: Being an Exposition the Salient Points of Distinction between the Positions of the Theologians, the Philosophers, the Sufis and the Pseudo-Sufis on the Ontological Relationship between God and the World and Related Questions (Kuala Lumpur: Malaysian Ministry of Culture).
- (1988) The Oldest Known Malay Manuscript: A 16th Century Malay Translation of the `Aqa’id of al-Nasafi (Kuala Lumpur: University of Malaya).
- (1989) Islam and the Philosophy of Science (Kuala Lumpur: International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization (ISTAC)) (tr. into German by Christoph Marcinkowski as Islam und die Grundlagen von Wissenschaft, Kuala Lumpur: ISTAC, 2001)
- (1990) The Nature of Man and the Psychology of the Human Soul (Kuala Lumpur: International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization (ISTAC)).
- (1990) On Quiddity and Essence (Kuala Lumpur: International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization (ISTAC)).
- (1990) The Intuition of Existence (Kuala Lumpur: International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization (ISTAC)).
- (1992) Islam: The Concept of Religion and the Foundation of Ethics and Morality (Kuala Lumpur: International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization (ISTAC)).
- (1993) The Meaning and Experience of Happiness in Islam (tr. into Malay by Muhammad Zainiy 'Uthman as Ma'na Kebahagiaan dan Pengalamannya dalam Islam, Kuala Lumpur: ISTAC; and into German by Christoph Marcinkowski as Die Bedeutung und das Erleben von Glückseligkeit im Islam, Kuala Lumpur: ISTAC, 1998)
- (1994) The Degrees of Existence
- (1995) Prolegomena to the Metaphysics of Islam: An Exposition of the Fundamental Elements of the Worldview of Islam (Kuala Lumpur: International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization (ISTAC)).
- (2001) Risalah untuk Kaum Muslimin (Kuala Lumpur: International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization (ISTAC)).
- (2007) Tinjauan Ringkas Peri Ilmu dan Pandangan Alam (Penang, Malaysia: Universiti Sains Malaysia).
See also
Notes
- ^ Abaza (2002), pg 93-4
- ^ Robert W. Hefner (2004). Remaking Muslim Politics: Pluralism, Contestation, Democratization. Princeton University Press. p. 262