ISLAMIC PHILOSOPHY: AN INTRODUCTION
From the perspective of Islam, a ‘worldview’ is not
merely the mind’s view of the physical world and of man’s historical, social,
political and cultural involvement in it as reflected, for example, in the
current Arabic expression of the idea formulated in the phrase nazrat al-islam
li al-kawn. It is incorrect to refer to the worldview of Islam as a nazrat al-islam
li al-kawn. This is because, unlike what is conveyed by nazrat, the
worldview of Islam is not based upon philosophical speculation formulated
mainly from observation of the data of sensible experience, of what is visible
to the eye; nor is it restricted to kawn, which is the world of
sensible experience, the world of created things. If such expressions are now
in use in Arabic in contemporary Muslim thought, it only demonstrates that we
are already being unduly influenced by the modern, secular Western scientific
conception of the world that is restricted to the world of sense and sensible
experience. Islam does not concede to the dichotomy of the sacred and
the profane; the worldview of Islam encompasses both al-dunyaand al-akhirah, in
which the dunya-aspect must be related in a
profound and inseparable way to the akhirah-aspect, and in which
the akhirah-aspect has ultimate and final significance. The dunya-aspect
is seen as apreparation for the akhirah-aspect.
Everything in Islam is ultimately focused on the akhirah-aspect
without thereby implying any attitude of neglect or being unmindful of
the dunya-aspect. Reality is not what is often ‘defined’ in modern
Arabic dictionaries as waqi‘iyyah, whose use, particularly in its
grammatical form waqi‘iy, is now in vogue. Reality ishaqiqah, which
significantly is now seldom used due to the preoccupation with waqi‘iyyah which
only points to factual occurrences. A factual occurrence is only one aspect in
many ofhaqiqah, whose ambit encompassesall of reality.
Moreover, a factual occurrence may be an actualization of something false (i.e.
batil); whereas reality is the actualization always of
something true (i.e.haqq). What is meant by
‘worldview’, according to the perspective of Islam, is then the vision of reality
and truth that appears before our mind’s eye revealing what
existence is all about; for it is the world of existence in its totality that
Islam is projecting. Thus by ‘worldview’ we must mean ru’yat
al-islam li al-wujud.
The Islamic vision of reality and truth, which is a
metaphysical survey of the visible as well as the invisible worlds including
the perspective of life as a whole, is not a worldview that is formed merely by
the gathering together of various cultural objects, values and phenomena into
artificial coherence.[1] Nor is it one that is formed gradually
through a historical and developmental process of philosophical speculation and
scientific discovery, which must of necessity be left vague and open-ended for
future change and alteration in line with paradigms that change in
correspondence with changing circumstances. It is not a worldview that
undergoes a dialectical process of transformation repeated through the ages,
from thesis to antithesis then synthesis, with elements of each of these stages
in the process being assimilated into the other, such as a worldview based upon
a system of thought that was originally godcentered, then gradually became
god-world centered, and is now worldcentered and perhaps shifting again to form
a new thesis in the dialectical process. Such a worldview changes in line with
ideological ages characterized by a predominance of the influence of particular
and opposing systems of thought advocating different interpretations of
worldview and value systems like that which have occurred and will continue to
occur in the history of the cultural, religious and intellectual tradition
of the West. There have not been in the history of the cultural, religious and
intellectual tradition of Islam distinct ages characterized by a preponderance
of a system of thought based upon materialism or idealism, supported by
attendant methodological approaches and positions like empiricism, rationalism,
realism, nominalism, pragmatism, positivism, logical positivism, criticism,
oscillating between centuries and emerging one after another right down to our
time. The representatives of Islamic thought – theologians,
philosophers, metaphysicians – have all and individually applied
various methods in their investigations without preponderating on any one
particular method. They combined in their investigations, and at the same time
in their persons, the empirical and the rational, the deductive and the
inductive methods and affirmed no dichotomy between the subjective[2] and the objective, so that they all affected
what I would call the tawhid method of
knowledge. Nor have there been in Islam historical periods that can be
characterized as ‘classical’, then ‘medieval’, then ‘modern’ and now
purportedly shifting again to ‘post-modern’; nor critical events between the
medieval and the modern experienced as a ‘renaissance’ and an ‘enlightenment’.
Proponents of shifts in systems of thought involving changes in the fundamental
elements of the worldview and value system may say that all forms of cultures
must experience such shifts, otherwise in the process of interaction with
changing circumstances they exhaust themselves and become uncreative and
petrified. But this is true only in the experience and consciousness of
civilizations whose systems of thought and value have been derived from
cultural and philosophical elements aided by the science of their times. Islam
is not a form of culture, and its system of thought projecting its vision of
reality and truth and the system of value derived from it are not merely
derived from cultural and philosophical elements aided by science, but one
whose original source is Revelation, confirmed by religion, affirmed by
intellectual and intuitive principles. Islam ascribes to itself the truth of
being a truly revealed religion, perfected from the very beginning, requiring
no historical explanation and evaluation in terms of the place it occupied and
the role itplayed within a process of development. All the essentials of
the religion: the name, the faith and practice, the rituals, the creed and
system of belief were given by Revelation and interpreted and demonstrated by
the Prophet in his words and model actions, not from cultural tradition which
necessarily must flow in the stream of historicism. The religion of Islam was
conscious of its own identity from the time of its revelation. When it appeared
on the stage of world history Islam was already ‘mature’, needing no process of
‘growing up’ to maturity. Revealedreligion can only be that which
knows itself from the very beginning; and that self-knowledge comes from the
Revelation itself, not from history. Theso called ‘development’ in
the religious traditions of mankind cannot be applied to Islam, for what is
assumed to be a developmental process is in the case of Islam only a process of
interpretation and elaboration which must of necessity occur in alternating
generations of believers of different nations, and which refer back to the
unchanging Source.[3] As such the worldview of Islam is
characterized by an authenticity and a finality that points to what is
ultimate, and it projects a view of reality and truth that encompasses
existence and life altogether in total perspective whose fundamental elements
are permanently established. These are, to mention the most salient ones, the
nature of God; of Revelation (i.e., the Qur’an); of His
creation; of man and the psychology of the human soul; of knowledge; of
religion; of freedom; of values and virtues; of happiness – all of
which, together with the key terms and concepts that they unfold, have profound
bearing upon our ideas about change, development, and progress. I propose here
in this Introduction to give a gist only of some of these fundamental elements
of the worldview of Islam. A comprehensive statement of their nature is already
set forth in the chapters of this book. It is these fundamental elements of our
worldview that we maintain to be permanently established that modernity is
challenging, seeing that the shifting systems of thought that have brought
modernity forth from the womb of history were fathered by the forces of
secularization as a philosophical ideology. But as a matter of fact modernity
or postmodernity has itself no coherent vision to offer that could be described
as a worldview. If we could strike even a superficial similitude between a
worldview and a picture depicted in a jigsaw puzzle, then the jigsaw of
modernity is not only far from depicting any coherent picture, but
also the very pieces to form such a picture do not fit. This is not to mention
postmodernity, which is already undoing all the pieces. No true worldview can
come into focus when a grandscale ontological system to project it is denied,
and when there is a separation between truth and reality and between truth and
values. These fundamental elements act as integrating principles that place all
our systems of meaning and standards of life and values in coherent order as a
unified system forming the worldview; and the supreme principle of true reality
that is articulated by these fundamental elements is focussed on knowledge of
the nature of God as revealed in the Qur’an.
The nature of God as revealed in Islam is derived
from Revelation.We do not mean by Revelation the sudden visions great
poets and artists claim for themselves; nor the apostolic inspiration of the
writers of sacred scripture; nor the illuminative intuition of the sages and
people of discernment. We mean by it the speech of God concerning Himself, His
creation, the relation between them, and the way to salvation communicated to
His chosen Prophet and Messenger, not by sound or letter, yet comprising all
that He has represented in words, then conveyed by the Prophet to mankind in a
linguistic form new innature yet comprehensible, without
confusion with the Prophet’s own subjectivity and cognitive imagination. This
Revelation is final, and it not only confirms the truth of preceding
revelations in their original forms, but includes their substance, separating
the truth from cultural creations and ethnic inventions.
Since we affirm the Qur’an to be the speech of God
revealed in a new form of Arabic, the description of His nature therein is
therefore the description of Himself by Himself in His own words according to
that linguistic form. It follows from this that the Arabic of the Qur’an, its
interpretation in the Tradition, and its authentic and authoritative usage
throughout the ages establishes the validity of that language to a degree of
eminence in serving to describe reality and truth.[4] In this sense and unlike the situation
prevailing in modernist and postmodernist thought, we maintain that it is not
the concern of Islam to be unduly involved in the semantics of languages in
general that philosophers of language find problematic as to their adequacy to
approximate or correspond with true reality. The conception of the nature of
God that is derived from Revelation is also established upon the foundations of
reason and intuition, and in some cases upon empirical intuition, as a result
of man’s experience and consciousness of Him and of His creation.
The nature of God understood in Islam is not the
same as the conceptions of God understood in the various religious traditions
of the world; nor is it the same as the conceptions of God understood in Greek
and Hellenistic philosophical tradition; nor as the conceptions of God
understood in Western philosophical or scientific tradition; nor in that of
Occidental and Oriental mystical traditions. The apparent similarities that may
be found between their various conceptions of God with the nature of God
understood in Islam cannot be interpreted as evidence of identity of the One
Universal God in their various conceptions of the nature of God; for each and
every one of them serves and belongs to a different conceptual system, which
necessarily renders the conception as a whole or the super system to be dissimilar
with one another. Nor is there a ‘transcendent unity of religions’, if by
‘unity’ is meant ‘oneness’ or ‘sameness’; and if by ‘unity’ is not meant
‘oneness’ or ‘sameness’, then there is plurality or dissimilarity of religions
even at the level of transcendence. If it is conceded that there is
plurality or dissimilarity at that level, and that by ‘unity’ is meant
‘interconnectedness of parts that constitute a whole’, so that the
unity is the interconnection of the plurality or dissimilarity of religions as
of parts constituting a whole, then it follows that at the level of ordinary
existence, in which mankind is subject to the limitations of humanity and the
material universe, any one religion is incomplete in itself, is in itself
inadequate to realize its purpose, and can only realize its purpose, which is
true submission to the One Universal God without associating Him with any
partner, rival, or like, at the level of transcendence. But religion is meant
to realize its purpose precisely at the level of existence in which
mankind is subject to the limitations of humanity and the material universe,
and not when mankind is not subject to these limitations as the term
‘transcendent’ conveys. If ‘transcendent’ is meant to refer to an ontological
condition not included under any of the ten categories, God is, strictly
speaking, not the God of religion (i.e. ilah) in
the sense that there could be such a thing as a ‘unity’ of religions at that
level. At that level God is recognized as rabb,not as ilah; and
recognizing Him as rabb does not necessarily imply oneness or
sameness in the proper acknowledgement of the truth that is recognized, since
Iblis also recognized God as rabb and yet did not properly
acknowledge Him. Indeed, all of Adam’s progeny have already recognized Him
as rabb at that level. But mankind’s recognition of Him as
such is nottrue unless followed by proper acknowledgement at
the level in which He is known as ilah. And
proper acknowledgement at the level in which He is known as ilah consists
in not associating Him with any partner, rival, or like, and in submitting to
Him in the manner and form approved by Him and shown by His sent Prophets. If
‘transcendent’ is meant to refer to a psychological condition at the
level of experience and consciousness which ‘excels’ or ‘surpasses’ that of the
masses among mankind, then the ‘unity’ that is experienced and made conscious
of at the level of transcendence is not of religions, but of religious
experience and consciousness, which is arrived at by the relatively few
individuals only among mankind. But religion is meant to realize its purpose
for the generality of mankind; and mankind as a whole can never be at the level
of transcendence for there to be a unity of religions at that level. Then if it
is denied that the unity at that level is the interconnection of the plurality
or dissimilarity of religionsas of parts
constituting a whole, rather that every one of the
religions at the level of ordinary existence is not a part of a whole, but is a
whole in itself – then the ‘unity’ that is meant is ‘oneness’ or
‘sameness’ not really of religions, but of the God of religions at the level of
transcendence (i.e.esoteric), implying thereby that at the level of
ordinary existence (i.e.exoteric), and despite the plurality and
diversity of religions, each religion is adequate and valid in its own limited
way, each authentic and conveying limited though equal truth. The notion of a
plurality of truth of equal validity in the plurality and diversity of
religions is perhaps aligned to the statements and general conclusions of
modern philosophy and science arising from the discovery of a plurality and
diversity of laws governing the universe having equal validity each in its own
cosmological system. The trend to align modern scientific discovery concerning
the systems of the universe with corresponding statements applied to human
society, cultural traditions, and values is one of the characteristic features
of modernity. The position of those who advocate the theory of the transcendent
unity of religions is based upon the assumption that all religions, or the
major religions of mankind, are revealed religions.
They assume that the universality and transcendence of esoterism validates
their theory, which they ‘discovered’ after having acquainted themselves with
the metaphysics of Islam. In their understanding of this metaphysics of the
transcendent unity of existence, they further assume that the transcendent
unity of religions isalready implied. There is grave error in all their
assumptions, and the phrase ‘transcendent unity of religions’ is misleading and
perhaps meant to be so for motives other than the truth. Their
claim to belief in the transcendent unity of religions is something
suggested to them inductively by the imagination and is derived from
intellectual speculation and not from actual experience. If this is denied, and
their claim is derived from the experience of others, then again we say that
the sense of ‘unity’ experienced is not of religions, but of varying degrees of
individual religious experience which does not of necessity lead to the
assumption that the religions of individuals who experienced such ‘unity’, have
truth of equal validity as revealed religions at the
level of ordinary existence. Moreover, as already pointed out, the God of that
experience is recognized as therabb, not the ilah of
revealed religion. And recognizing Him as the rabbdoes not
necessarily mean that acknowledging Him in true submission follows from that
recognition, for rebellion, arrogance, and falsehood have their origin in that
very realm of transcendence. There is only one revealed religion. It was the
religion conveyed by all the earlier Prophets, who were sent to preach the
message of the revelation to their own people in accordance
with the wisdom and justice of the Divine plan to prepare the peoples of the
world for reception of the religion in its ultimate and consummate form as a
Universal Religion at the hands of the last Prophet, who was sent to convey the
message of the revelation not only to his own people, but to mankind as a
whole. The essential message of the revelation was always the same: to
recognize and acknowledge and worship the One True and Real God (ilah) alone,
without associating Him with any partner, rival, or equal, nor
attributing a likeness to Him; and to confirm the truth preached by
the earlier Prophets as well as to confirm the final truth
brought by the last Prophet as it was confirmed by all the Prophets
sent before him. With the exception of the people of this last Prophet, through
whom the revealed religion achieved utmost perfection whose original purity is
preserved to this day, most of the peoples to whom the earlier Prophets were
sent deliberately renounced the guidance preferring instead cultural creations
and ethnic inventions of their own, claiming these as ‘religions’ in imitation
of revealed religion. There is only one genuine revealed religion, and its name
is given as Islam, and the people who follow this religion are
praised by God as the best among mankind. As for some among the peoples who
preferred to follow their own and diverse forms of belief and practice
described as ‘religions’, their realization of the Truth is their
rediscovery, by means of guidance and sincerity of heart, of what is
already clearly manifest in Islam even at the level of ordinary existence. Only
Islam acknowledges and affirms the Unity of God absolutely without
having to arrive at the level of transcendence to do so; without
confusing such acknowledgement and affirmation with traditional forms of belief
and practice described as ‘religions’; without confounding such acknowledgement
and affirmation with cultural creations and ethnic inventions interpreted in
imitation of revealed religion. Therefore Islam does not admit of any error in
the understanding of the Revelation, and in this sense Islam is not merely
a form – it is the essenceitself of religion(din). We
do not admit in the case of Islam of a horizontal dividing line separating the
exoteric from the esoteric understanding of the Truth in religion. We maintain
rather a vertical line of continuity from the exoteric to the esoteric; a
vertical line of continuity which we identify as the Straight
Path of islam–iman–ihsan without there being any inconsistency
in the three stages of the spiritual ascent such that the Reality or
transcendent Truth that is recognized and acknowledged is in our case
accessible tomany. It is futile to attempt to camouflage error in the
religions, in their respective understanding and interpretation of their
scriptures which they believe reflect the original revelation, by
resorting to the characteristics and peculiarities of different forms
of ethnicity and symbolism, and then to explain away the symbolism by
means of a contrived and deceptive hermeneutic such that error
appears as truth. Religion consists not only of affirmation of the Unity of God
(al-tawhid), but also of the manner andform in
which we verify that affirmation as shown by His last Prophet, who confirmed,
perfected and consolidated the manner and form of affirmation and verification
of Prophets before him. This manner and form of verification is the manner
and form of submission to God. The test of true
affirmation of the Unity of God, then, is the
form of submission to that God. It is only because the
form of submission enacted by the religion that affirms the Unity of God
is true to the verification of such affirmation that
that particular religion is called Islam. Islam, then, is not
merely a verbal noun signifying ‘submission’; it is also thename of
a particular religiondescriptive of true submission, as well as the
definition of religion:submission to God. Now the manner and form
of submission enacted in religion is definitely influenced by the conception of
God in the religion. It is therefore the conception of God in the religion that
is crucial to the correct articulation of the form of true submission; and this
conception must be adequate in servingto describe the true nature of God,
which can only be derived from Revelation, not from ethnic or cultural
tradition, nor from an amalgamation of ethnic and cultural tradition with
sacred scripture, nor from philosophical speculation aided by the discoveries
of science.
The conception of the nature of God in Islam is the
consummation of what was revealed to the Prophets according to the Qur’an. He
is one God; living, self-subsistent, eternal and abiding. Existence is His very
essence. He is one in essence; no division in His essence, whether in the
imagination, in actuality, or in supposition is possible. He is not a locus of
qualities, nor is a thing portioned and divisible into parts, nor is He a thing
compounded of constituent elements. His oneness is absolute, with an
absoluteness unlike the absoluteness of the natural universal, for while being
thus absolute He is yet individuated in a manner of individuation that does not
impair the purity of His absoluteness nor the sanctity of His oneness. He is
transcendent, with a transcendence that does not make it incompatible for Him
to be at once omnipresent, so that He is also immanent, yet not in
the sense understood as belonging to any of the paradigms of pantheism. He
possesses real and eternal attributes which are qualities and perfections
which He ascribes to Himself; they are not other than His essence, and yet they
are also distinct from His essence and from one another without their reality
and distinctness being separate entities subsisting apart from His essence as a
plurality of eternals; rather they coalesce with His essence as an unimaginable
unity. His unity is then the unity of essence, attributes, and acts, for He is
living and powerful, knowing, willing, hearing and seeing, and speaking through
His attributes of life and power, knowledge, will, hearing and sight, and
speech; and the opposite of these are all impossible in Him.
He is unlike the Aristotelian First Mover, for He
is always in act as a free agent engaged in perpetual creative activity not
involving change in Him or transformation and becoming. He is far too exalted
for the Platonic and Aristotelian dualism of form and matter to be applied to
His creative activity; nor can His creating and His creation be described in
terms of the Plotinian metaphysics of emanation. His creating is the bringing
forth of ideal realities that preexist in His knowledge into external existence
by His power and His will; and these realities are entities that he causes to
become manifest in the interior condition of His being. His
creating is a single act repeated in an eternal process, whereas the
contents of the process which are His creation are noneternal, being originated
in new yet similar guises in discrete durations of existence for as long as
He wills.
It is through Revelation, in which God has
described Himself, His creative activity and His creation,
and not through Greek or Hellenistic philosophical tradition, neither
even through philosophy nor through science, that Islam interprets the world
together with all its parts in terms of events that occur within a
perpetual process of a new creation. This interpretation entails the
affirmation of realities and their double nature consisting of complementary
opposites; their existential condition of permanence and change; their
involvement in a continual process of annihilation and renewal by similars;
their absolute beginning in past time and their absolute end in future time.
There are limitations to time and space; and both are the result of the
creative act that brings the cosmos into existence. Change is not in the phenomenal
things, as that would imply the persistence of existence in the things making
them substrata for change to take place, but at the ontological level of their
realities which contain within themselves all their future states. Change is
then the successive actualization, by means of the creative act, of
potentialities inherent in the realities of things which as they unfold their
contents in correspondence with the creative command preserve their identities
through time. The dual condition of the realities involving permanence on the
one hand and change on the other presupposes a third ontological category in
the interior condition of Being between external existence and
non-existence. This is the realm of ideal realities subsisting as permanently
established entities in the consciousness of God, and they are none other than
the forms and aspects of the names and attributes of God considered in their
aspect of difference from Him.
Islam affirms the possibility of knowledge; that
knowledge of the realities of things and their ultimate nature can be
established with certainty by means of our external and internal senses and
faculties, reason and intuition, and true reports of scientific or religious
nature, transmitted by their authentic authorities. Islam has never accepted,
nor has ever been affected by ethical and epistemological relativism that made
man the measure of all things, nor has it ever created the situation for the
rise of skepticism, agnosticism, and subjectivism, all of which in one way
or another describe aspects of the secularizing process which have contributed
to the birth of modernism and postmodernism.
Knowledge is both the arrival of meaning in the
soul as well as the soul’s arrival at meaning. In this definition we
affirm that the soul is not merely a passive recipient like the tabula
rasa, but is also an active one in the sense of setting itself
in readiness to receive what it wants to receive, and so to
consciously strive for the arrival at meaning. Meaning is arrived at when the proper
place of anything in a system is clarified to the understanding. The notion of
‘proper place’ already implies the existence of ‘relation’ obtaining between
things which altogether describe a system, and it is such relation or
network of relations that determines our recognition of the thing’s
proper place within the system. By ‘place’ is meant here that which occurs not
only in the spatio-temporal order of existence, but also in the imaginal,
intelligible, and transcendental orders of existence. Since objects of
knowledge from the point of view of human cognition are without limit, and
since our external and internal senses and faculties of imagination and
cognition all have limited powers and potentials, each created to convey
and conserve information concerning that for which it was appointed, reason
demands that there is a limit of truth for every object of knowledge, beyond
which or falling short of which the truth about the object as it and its
potentials should be known becomes false. Knowledge of this limit of truth in
every object of knowledge is either attained by way of common sense if the
object is already something obvious to the understanding, or it is achieved
through wisdom, either practical or theoretical as the case may be, when the object
is something obscure to the understanding. The apparent and
obvious meanings of the objects of knowledge have to do with
their respective places within the system of relations; and their ‘proper’
places become apparent to our understanding when the limits of their
significance are recognized. This then is the position of truth: that there are
limits to the meaning of things in the way they are meant to be
known, and their proper places are profoundly bound up with the limits of their
significance. True knowledge is then knowledge that recognizes
the limit of truth in its every object.
Our real challenge is the problem of the corruption
of knowledge. This has come about due to our own state of confusion as well as
influences coming from the philosophy, science, and ideology ofmodern
Western culture and civilization. Intellectual confusion emerged as a result of
changes and restriction in the meaning of key terms that project the worldview
derived from Revelation. The repercussions arising from this intellectual
confusion manifest themselves in moral and cultural dislocation, which is
symptomatic of the degeneration of religious knowledge, faith, and values. The
changes and restrictions in the meanings of such key terms occur due
to the spread of secularization as a philosophical program, which holds sway
over hearts and minds enmeshed in the crisis of truth and the
crisis ofidentity. These crises, in turn, have become actualized as a
result of a secularized system of education that causes deviations, if not severance,
from historical roots that have been firmly established by our wise and
illustrious predecessors upon foundations vitalized by religion. One must see
that the kind of problem confronting us is of such a profound
nature as to embrace all the fundamental elements of our worldview that cannot
simply be resolved by legalistic and political means. Law and order can only
find their places when recognition of truth as
distinguished from falsehood, andreal as distinguished from
illusory, is affirmed and confirmed by action in acknowledgement of the
recognition. This is achieved by means of right knowledge and right method of
disseminating it. So let us not dissipate our energies in
attempting to find the way out by groping in the labyrinths of legalism, but
concentrate them instead by grappling the main problem, which is bound up
intimately with the correct understanding and appreciation of religion and the
worldview projected by it, because that directly concerns man, his
knowledge and purpose in life, his ultimate destiny.
The process of acquisition of knowledge is not
called ‘education’ unless the knowledge that is acquired includes moral purpose
that activates in the one who acquires it what I call adab. Adab is
right action that springs from self-discipline founded upon knowledge whose
source is wisdom. For the sake of convenience I shall
translate adab simply as ‘right action’. There is an
intrinsic connection between meaning and knowledge. I define ‘meaning’ as
the recognition of the place of anything in a
system, which occurs when the relation a thing has with others in the system
becomes clarified and understood. ‘Place’ refers to right or proper
place in the system; and ‘system’ here refers to the Quranic
conceptual system as formulated into a worldview by tradition and articulated
by religion. Knowledge as we have already defined is the arrival of meaning
in the soul, and the soul’s arrival at meaning, and
this is the recognition of the proper places of things
in the order of creation, such that it leads tothe
recognition of the proper place of God in the order of being and
existence. But knowledge as such does not become an education unless
the recognition of proper places is actualized by acknowledgement – that
is, by confirmation and affirmation in the self – of the reality
and truth of what is recognized. Acknowledgement necessitates action that is
proper to recognition. Adab, or right action, consists
of such acknowledgement. Education, then, is the absorption of adab in
the self. The actualization ofadab in individual selves
composing society as a collective entity reflects the condition of justice; and
justice itself is a reflection of wisdom, which is the light that is lit from
the lamp of prophecy that enables the recipient to discover the right and
proper place for a thing or a being to be. Thecondition of
being in the proper place is what I have called justice; andadab is
that cognitive action by which we actualize the
condition of being in the proper place. So adab in
the sense I am defining here, is also a
reflection of wisdom; and with respect to society adab is
the just order within it. Adab, concisely defined,
is the spectacle of justice (‘adl ) as it is reflected by
wisdom (hikmah).
In order to explain what I mean by adab and to appreciate
my definition of it, let us consider, for example, one’s self. The human self
orsoul has two aspects: the one predisposed to
praiseworthy acts, intelligent by nature, loyal to its covenant with
God; the other inclined to evil deeds, bestial by nature, heedless of
its covenant with God. The former we call the rational soul (al-nafs
al-natiqah), the latter the carnal or animal soul (al-nafs
al-hayawaniyyah). When the rational soul subdues the animal
soul and renders it under control, then one has put the animal soul in its
proper place and the rational soul also in its proper place. In this
way, and in relation to one’s self, one is putting one’s self in one’s proper
place. This is adabtoward one’s self. Then in relation to one’s
family and its various members; when one’s attitude and behaviour toward one’s
parents and elders display sincere acts of humility, love, respect, care,
charity; this shows one knows one’s proper place in relation to them by putting
them in their proper places. This is adab toward
family. And similarly, such attitude and behaviour, when extended to teachers,
friends, community, leaders, manifest knowledge of one’s proper place in
relation to them; and this knowledge entails requisite acts in order
to actualize adab toward them all. Again, when one puts words
in their proper places so that their true meanings become intelligible, and
sentences and verses in like manner such that prose and poetry become
literature, then that is adab toward language. Further,
when one puts trees and stones, mountains, rivers, valleys and lakes, animals
and their habitat in their proper places, then that is adabtoward
nature and the environment. The same applies to one’s home when one arranges
furniture and puts things in their proper places therein until harmony is
achieved – all such activity is adab towards
home and furniture. And we cite also putting colours, shapes, and sounds in
their proper places producing pleasing effects – that is adab toward
art and music. Knowledge too, and its many branches and disciplines, some of
which have more important bearing upon our life and destiny than others; if one
grades them according to various levels and priorities and classifies the
various sciences in relation to their priorities putting each
one of them in its proper place, then that is adab toward
knowledge. It should already become clear that my interpretation of
the meaning of adab reveals that adabimplies
knowledge; it is knowledge derived from wisdom (hikmah); it
manifests the purpose of seeking knowledge; it is also internal and external
activity of the soul that springs from ethical and moral values and virtues;
its fount of origin is not philosophy nor science, but revealed truth
that flows from religion.
From the above definitions of some of the major key
concepts in Islam, which all converge upon the concept of knowledge, it becomes
clear that their meanings are closely interrelated, in particular their
meanings which all focus upon the notion of ‘proper place’ which points to a
certain ‘order’ in the system and one’s relation to that order. The order is in
the form of hierarchy which pervades the created order of being
and existence, both external existence and mental existence. The hierarchy I
mean, when applied to the human order, is not to be misunderstood as the kind
of hierarchy created by man and articulated into a social structure such as a
system of caste, or a graded priestly organization, or any kind of social
stratification according to class. It is not
something to be organized into a social structure; it is rather
something to be organized in the mind and actualized in
the attitude and the behaviour. The organization in the mind is
not formulated by the human criteria of power, wealth, and lineage, but by the
Quranic criteria of knowledge, intelligence, and virtue. When the
mind recognizes the reality that knowledge and being are ordered according to
their various levels and degrees, and when the attitude and the behaviour
acknowledges by action what the mind recognizes, then this conformity of the
acknowledgement with the recognition, by which the self assumes its proper
place in coincidence with the act of acknowledgement, is none other than adab. But
when the mind displaces the levels and degrees of knowledge and being,
disrupting the order in the legitimate hierarchy, then this is due to the
corruption of knowledge. Such corruption is reflected in the confusion of
justice, so that the notion of ‘proper places’ no
longer applies in the mind or externally, and the disintegration of adabtakes
place.
The disintegration of adab, which
is the effect of the corruption of knowledge, creates the situation whereby
false leaders in all spheres of life emerge; for it not only implies the
corruption of knowledge, but it also means the loss of the
capacity and ability to recognize and acknowledge true leaders.
Because of the intellectual anarchy that characterizes this situation, the
common people become determiners of intellectual decisions and are raised to
the level of authority on matters of knowledge. Authentic definitions
become undone, and in their stead we are left with platitudes and vague slogans
disguised as profound concepts. The inability to define; toidentify and
isolate problems, and hence to provide for right solutions; the
creation of pseudo-problems; the
reduction of problems to mere political, socio-economic and
legal factors become evident. It is not surprising if such a situation provides
a fertile breeding ground for the emergence of deviationists and extremists of
many kinds who make ignorance their capital.
Language reflects ontology. Introducing key
concepts foreign to a language involves not merely the translating of words,
but more profoundly the translating of symbolic forms belonging to the super
system of a foreign worldview not compatible with the worldview projected by
the language into which such concepts are introduced. Those responsible for
introducing them and advocating their currency are the scholars, academics,
journalists, critics, politicians and amateurs not firmly grounded upon
knowledge of the essentials of religion and its vision of reality and truth.
One of the main causes for the emergence of intellectual confusion and anarchy
is the changes and restrictions which they have effected in the meanings of key
terms that project the worldview of Islam which is derived from Revelation. The
major factor that influenced their thinking is undoubtedly the introduction of
the concept secular and its implications into our language and
our universe of discourse, which Muslims as a whole have yet to perceive from
its proper perspective.
The early latinized Western Church monopolized
learning and coined the term ‘secular’ (saeculum) to refer
to people who are unable to read and write, who are therefore not learned in
the arts and sciences, especially in law and medicine, who are then generally
called the ‘laity’: the nonprofessional, not expert. Due to the preoccupation
of such people with mundane matters, the term also conveys a general meaning of
‘being concerned with the affairs of the world’; of being ‘not sacred’, ‘not
monastic’, ‘not ecclesiastical’; of being something ‘temporal’, something
‘profane’. Hence we find this term being translated by Christian Arabs into
Christian Arabic as ‘almaniy’, meaning: laysa
min arbab al-fann aw al-hirfah; and
‘secularity’ as al-ihtimam bi umur al-dunya, or al-ihtimam
bi al-‘alamiyyat; and ‘to secularize’ ashawwal ila gharad
‘alamiy ay dunyawiy.This translation of the term and its various
grammatical forms, in the sense understood by the Western Christian Church and
its Christian Arab translators, has been allowed to gain currency in
contemporary mainstream Islamic Arabic, despite the clear fact that it has no
relevance whatsoever to Islam and to the Muslim ummah. There
is no equivalent in Islam to the concept secular, especially
when there is no equivalent to ‘church’ or ‘clergy’, and when Islam does not
concede that there is a dichotomy of the sacred and the profane which naturally
brings about a demeaning of the profane world. If the nearest equivalent were
to be found in Islam to the concept secular, then it would
be that which is connoted by the Quranic concept of al-hayat
al-dunya: ‘the worldly life’. The word dunya, derived
from dana, conveys the meaning of something being ‘brought
near’. This something that is being ‘brought near’, according to my
interpretation, is the world together with all its parts; for it is
the world that is being brought near, that is, being brought
near to the experience and consciousness of man. Hence the
world is called dunya. By virtue of the fact that what is
being brought near – that is, the world and the life in
it –surround us as it were and overwhelm us, they are bound to
distract from consciousness of our final destination, which is beyond this
world and this life, which is what comes after,that is, al-akhirah. Since
it comes at theend, al-akhirah is felt as far; and
this accentuates the distraction created by what is near. The
Holy Qur’an says that the Hereafter is better than the life of this world; it
is more abiding, everlasting. But the Holy Qur’an does not derogate the world
itself; or dissuade from contemplation and reflection and interpretation of it
and its wonders; rather it extols the world of creation and urges us to
contemplate and reflect upon it and its wonders in order that we might be able
to interpret and derive their practical and beneficial purpose. The Holy Qur’an
only warns of the distracting and ephemeral nature of life in the world. The
warning emphasis in the concept of al-hayat al-dunya is the
life in it, not the world, so that the world and
nature are not demeaned as implied in the concept secular.That is
why Isaid that al-hayat al-dunya is the nearest
equivalent to the concept secular, because in actual fact there is
no real equivalent concept in the worldview of Islam projected by the Holy
Qur’an. Moreover, since the world is that which is ‘brought near’, and since
the world and nature are signs or ayat of God, it is the signs
of God that are brought near to our experience and consciousness; and it would
be blasphemous, to say the least, to derogate the world and
nature knowing them in their true character and purpose. It is God’s
manifestation of His infinite mercy and loving kindness that He caused His
signs to be brought near to us, the better for us to understand their intended
meanings. There can be no excuse, therefore, for those who,
struck by awe of the signs, worship them instead of God to whom they
point; or those who, seeking God, yet demean and abjure His signs because they
see tempting evil in them and not in themselves; or again those who, denying
God, appropriate His signs for their own materialistic ends and change them in
pursuit of illusory ‘development’. The world cannot develop as it is already
perfect according to its own fitrah; only life in the world
can develop. There is a final end to the world just as there is a final end to
life in the world. Development of life in the world is that which leads to
success in that which comes after it, for there is no meaning to ‘development’
unless it is aligned to afinal objective.
The Latin term saeculum in
its original sense relates to the doctrinal formulations of the Western
Christian religious tradition. The true meanings couched in it, however,
gradually asserted their intentions in the experience and consciousness of
Western man extending over a period of more than seven centuries of his
intellectual and scientific development until their full implications have now
become actualized. Whereas originally the term ‘secular’, from saeculum, conveyed
a spatio-temporal connotation, as can be understood from the way it was used,
the order of precedence in the formulation of the dual meaning has now
undergone a change emphasizing the temporal rather than
the spatial aspect. The original spatio-temporal
connotation is derived historically out of the experience and consciousness
born of the fusion of the Graeco-Roman and Judaic traditions in Western
Christianity. It is this ‘fusion’ of the mutually conflicting elements of the
Hellenic and Hebrew worldviews which have deliberately been incorporated into
Christianity that modern Christian theologians and intellectuals recognize as
problematic, in that the former views existence as basically spatial and
the latter as basically temporal. The arising confusion of
worldviews becomes the root of their epistemological and hence also theological
problems. Since the world has only in modern times been more and more
understood and recognized by them as historical, the emphasis on the temporal
aspect of it has become more meaningful and has conveyed a special
significance to them. For this reason they exert themselves in
efforts emphasizing what they conceive to be the Hebrew vision of existence,
which they think is more congenial with the spirit of ‘the times’, and
denouncing the Hellenic as a grave and basic mistake. So they now say that the
conceptsecular conveys a markedly dual connotation of time and location; the
time referring to the ‘now’ or ‘present’ sense of it, and the location to the
‘world’ or ‘worldly’ sense of it. Thus saeculum is
interpreted tomean basically ‘this age’ or the ‘present time’; and this
age or the present time refers to events in this world, and it also then means
‘contemporary events’. The emphasis of meaning is set on a particular
time orperiod in the world viewed as a historical process. The
concept secular refers to the condition of
this world at this particular time or period or age. Already here we discern the
germ of meaning that easily develops itself naturally and logically into the
existential context of an ever-changing world in which there occurs the
relativity of human values. And this natural and logical development of the
concept secular is now taking place in contemporary, modern
Western civilization, which is propagating it throughout the world.
We must see, in view of the fact that
secularization is not merely confined to the Western world, that their
experience of it and their attitude toward it is most instructive for Muslims.
We must be made aware that secularization, in the way in which it is also
happening in the Muslim world, does effect our beliefs and way of life, even if
not in the same way it does the beliefs and way of life of Western man; because
problems arising out of secularization, though not quite the same as those
besetting the West, have certainly caused much confusion in our midst. It is
not surprising that these problems are caused due to the introduction of
Western ways of thinking, and judging, and believing emulated by some modernist
as well as traditionalist Muslim scholars and intellectuals who have been
unduly influenced by the modern West and overawed by its scientific and
technological achievements, who by virtue of the fact that they
couldso readily be thus influenced betray their lack of true understanding
and full grasp of both the worldviews of Islam and of the modern West and the
essential beliefs and modes of thought that project them. They have, because of
their influential positions in Muslim society, become conscious or unconscious
disseminators of unnecessary confusion that is founded upon a crisis of
identity. The situation in our midst can indeed be seen as critical when we
consider the fact that Muslims are generally unaware of what the secularizing
process implies. It is therefore essential that we obtain a clear understanding
of it from those who know and are conscious of it, who believe and welcome it,
who teach and advocate it to the world.
Secularization is
defined as “the deliverance of man first from religious then from metaphysical
control over his reason and his language”[5] It is the setting free of the world from
religious and semi-religious understandings of itself; the dispelling of
all closed worldviews, the breaking of all supernatural myths and sacred
symbols; the “defatalization” of history; the discovery by man that he has been
left with the world on his hands, that he can no longer blame Fortune or the
Furies for what he does with it; it is man turning his attention away
from the worlds beyond and toward this world and this time.
Secularization encompasses
not only the political and social aspects of life, but also inevitably the
cultural, for it denotes “the disappearance of religious determination of the
symbols of cultural integration”. It implies an irreversible historical process
in which culture and society are “delivered from tutelage to religious control
and closed metaphysical worldviews”. It is considered a “liberating
development”, and the end product of secularization is historical relativism.
Hence according to them history is a process of secularization. The integral
components in the dimensions of secularization are the “disenchantment of
nature”, the “desacralization of politics’, and the “deconsecration of
values”. By the disenchantment of nature – a term and
concept borrowed from the German sociologist Max Weber[6] – they mean as he means, the “freeing of
nature from its religious overtones”, which means to deprive nature of
spiritual meaning so that man can act upon it as he pleases and
make use of it according to his needs and plans, and hence create historical
change and ‘development’. By the desacralization of politics they mean the
“abolition of sacral legitimation of political power and authority”,
which is the prerequisite of political change and hence also social
change allowing for the emergence of the historical process. By the
deconsecration of values they mean the “rendering transient and relative all
cultural creations and every value system” which for them include religion and
worldviews having ultimate and final significance, so that in this way history,
the future, is open to change, and man is free tocreate the
change and immerse himself in the ‘evolutionary’ process. This attitude toward
values demands an awareness on the part of secular man of the relativity of his
own views and beliefs; he must live with the realization that the rules and
ethical codes of conduct which guide his own life will change with the times
and generations. This attitude demands what they call ‘maturity’; and hence
secularization is also a process of ‘evolution’ of the consciousness
of man from the ‘infantile’ to the ‘mature’ states, and is defined as the
“removal of juvenile dependence from every level of society”; the process of
“maturing and assuming responsibility”; the “removal of religious and
metaphysical supports and putting man on hisown”. They further say that
this recurring change of values is also the recurrent phenomenon of
“conversion” which occurs “at the intersection of the action of
history on man and the action of man on history”, which they call
“responsibility”, the acceptance of “adult accountability”. Thus as already
mentioned, they visualise the contemporary experience of secularization as part
of the evolutionary process of human history; as part of the irreversible
process of ‘coming of age’, of ‘growing up’ to ‘maturity’ when they will have
to ‘put away childish things’ and learn to have ‘the courage to be’.
If the full implications of the foregoing
brief exposition of the meaning of secularization is understood, it will become
obvious that the twentieth century Christian Arabic usage and accepted
translation of the term ‘secular’ as ‘almaniy merely reflects
its meaning as formulated by the latinized Western Christianity of the
thirteenth century. Even though the modern translators vaguely refer to the
term ‘secular’ asmeaning also jiliy orqarniy, yet
they were completely unaware of the way in which the concept couched in the
term ‘secular’ has evolved during the last seven centuries in the experience
and consciousness ofWestern man, causing the rise ofcontemporary
problems never encountered before. Their description of secularity as al-ihtimam
bi umur al-dunya, or as al-ihtimam bi al-‘alamiyyatis not
quite correct, because to be preoccupied with the affairs of the
world, or with worldly things, is according to us not
necessarily to be opposed to religion; whereas secularity understood in the
modern sense is necessarily opposed to religion. Similarly, to secularize is
not quite the same as hawwal ila gharad ‘alami ay
dunyawi, because to change in accordance with what is good
in the pursuit of worldly ends is according tousnot necessarily to change in
opposition to religion. Secularization in the modern sense described above, and
which is actually happening, is a process which is definitely
opposed to religion; it is a philosophical program or
an ideology that seeks to destroy the very foundations of
religion. ‘Almaniyyah, then, cannot be a description of
‘secularism’; as it seems to me nearer the truth to describe it
as waqi‘iyyah in view of its close conceptual connection with
the philosophical ideology of positivism. Be that as it may, since the dual
connotation of place and time is fundamental
to the concept of saeculum, which conveys already the germ
of meaning that evolves naturally and logically into its present,
contagious fullness; and since the place and the time refer to here and nowrespectively, it would
be more precise to describe ‘secularism’ literally by some compound word such
as hunalaniyyah, from huna and al-an. For
the ‘here-and-nowness’ elicited by hunalaniyyah clearly
projects a conception of the world and of life in it that rejects other worlds
beyond; that repudiates the past except insofar as it confirms the present; that
affirms an open future; that altogether denies religion and worldviews having
ultimate and final significance. But better still to emulate the method of
discerning scholars, savants, and sages among our early predecessors who were
very much aware of the paramount importance of language and its profound
connection with reason; who were meticulous in the correct usage of language
and the pursuit of authentic meaning; who exercised great care not to confuse
Islamic terms and concepts with those that do not correspond and cohere with
the worldview of Islam; who were not inclined to hasty and negligent
arabization of alien terms and concepts opposed to our religion and our vision
of reality and truth. Many of the Greek terms and concepts were transcribed in their
original forms so as to render their foreign origin immediately
recognizable such that their proper places become known. So it would
be better if the term ‘secular’ were just transcribed into Arabic spelled ‘sin
ya kaf lam ra’, with kasrah to sin; dammah to kaf and fathah to lam. In
this way we would know at once that the term and the concept is not Islamic
Arabic. To arabize such terms and concepts is to introduce confusion in our
minds, because that will give the impression that they are natural to Islam and
would encourage Muslims not only to think in those terms and concepts,
but to actualize such thought that are alien and opposed to Islam
into concrete reality.
I strongly believe with sound reason that the
arabization and introduction of the ambivalent concept of ‘almaniyyah into
mainstream contemporary Arabic is largely responsible for insinuating into the
Muslim mind the dichotomous separation of the sacred and the profane, creating
therein the socio-political notion of an unbridgeable gap separating what it
considers to be a ‘theocratic state’ from a ‘secular state’. There is confusion
in the Muslim mind in misunderstanding the Muslim ‘secular’ state by
setting it in contrast with the ‘theocratic’ state. But since Islam
does not involve itself in the dichotomy between the sacred and the profane,
how then can it set in contrast the theocratic state with the secular
state? An Islamic state is neither wholly theocratic nor wholly
secular. A Muslim state calling itself or is called by others
‘secular’, does not necessarily have to divest nature of spiritual meaning;
does not necessarily have to deny religious values and virtues in politics and
human affairs; does not necessarily have to oppose religious truth and
religious education in the way that the philosophical and scientific process
which I call ‘secularization’ necessarily does involve the divesting of
spiritual meaning from the world of creation; the denial of religious values
and virtues from politics and human affairs; and the relativization of all
values and of truth in the human mind and conduct. It is this confusion in the
Muslim mind that is causing the emergence in our midst of social and political
upheavals and disunity. Unity has two aspects: the outward, external unity
manifested in society as communal and national solidarity; and the inward,
internal unity of ideas and mind revealed in intellectual and spiritual
coherence that encompasses realms beyond communal and national boundaries.
Understanding of our identity as Muslims pertains to the second aspect, which
is fundamental to the realization of the first. The coherence of this second
aspect depends upon the soundness and integrity of concepts connoted in
language, the instrument of reason which influences the reasoning of its users.
If the soundness and integrity of concepts in language is confused, then this
is due to a confusion in ‘world-view’ caused by the corruption of knowledge.
In the languages of Muslim peoples, including
Arabic, there is a basic vocabulary consisting of key terms which govern the
interpretation of the Islamic vision of reality and truth, and which project
the worldview of Islam in correct perspective. Because the words that comprise
this basic vocabulary have their origins in the Holy Qur’an these words are naturally
in Arabic, and are deployed uniformly in all Muslim languages, reflecting the
intellectual and spiritual unity of the Muslims throughout the world. The
Islamic basic vocabulary is composed of key terms and concepts
related toone another meaningfully, and altogether determining the
conceptual structure of reality and existence projected by them. The islamization of
language, which is a fundamental element in conversion to Islam, is none other
than this infusion of the Islamic basic vocabulary into the languages of Muslim
peoples. In this way, each language of a Muslim people with every other has in
common this Islamic basic vocabulary as its own basic vocabulary; and as such
all languages of Muslim peoples indeed belong to the same family of Islamic languages.
What I wish to introduce here is the concept of Islamic
language – that there is such a thing as Islamic
language.Because language that can be categorized as Islamic does exist by
virtue of the common Islamic vocabulary inherent in each of them, the key terms
and concepts in the basic vocabulary of each of them ought indeed to convey
the same meanings, since they all are involved in the
same conceptual and semantic network. If, for example, we find today that the
focus word ‘ilm,which is a major key term in the basic
vocabulary of all Islamic languages, conveys different connotations in each
member of the family of Islamic languages, then this regrettable fact
is not caused by what is vaguely termed as ‘social change’,
but by ignorance and error, which is productive of the confusion
that causes social change. To say that
restriction of meaning, or alteration of meaning, such that the original
intention is no longer conveyed, affecting key terms in the basic vocabulary of
Islam, is due to social change, and to acquiesce to such
restriction and alteration of meaning as the exponents of modern linguistics
teach, is to imply the legitimacy of authority invested in the common
people, in society, toeffect semantic change. This kind of teaching, which
has in fact been propagated in the name of ‘scientific’ knowledge, is
misleading and dangerous and must not be tolerated, for Islam does not accept
‘society’ as authoritative in matters of knowledge, or
invest it with authority to bring about changes that will
lead Muslims astray. Society, insofar as knowledge and the understanding of
Islam and its worldview are concerned, has no authority; on the contrary,
society is generally ignorant and needs proper education and constant guidance
by the learned and the wise within it so as to ensure its salvation.
This means that the learned and the wise among Muslims must exercise constant
vigilance in detecting erroneous usage in language which impinges upon semantic
change in major key concepts in order to prevent the occurrence of general
confusion and error in the understanding of Islam and of its vision of reality
and truth.
Many
major key terms in the Islamic basic vocabulary of the languages of Muslim
peoples have now been displaced and made to serve absurdly in alien
fields of meaning in a kind of regression towards non-Islamic
worldviews; a phenomenon which I call the deislamization of
language. Ignorance and confusion, making possible the infusion of alien
concepts, have also let loose the forces of narrow national sentiment and
ideologization of ethnic and cultura1 traditions. Words conveying meanings
which focus upon fundamental truths peculiar to Islam, such as among
others,‘knowledge’ (‘ilm), ‘justice’ (‘adl), right
action (adab), ‘education’ (ta’dib), have been tampered
with, so that ‘knowledge’ becomes restricted to ‘jurisprudence’,
or to that which is based only on restricted forms of reason and
sense experience; ‘justice’ to mean unqualified equality, or mere procedure;
‘right action’ to mean hypocritical etiquette; and ‘education’ to mean the kind
of training leading to ends derived from philosophic and secular
rationalism. If even a few of such focus words were restricted in their
meanings, or were made to convey meanings which are not authentic and authoritative – by
which I mean whose intentions no longer reflect those understood by
authorities among the early Muslims –then this would inevitably create
confusion and error in the minds of Muslims and disrupt intellectual and spiritual
unity among them. Moreover, it would render sciences once considered
praiseworthy to become blameworthy. I am not here suggesting
something that may be construed as not allowing language to develop, to unfold
itself according to its potential powers of tracing the rich tapestry of life
as it unfolds, to evolve with ideas as they evolve, to grasp
reality-truth as it manifests itself in the fleeting passage of
time. I am only suggesting that the basic vocabulary in the Islamic
language can only develop from its roots, and not severed from them, nor can
they develop from roots stunted in restriction. Secular and materialistic value
systems have their initial locus in minds, then they’re translated into
linguistic symbols, and afterwards become manifest in the external world in urban
areas whence they spread like a raging contagion to the rural masses. Failure
to apply language correctly and to convey correct meaning implies unawareness
of proper perspective of the true and real situation, which involves
understanding not only the language, but the worldview projected by it.
Widespread intellectual secularization due to ignorance of Islam as the true
revealed religion, its manifestation as civilization, and its vision of reality
and truth as worldview has tended to confuse many of our scholars and
intellectuals and their followers into imitating the shifting slogans of
modernity, effecting changes and restrictions in the meanings of key terms that
reflect our system of values. Meanings reflecting reality and truth whose
transparency was known to our experience and consciousness have now begun to
become opaque in minds fused with the formulations of modernity. Fundamental
elements of our worldview and the system of values they convey, involving the
meanings of ‘virtue’, ‘freedom’, and ‘happiness’, are also affected.
Since we maintain that virtue (fadilah) is
an activity of the soul, and that man has a dual nature, the animal and the
rational, the realization of virtues in the self requires discernment of
reality and truth accompanied by action in conformity with that discernment
involving subordination of the bodily and appetitive faculties of the animal
soul, to the practical and theoretical faculties of the rational soul such that
a stable state of soul, commended by intellect and by religion, is attained.
This exercise of subordinating the faculties of the animal
soul to those of the rational soul requires freedom.
The activity that is called ‘freedom’ is in ikhtiyar,
which is an act, not in hurriyyah, which is a condition.
The act that is meant in ikhtiyar is that of making a choice,
not between many alternatives but between twoalternatives: the good or the
bad. Because ikhtiyar is bound in meaning with khayr,
meaning ‘good’, being derived from the same root khara(khayara),
the choice that is meant in ikhtiyar is the choice of what is
good, better, or best between the two alternatives. This point is
most important as it is aligned to the philosophical question of freedom. A
choice of what is bad of two alternatives is therefore not a choice that can be
called ikhtiyar, in fact it is not a choice, rather it is
an act of injustice(zulm) done to oneself. Freedom
is to act as one’s real and true nature demands – that is,
as one’s haqq and one’sfitrah demands – and so only
the exercise of that choice which is of what is good can properly be called a
‘free choice’. A choice for the better is therefore an act of freedom,
and itis also an act of justice (‘adl)done to oneself. It
presupposes knowledge of good and evil, of virtues and vices; whereas a choice
for the worse is not a choice as it is grounded upon ignorance urged on by the
instigation of the soul that inclines toward the blameworthy aspects of the
animal powers; it is then also not an exercise of freedom because freedom means
precisely being free of domination by the powers of the soul that
incites to evil.Ikhtiyar is the cognitive act of choosing
for the better of two alternatives in accordance with virtues that
culminate in justice to oneself and which is, as such, an exercise of freedom.
The doing of what is good is accomplished by means of virtues. In Islam all
virtues, including those considered as principal virtues such as wisdom,
temperance, courage, and justice and their subdivisions, are religious virtues
since they are derived from the Qur’an and from the exemplary life of the
Prophet. The source of these principal virtues and their subdivisions is true
faith or iman, which is the verification by deed what tongue
and heart affirm as real and true of God's Revelation and His commands and
prohibitions. Iman already implies consciousness of God and
remembrance of Him that brings about a condition of tranquility in the
soul; it isfreedom from worry resulting from doubt;freedom from
disquietude and from fear that refers to ultimate destiny; it is inward
security that comes about when the soul is submissive to God; and being
submissive to God is freedom, which causes to
arise in the soul the consciousness of peace called islam. These
inner activities of the soul implies a prior consciousness in the soul of the
truth that comes from divine guidance; and this consciousness is that of certainty of
the truth (yaqin).From this it is clear that happiness, which is the
goal of virtuous activity leading to the state of stability of soul, is not something
that relates only tothis world; is not something that consists of only
feelings and emotions that vary in degree from moment to moment; is
not something only psychological and biological, which is shared also by
animals. Nor is happiness an end in itself which somehow cannot be experienced
consciously as something enduring, something permanent in the course of our
worldly existence.
The tradition of Western thought takes the position
that there aretwo conceptions of happiness: the ancient which goes
back to Aristotle; and the modern which gradually emerged in Western
history as a result of the process of secularization. The Aristotelian
conception maintains that happiness relates only to this world; that it is an
end in itself; and that it is a state that undergoes changes and variations in
degrees from moment to moment; or it is something that cannot be consciously
experienced from moment to moment and can be judged as having been attained
only when one’s worldly life, if virtuously lived and attended by good fortune,
has come to an end. The modern conception agrees with the Aristotelian
conception that happiness relates only to this world and that it is an end in
itself, but whereas for the former the end is considered in terms of a standard
for proper conduct, the latter considers it to be terminal psychological states
having no relation with moral codes. It is the modern conception of happiness
that is acknowledged to be prevalent in the West today. We do not agree with
the Aristotelian position that virtue and happiness relate only to this world,
and that consequently happiness as a permanent condition experienced
consciously in the course of our worldly life is unattainable. We do not
restrict our understanding of happiness only to the domain of temporal, secular
life, for in accord with our worldview we affirm that the relation of happiness
to the hereafter has an intimate and a profound bearing upon its relation to
worldly life, and that since in the former case it is a spiritual and permanent
condition there is, even in its temporal and secular involvement, an element of
happiness that we experience and are conscious of which when once attained is
permanent. As for the modern conception of happiness, it is not much different
in essence from the ones known and practiced in ancient times by pagan
societies.
Happiness (i.e. we mean sa’adah)
as known in the experience and consciousness of those who are
truly submissive to God and follow His guidance is not an end in itself
because the highest good in this life is love of God. Enduring happiness in
life refers not to the physical entity in man, not to the animal soul and body
of man; nor is it a state of mind, or feeling that undergoes terminal states,
nor pleasure nor amusement. It has to do with certainty (yaqin) of the
ultimate Truth and fulfillment of action in conformity with that certainty. And
certainty is a permanent state of consciousness natural to what is permanent in
man and perceived by his spiritual organ of cognition which is the heart (qalb). It
is peace and security and tranquility of the heart (tuma’ninah);
it is knowledge (ma ‘rifah) and knowledge is true faith (iman). It
is knowledge of God as He described Himself in genuine Revelation; it is also
knowing one’s rightful and hence proper place in the realm of creation and
one’s proper relationship with the Creator accompanied by requisite
action (‘ibadah) in conformity with that
knowledge such that the condition which results is that of justice (‘adl).It
is only through such knowledge that love of God can be attained in earthly
life.
From this interpretation of the meaning and
experience of happiness in Islam we derive conclusion that happiness in this
life is not an end in itself; that the end of happiness is love of God; that in
worldly life twolevels of happiness can be discerned. The first level is
psychological, temporal and terminal states which may be described as
feelings oremotions, and which is attained when needs and wants are
achieved by means of right conduct in accord with the virtues. The second level
is spiritual, permanent, consciously experienced, becoming the substratum
of worldly life which is affirmed to be probationary, the testing of conduct
and virtuous activity being by good fortune or ill. This second level, when
attained, occurs concurrently with the first, except that wants are diminished
and needs are satisfied. This second level of happiness is a preparation for a
third level in the hereafter of which the highest state is the Vision of God.
There is no change in this meaning and experience of happiness in the
consciousness of genuine believers throughout the ages.
In the foregoing pages I have set forth in bare
summary some of the fundamental, permanently established elements, together
with the key concepts that they unfold, that act as integrating principles
placing all our systems of meaning and standards of life and values in coherent
order as a unified supersystem forming the worldview of Islam. These
fundamental elements and the key concepts pertinent to them have profound
bearing, we said earlier, upon our ideas about change, development, and
progress. Even though diversity and change can and do indeed occur
within the ambience of this worldview, such as the diversity in the
schools ofjurisprudence, theology, philosophy and metaphysics, and in the
traditions, cultures and languages; and the change in meeting the tides of
changing fortune in the course of history, yet the diversity and the change
have never affected the character and role of these fundamental elements
themselves, so that what is projected as a worldview by the
supersystem remains intact. This is so because the diversity and
the change have taken their rise within the bounds of cognitive
restraint deliberated by a knowing community conscious of its identity,
ensuring thereby no involvement of change nor encroachment of confusion in the
key concepts that serve the fundamental elements of the worldview. The
worldview resides in the minds of genuine Muslims. The discerning ones among
them know that Islam is not an ideal it is a reality; and
that whatever may be demanded of them by the challenges of the age in which
they live must be met without confusing that worldview with alien elements.
They know that the advances in science and technology and their being put to
adequate use in everyday life do not necessarily have to involve confusion
in their vision of reality and truth. Technology is not the same as science;
and acceptance of useful and relevant technology does not necessarily have to involve
acceptance also of the implications in the science that gave it birth.
Confusion arises only as a result of inadequate knowledge of Islam and of the
worldview projected by it, as well as ignorance of the nature of the
confronting intellectual, religious, and ideological challenges, and of the
implications inherent in the statements and general conclusions of modern
secular philosophy and science.
Change, development, and progress, in their true
senses ultimately mean for us a conscious and deliberate movement towards
genuine Islam at a time when we encounter challenges, as we do now, that
seek to encroach on our values and virtues, our modes of conduct, our
thought and faith, our way of life. Our present engagement is with
the challenges of an alien worldview surreptitiously introduced into Muslim
thought and belief by confused modernist Muslim scholars, intellectuals,
academics, writers and their followers, as well as by religious deviationists
and extremists of many sorts. They have wittingly or unwittingly come under the
spell of modern secular Western philosophy and science, its
technology and ideology which have disseminated a global contagion of
secularization as a philosophical program. We are not unaware of the fact that
not all of Western science and technology are necessarily
objectionable to religion; but this does not mean that we have to uncritically
accept the scientific and philosophical theories that go along with
the science and the technology, and the science and the technology themselves,
without first understanding their implications and testing the validity of the
values that accompany the theories. Islam possesses within itself the source of
its claim to truth and does not need scientific and 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. We know that no science is free of value; and to accept its
presuppositions and general conclusions without being guided by genuine
knowledge of our worldview – which entails knowledge also of our history,
our thought and civilization, our identity –which will enable us to
render correct judgements as to their validity and relevance or otherwise to
our life, the change that would result in our wayof life would simply be a
change congenial to what is alien to our worldview. And we would neither call
such change a ‘development’ nor a ‘progress’. Development consists not in
‘activating and making visible and concrete what is latent in biological man’
because man is not merely a biological entity: humanity is something much more
than rationality and animality. Progress is neither ‘becoming’ or
‘coming-into-being’, nor movement towards that which is coming-into-being and
never becomes ‘being’; for the notion of ‘something aimed at’, or the ‘goal’
inherent in the concept of progress can only convey real and true meaning when
it refers to that which is understood as something permanently established, as
already being. Hence what is already clarified in the mind and
permanently established therein and externally, already
in the state of being, cannot suffer change, nor be
subject to constant slipping from the grasp of achievement, nor
constantly receding beyond attainment. The term ‘progress’
refers to a definite direction that is
aligned to a final purposethat is meant to be achieved in
worldly life. If the direction sought is still vague, still coming-into-being
as it were, and the purpose aligned to it is not final, then how can
involvement in it truly mean progress? People who grope in the dark cannot be
referred to as progressing, and they who say such people are progressing have
merely uttered a lie against the true meaning and purpose of progress.
The concepts of ‘change’, ‘development’, and
‘progress’ presuppose situations in which we find ourselves confused by a
commixture of the true and the false, of the real and the illusory, and become
captive in the ambitof ambiguity. In such ambivalent situations, our
positive action in the exercise of freedom to choose for the
better, to accept what is good and relevant to our needs,
to deliberate correctly in our judgment of needs, all the while maintaining our
endeavour to return to the straight path and direct our steps in
agreement with it – such endeavour, which entails change, is
development; and such return, which consists in development, is progress.
[1] I mean by ‘artificial
coherence’, a coherence that is not natural in the sense we mean asfitrah.
Such coherence projected as a worldview must necessarily be subject to change
with the change of circumstances.
[2] By ‘subjective’ I mean
not the popular understanding of the word. The human soul is creative; by means
of perception, imagination, and intelligence it participates in the ‘creation’
and interpretation of the worlds of sense and sensible experience, of images,
and of intelligible forms. ‘Subjective’ here is something not opposed to what
is objective, but complementary to it.
[3] Cf. al-Attas, Islam and Secularism, Kuala
Lumpur, 1978, ch. II.
[4] For further details,
see my The Concept of Education in Islam, Kuala
Lumpur, 1980, pp.1-13.
[5] This definition was formulated
by the Dutch theologian, Cornelis van Peursen, who occupied the chair of
philosophy at the University of Leiden. It was given in a report on a
conference held at the Ecumenical Institute of Bossey,Switzerland, in September
1959. See also the work of the Harvard theologian Harvey Cox, The
Secular City, New York, 1965, p. 2; and for what follows,
pp. 2-17; 20-23; 30-36; 109 et passim. A fuller treatment
of secularization as aphilosophical program is given in my Islam
and Secularism, Kuala Lumpur, 1978, chs. I and II.
[6] The phrase ‘disenchantment of
the world’ was used by Friedrich Schiller and quoted by Weber. Another term
which Weber used in this connection is ‘rationalization’.
See Weber’sEssays in Sociology, New York, 1958; see also his Sociology of Religion, Boston, 1964; chs.
III and V of the former; and for Weber’s concept of rationalization, see Talcott
Parson’s explanation of it in the Introduction to the latter
work, pp. xxxi-xxxiii.
