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-dunya and 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 a preparation 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 is haqiqah, 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 of haqiqah, whose ambit encompasses all 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 it played 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. Revealed religion
can only be that which knows itself from the very beginning; and that
self-knowledge comes from the Revelation itself, not from history. The so 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 in
nature 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 not true 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
religions as 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 is already 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 the rabb, not the ilah of revealed religion. And recognizing Him as the rabb
does 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 essence itself 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 to many. 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 and form 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 the
name of a particular religion descriptive 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 serving
to 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 of modern 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 of identity. 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, and real 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 to the 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 of adab 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. The condition
of being in the proper
place is what I have called justice; and adab 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 or soul 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 adab toward 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 adab toward 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 adab implies 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 adab takes
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; to
identify 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’ as hawwal 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 the end, 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 I said 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 a final 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 concept secular 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 to mean 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 or period 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 could so 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 to create 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 his own”. 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’ as meaning also jiliy or qarniy, 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 of Western man, causing the rise of contemporary problems never encountered before. Their description of
secularity as al-ihtimam bi
umur al-dunya, or as al-ihtimam bi al-‘alamiyyat is 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 to us not 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 now respectively, 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 to one 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, to effect 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 two alternatives: 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’s fitrah 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 it is 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 is freedom 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 to this 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 are two 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 two levels of happiness can be discerned. The first level
is psychological, temporal and terminal states which may be described as
feelings or emotions, 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 of jurisprudence, 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 way of 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 purpose that 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 ambit of 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 as fitrah. 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 a philosophical 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’s Essays 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.
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