Intellectual Traditions in Islam - My Closing Comments

I started reading this book "Intellectual Traditions in Islam" like an explorer who knew the homeland well but did not know the world beyond his or her own homeland. I understood many traditions of Prophet Mohammed (peace be upon him) but beyond that I was curious and inquisite to know Islam from points of views and interpretations. I wanted to understand the underpinning thought a little better. It was like a "mapwalk" from history to the current times. All the authors of the different essays worked as a travel route helping the reader to understand the origin of their interpretation of divine guidance and leaving the reader at the intersection to choose his or her own path further.

It is a wonderful book for all those people who share the same curiousity as mine. It requires an open mind of a reader, just like a traveller who sees the places with his or her own eyes and through the tales and stories of the host of the place. Certainly this book is worth a read, with an advanced dictionary beside you to fully comprehend the content of the book.

To create some ease for the readers I wrote some "Words of the Day" for better understanding of the content, using "Websters" and "Collins" Dictionaries and for Islamic terms I used "Dictionary of Islam" by Azim Nanji.

Intellectual Traditions in Islam - 11th Essay

The Eleventh, and the last, essay "Present Day Islam Between it's tradition and globalization" by Mohammed Arkoun is the detailed analysis of globalization and its effects on today's world in general and its impact on Islamic world in particular.

He explained in detail what is globalization and how it upsets all known cultural, religious, philosophical and political and judicial traditions. How its monetary and technological forces achieve priority over ethical, spiritual and philosophical values.

After the collapse of Soviet Union, United States enjoyed the political domination and have control over global forces. Newly liberated nations faced by global forces and in danger of genocides, gave birth to the concept of humanitarian aid; which came with a baggage of languages, cultures, ecological equilibrium and customary codes and traditional solidarity of elite nations who were providing those aids, overriding the cultures, customs and codes of those nations who are receiving those aids. In other words economic, technological and monetary globalization for the desire of power and profit, stand in sharp contrast against the crisis of study of man and society. In Islamic context the rich philosophical traditions that were developed from the 8th century until the death of Ibn Rush (Averroes) have been lost.

Mohammed Arkoun raised the question of reforms in educational system in order to adapt them everywhere with the urgent needs of globalization. Other important question he asked was "Is Present Day Islam Impervious to Globalization?" He discussed the root causes of today's image of Islam and how Quranic concept of jihad was manipulated by some incomprehensible, anonymous decision makers with ethically irresponsible, murderous, physical violence supporter as a protest against structural violence of McWorld (blind forces of globalization). Promoters and manipulators of jihad and McWorld both have their own underpinning agendas. First one (jihad manipulators) want to bring back and revitalize vague religious mysteries and ruling bodies of clergy organized by the rank and traditional, historically suffocated rule. Whereas second (McWorld) wants to promote the market over the rights and spiritual aspirations of mankind.

Both those polarized notions of today's world need an alternative model which can integrate traditions and needs of globalization well. Arkoun gives a detailed account of suggestions on how this can be achieved which is worth reading.

Intellectual Traditions in Islam - 10th Essay

The tenth essay is about "Woman, Half the Man - The Crises of Male Epistemology in Islamic Jurisprudence" by Abdulaziz Sachedina

In this essay he mentions the two spheres of Sharia' one of which is Ibada (acts of honoring God) and the other is Mu'amalat (inter-human relationship). Muamalat or inter-relation among humans need re-thinking and reinterpretation of Quranic and Sunna sources according to changed social conditions, specially on personal status of Muslim women. Madrasas, that train ulema to interpret law, are traditionally male oriented and they disregard female voices, arguments connected with women's issues and human rights. In today's time it is only possible when women themselves participate in legal-ethical system of Islamic law.

Abdulaziz Sachedina went into detail in explaining traditional interpretations leading to women, half the man? it's sources and how it is out of context or derived from male dominated justice system. In his understanding, women will not get their proper position until they are part of interpreting women related matters in sharia and be the part of the rethinking process. Sharia will nto reflect proper interpretation of Islamic law until the women voices and participation are included to be useful for today's changed society.

It was a wonderful essay and as a women it was a joyous occasion for me to hear a male scholar expressing women's rights and addressing issues related to equality of women. I completely agree with him that women also need to take initiative in mastering Sharia, at least to justify their own proper position in society.

Intellectual Traditions in Islam - 9th Essay

The ninth essay is about "Some observations on the Religious Intellectual Milieu of Safawid Persia" by John Cooper.

Safawid dynasty was founded by Safi al-Din who was also the founder of Sufi order called Safawiyya. Works written during Safawids trace his linkage back to the seventh twelver Imam Musa Al-Kazim, but biographical literature before Safawid period does not mention any such linkage of Safi Al-Din with Twelver Shia Imam Musa Al-Kazim. Safawid cosolidated themselves with the Twelver Shias to retain the power and to avoid the pluralistic tendencies of Sufism of that time. Shia ulema came to take up the religious posts and madrasas became Shii Learning Centers. Many Shia Ulema were showing their attraction towards Sufism to please their Safawid masters. Some strongly independent Shia Ulema, such as Muqaddas Ardabili, opposed the Sufi notion of Wahdat al Wujud (unity of being) and condemned the Sufis as kafirs and zindiqs.

The Sufism of the 14th and 15th centuries had been thoroughly penetrated by the teaching of the Shaykh al Akbar Ibn al Arabi. Peripatetic Aristotelian philosophy was also widely studied. In short philosophical environment of Safawid of Persia was the mixture of Peripatetic (pertaining to the the Aristotelian Philosophy); Akbarian (after the tradition of Ibn Al Arabi) and Illuminations (After Al Suhrawardy).

John Cooper gave a very detailed account of history of Safawid and moving their identity from Sufis to Shia (Twelvers).

It was a difficult essay for me to read as John Cooper was presenting too many names at at time which was distracting the flow of thoughts required to fully comprehend the concept and understand the concepts he was trying to explain.

Intellectual Traditions in Islam - Eighth Essay

The Eighth essay in this book is "Reason and Mystical Experience in Sufism" by (Late) Annemarie Schimmel.

Annemarie Schimmel has focused her essay on how Sufis think about intellect and love. She gave many wonderful examples from Sufi traditions to highlight the difference between them. In Sufis' understanding intellect has to first think thoroughly and deeply about things, whereas love tries to jump into the heart of the matter without thinking of consequences. Sufis do not deny the importance of intellect but they think it is only useful to guide the behavior on the broad path of Sharia. She quoted Rumi who explains the role of intellect as a father who disciplines the child and sends him to school to learn so that the child can face the world in a better way where as nafs, the lower soul, is like a mother who wants to spoil the child and wants to keep him close so he shouldn't face the hardships in life.

In Annemarie's words, "Intellect has a very important role in human development, even though it has no right to enter the bridal chamber of love." She went ahead and gave plenty of example where superiority of love is clearly mentioned and intellect was left behind as weaker than love. She quoted hadith of Prophet Mohammed (p.b.u.h.) "...When he was asked how to behave in a certain case, he replied: Ask your heart for a fatwa; because it is the heart that gives the true answer to the problems which beset [trouble or harass constantly] human intellects."

According to Rumi "....Intellect is necessary to give us khabar; information, but what the heart craves is nazar, direct vision." Where Sufi writings are concern they are difficult for the general people to understand because their writing are reflection of their spiritual experience and words cannot completely explain their thoughts. Annemarie referred article by Sayyed Hossein Nasr in which he mentioned that it is not enough to read the text as they stand, we have to read the white between the lines, that is, we have to understand the meaning of the texts by being introduced to them by someone who has true experience. Annemarie ended this essay with a beautiful example given by Rumi summarizing the debate between intellect and love. "...He says: When you make a house for your chicken, a camel does not fit into it."

This essay is a wonderful explanation of how Sufi perceive this world and why they are so difficult to understand by ordinary people. Her selection of examples to explain Sufis' approaches about things were outstanding. Certainly, it reflects her superior command and understanding of Sufi beliefs and practices. Annemarie is no more with us and this essay is just one of the extremely valuable literary contributions made by her. I strongly suggest to the readers of this review to read this essay in full, it is really an essay worth reading.

Intellectual Traditions in Islam - Seventh essay

The seventh essay in this book is about "Nasir Khusraw: Fatimid Intellectual" by Alice C. Hunsberger.

Alice has focussed her essay on Nasir Khusraw who was a well known philosopher and poet of 11th century. He is one of the beloved figure in Persian Literature. All his literary contributions are in Persian. He left three genre of writings. "Safar-nama" is a prose memoir of his travel. Safar nama is admired by the readers for its simplicity and straightforwardness in writing. It has his detailed observations of cities and their administrations, and sometimes added historical details to his narratives. Alice gave many wonderful stories from Safar Nama as examples.

The other genre of writing is his Diwan which is a collection of poetries of Nasir Khusraw. He uses poetries to give moral advice and hidden meaning of philosophies. His poetries make it possible to see his personality more completely. Main themes of his poetries are reason or intellect, and after his period of exile began, emotion of sadness reflect clearly through his poetries.

Nasir Khusraw shows clearly how he doesn't like ignorance in people. He is intolerant towards such people and uses words like donkeys, asses, silent fishes and noisy little birds etc. for them. In his poetries he reflects the conflicting emotions of man about this physical world which traps him but he still needs to be actively involved in this world as this world carries the important tools of learning true wisdom; those tools are reason and knowledge (aql and ilm).

His philosophies reflects the same theme of reason and knowledge in Wajh-e-Deen (Nasir Khusraw's philosophical work). He explains that "....animals act without knowledge, while angels know without acting. But humans must combine both knowledge and action, just as they represent a combination of animal bodies and angelic knowledge." That's where he also differs from Sufis. In Sufism reason or aql is considered as boundary and has to overcome or surpass it to get united with God. For Nasir Khusraw, reason is not something to be surpassed, in fact, it is a tool to increase knowledge and strengthening faith.

Alice, in this essay, gave many beautiful examples of Nasir Khusraw's work which are worth reading. I am feeling tempted to quote them all over here, but if I will do so then my review will turn into re-writing Alice's essay. So, I will avoid that and ecourage readers of this review to read the original essay of Alice C. Hunsberger. It is definitely an essay you must read - it's really worth reading.

Intellectual Traditions in Islam - Sixth Essay

The sixth essay is titled "Intellectual Life among the Ismailis: An Overview" by Farhad Daftary.

In his paper, Dr. Daftary mentions the Shia Imami Ismaili perspective in detail and their intellectual contributions to the rich Islamic intellectual traditions. The early Ismailis laid the foundation of intellectual tradition which were further developed during the Fatimid and subsequent periods in Ismaili history. The focus of this essay is on Ismaili activities in medieval times; and their contribution toward philosophy, law, historiography and certain distinct traditions and institutions of learning.

In 909 early Ismaili da'wa was successful in establishing the Fatimid State in North Africa which extended further to Egypt, Palestine, the Hijaz and Syria. This posed the Shi'i challenge to Abbassid authority and sunni interpretation of Islam. This resulted in Fatimid Caliph, who was also the Ismaili Imam, to become the spiritual spokesman of Shia Islam in general and the Abbassid Calip became the mouthpiece of Sunni Islam. Now Ismailis could freely practice their faith in the Fatimid State, but they continued to observe Taqiyya (secrecy) outside the Fatimid State as they were target of persecution.

Ismaili da'wa, whose main focus was the central authority of Imam and esoteric (Batin) understanding of Quran, continued. As a ruling authority of Fatimid State, Ismaili Law was written by Qadi-al-Nu'man, which was closely analyzed and examined by Fatimid Caliph Imam Al-Muizzz, and which was later used as legal code of the Fatimid State.

During Fatimid Caliphate, the leaders of the state involved themselves in historiography. Numerous histories of the Fatimid State and dynasty were compiled by contemporary historians, both Ismailis as well as non-Ismailis. Today we don't have much from the Fatimid Period, except few fragments of those works, because when Ayyubids succeeded the Fatimids in Egypt, they destroyed the renowned Fatimid libraries. During the Ismaili Nizar rule in Persia, Hasan Bin Sabah established a library in Alamut and later major Nizari fortresses in Persia and Syria were well equipped with lots of books, documents and scientific instruments.

Many Sunnis, Twelver Shi'is and even non-Muslims were benefited by Nizari contribution toward learning. Especially during Mongol invasion of Central Asia, scholars like Nasir al din Tusi, who used Nizari library for about three decades, made important contribution in Nizari thought of the late Alamut period.

After destruction of Nizari State by Mongols, Ismailis were scattered. In 15th century Ismaili da'wa revived in Anjudan and shared some common esoteric traditions in Islam with Sufism. In 17th century Ismaili Da'wa got success in Central Asia and India and rich "Ginanic Tradition" was added to intellectual heritage of Ismailis.

Intellectual Traditions in Islam - Fifth Essay

The fifth essay is about "The Limits of Islamic Orthodoxy" presented by Norman Calder.

In this presentation Norman Calder gave details of his observations and knowledge about Islamic "Orthodoxy", meaning "right teaching" in Islam, with a disclaimer that he is writing only his observations and not judging right or wrong for anyone. In this essay he talks about Islamic Orthodoxy in general and sunni belief of right teaching, in specific.

To clarify these orthodoxies, he categorizes religious beliefs for all people in all times into five groups:

1. Scripture - means reaching God through scriptures, that God has revealed
2. Community - means correct belief can be articulated through those communities which are chosen and guarded by God
3. Gnosis - reaching God through mystic knowledge and having direct communication with God
4. Reason - understanding God through reasons - all philosophers fall into this category
5. Charisma - communities who believe that God has appointed, throughout the generations, one particular person to express and guard His message; this person has Charismatic knowledge of God and he defines right belief for people.

All the religions are, in general, a combination of those five categories.
Within Islam, Shia fall under "charisma"; philosophers (Al-Farabi and Avicenna) and Mu'tazila fall under "reason", sufis fall under "gnosis" and sunnis lies somewhere between "scripture" and "community."
Then Norman Calder focuses his observations specifically on sunni interpretation of orthodoxy (right beliefs) and their limits. Those beliefs are derived from "Qisas al Anbiya" (tales of prophets); "Sirat al-nabi"; Quran; hadiths; Fiqh (Islamic Law); Kalam (Islamic Theology); and Tafsir (commentaries on Quran and Hadith).
These kinds of boundaries have room for all kinds of interpretations, but in reality when someone gives his own understanding of Quran or Hadith that Tafsir or commentary is usually questioned and becomes open to accusations if it deviates from commentaries of previous well established commentators.
Norman Calder concludes about traditional sunni orthodoxy as "...that sunni Islam is primarily a religion of community, scripture and gnosis, marginally fo reason, and hardly at all of charisma."
In contemporary world in 19th century, a man named Muhammad 'Abduh wanted to bring reforms in Islam to make it relevant to the mdoern world. He brought this notion that intellectual traditions of the past are of no use for today's world so they should go back to the beginning and start from the Quran. He represented the Salafi tendency in Islam and played a major role in shrinking the rich intellectual traditions of Islam.

Intellectual Traditions in Islam - Fourth Essay

The fourth essay is about "The Rational Traditions in Islam" by Muhsin Mahdi. He has divided rational traditions into two perspectives: Historical and Contemporary.

In historic perspective he talks about the French Encyclopaedist and their rationalism in detail which had great impact on some philosophers like Abu-Bakr Muhammad al Razi who opposed all forms of human authority in matters of knowledge even that of Prophets. His rational argument denies the special connectivity between Prophets and Divinity. He was responded to by Abu-Hakim al Razi.

All these rational debates resulted in two terms, one we can call extreme rationalism where anything which is religious was denied, and the other, rationalism which has, more or less, dedicated itself to trying to make sense. There were other Philosophers who said you can understand everything in complete rational terms but it may take hundreds or thousands of years to completly understand the reason behind everything. They acknowledge connectivity between Divine Authorities and Divinity (God). They believe that Prophets and divine authorities know the shortcuts so we can achieve results of our search in a given human life time.

Some other historic rational traditions talked about primary source of rationality. In Muhsin Mahdi's words "------the genuine rational tradition never says that there is nothing beyond reason because in almost in every case the doctine is that something must have generated reason, something must have been at the begining and that could not be the reason that we know.----It is the doctrine of the source, that there is a source of this expanded notion of reason, but that the source itself cannot be reason as we understand."

The other perspective which is marked by the present period, is considered as modern Islamic thought named as "the new wisdom". It tries to integrate a number of strands fro earlier Islamic thoughts and theologies mainly Mu'tazali theology. In course of development of New Wisdom, which was growing in Persia, got impacted by Ithna-Ashari or Twelver Shia's majority. Then Nasir al Din al Tusi's efforts added Mysticism and its thoughts in New Wisdom. Now New Wisdom is considered as complition of philosophy of rational thoughts; which can be attained through private illumination which could be in dream and visions. According to the author of this article "---The New Wisdom has a basic flaw, which was its fatal neglect of political and social problems." Weakness in New Wisdom is that it emphasizes on individual withdrawal rather than communal participation, and individual ethics than communal ethics. This was attacked by contemprory thinker Muhammad Iqbal (Allama Iqbal) who was completly inspired by modern European thoughts and started to look Islam through European prospective, which resulted in praising everything what Muslims had done in past which is useful for the modern world, but this limited Islam to one phase of history. According to author, Iqbal believed that something should be given to muslim to be proud of; and he ended up in claiming that Europe today is a hindrance in the way of man's ethical advancement. He tried to create spiritual democracy by taking best of technical and scientific advancements of Europe and best of ethics of Islam. But he was lacking the real thinking about political and social problems of his time.

Muhsin Mahdi thinks what is most hazardous today is that we don't think of Islam as a whole, rather limit it to certain phase of history which is already over.

He ended the essay with a question, what will we do as we approach the end of 20th century?

Intellectual Traditions in Islam - Third Essay

Third essay in the book is about "Scientific and Philosophical Enuiry: Achievements and Reaction in Muslim History." Presented by Oliver Leaman.
After Prophet Muhammed S.A.S. when Islamic empire expanded widely and exposed to different civilizations which had more sophisticated ideas about theology, medicine, astronomy and mathematics, posed the challege to Muslims on how to react to those ideas, without compromising their believes and traditions. Lots of debates were started and questions like; How far can an Islamic philosophy or science can borrow from outside of Islam and incorporate that philosophy or science to produce something which is specifically Islamic? In quest of those inquries many wonderful ideas and philosophical veiws came into picture. Thinkers like Ibn Rushd(Averroes), Ibn-Sina (Avicena) and al-Farabi brought wonderful philosophical treasures to Islamic traditions. On the other hand emergence of ADAB highlighted ethics in Islam, which were used as the means to address the diversity of context and people.Philosophies and sciences developed at that times were widely read and used to improve the quality of life of the people. Places like Andalus in Spain became knowledge hub for the world. Oliver Leaman mentions this as "----anybody in Europe who wanted to know any thing scientific had to go to Andalus, and there are many accounts in Latin litrature of how a particular problem remained unsolvable, untill somebody turned up from Andalus and suddenly the problem was solved. Thus Islamic Spain had a reputation for several hundred years of being the real highpoint of philosophical, scientific, technical and methematical knowledge."

Syriac

Word of the day

Syriac

A language which is literary version of Aramaic, the common language of the Near East in the years before the coming of Islam.

It is simply a written formalized version of a dialect of Aramaic, but it become the main literary language.

Anecdotes

Word of the day

Anecdotes

- Unpublished item
- A brief story of an interesting, amusing or biographical incident

Intellectual traditions in Islam - Second Essay

Second essay in the book was presented by Hugh Kennedy, with the title "Intellectual life in the first four centuries of Islam". He covered the first four centuries of Islam and challenges it faced. After the departure of Prophet Muhammad S.A.S. question of leadership arose. There was a disagreement on the instruction of succession of leader after the Prophet. This opened up a political discussion among Muslims and still has impact and traces in the concept of leadership and limitations and authorities of leader.

The other major issue was conversion of non-Arabs to Islam, which brought diversity of culture and language with it. Kennedy vivdly presented how it was handled and what impact it had on intellectual traditions in Islam; and how simple recording of history of early days of Islam shaped into immensly rich and complex intellectual traditions.

Intellect

Word of the Day

Intellect

- The power of knowing, the capacity for knowledge

- The capacity for rational or intelligent thought esp. when highly developed

- a person with great intellectual power

Traditions

Word of the Day

Traditions

- An inherited extablished or customary pattern of thought or action

- The handing down of beliefs and customs by word of mouth or by examples without written instructions

Intellectual Traditions in Islam - My First Thoughts

Intellectual Traditions in Islam
Edited by Farhad Daftary

The Institute of Ismaili Studies in London organized a seminar entitled "Intellectual Traditions in Islam" from 14-20 August 1994 at University of Cambridge. This book is the product of Essays and Papers presented at that seminar.

Introduction was presented by Aziz Esmail, who highlighted how in today's time value of traditions are compromised.

".....In a sense one might ask: what is the future of the past? What future does the past have in a world which is changing so fast - a world saturated with the instantaneous culture of global communication? What role does history have here? And if there is no past, if the past has no future, what is one to think about the present and the future?"

All of the above questions challenge the intellect to think and reflect on the approaches that today's educational and communication system is taking. Are they fruitful for us and the generations to come? Or that will change our world into global mass which has no concrete and fundamental identity of individuals.

Aziz Esmail suggested that the purpose of this seminar is not answering the reasons behind misconceptual image of Islam in today's world. Instead the purpose is to ask right questions which can lead to the root causes of misconception.

This kind of introduction certainly triggered my desire to read further and see what the rest of the Papers' views will unfold to feed my intellectual quest.