A short History of Islamic Philosophy (3B)
Altway
----------------------------------------------------------------
Part B
------
Jalal-ad-Din Rumi (1207 -1273) was born in Balkh (Afghanistan). But, owing
to the threat of the Mongol invasion, his family moved to Nishapur (Iran)
while he was still young. Here he met the Sufi, Farid ad-Din Attar, who
introduced him to the religious mysteries. Later they migrated to Rum
(Anatolia), hence his title, Rumi. Here they found peace under the Turkish
rule of the Seljuks. His father, Burhan ad-Din, who also contributed to his
spiritual development, took up the post of teacher in a Madrasa (Religious
School) in Konya, Capital of Rum. In 1240 Rumi undertook several journeys
into Syria and other Middle Eastern countries and met numerous Sufis,
including Arabi and his son. On returning to Konya he took up the post of
teacher after his father, and gathered many pupils and disciples. Here he
met his teacher, Shams ad-Din (Sun of Religion) of Tabriz (1244),
association with whom transformed his life. He developed so strong an
attachment to Shams that it caused him to neglect his duties. This led to
hostility towards Shams and eventually to his disappearance in 1247. (He was
probably murdered). Rumi was heart broken, and he seems to have devoted his
life to keeping Shams alive in mind, which he did in a book of Poetry, the
Divan-e-Shams. Later he transferred his devotion to Hasam ad-Din Chalebi,
who became his successor in the leadership of the Mawlawiyah order, which
Rumi had founded. This order is known by their spiritual dance, as the
Whirling Dervishes.
Rumi is mainly known for his mystical love poetry and dances. Though he has
added little new to Islamic Philosophy, his verses incorporate and
popularize the doctrines of the Sufis of his time, but in an unsystematized
manner. His importance lies in this that he supplied the third, neglected,
ingredient of Islam, namely the impulse that dealt with feeling, emotion and
motivation (the other two ingredients being Theology and Law, which deal
with thought and action respectively). His work, particularly his
Masnawi-ye-Manavi (Spiritual Couplets), composed under the influence of
Husam ad-Din, is considered by many, to be of the greatest importance for
Islam, second only to the Quran. It is this that made him so popular
throughout the Muslim World and allowed a revival and deeper general
understanding of Islam. He also has appeal and influence in the West to this
day. It is to a large extent through his writings that Sufi ideas are known.
He also left a book of talks gathered by his disciples known as Fihi ma Fihi
(There is in it what is in it).
Stage 15.
Mir Damad (? - 1630) was concerned mainly with the nature of Time - The
Prophet had said that Allah was Time. He rejected the notion that Time was a
measure of motion. On the contrary, Time pre-existed and made motion or
change possible. It was neither a separate substance nor an accident of
existing things. It was part of the essence of things, of Being, or rather
the relationship between beings. There should, therefore, be three types or
dimensions to time corresponding to the three orders of being. (1) The
relationship of Allah to His Attributes (These were regarded as the
Intelligences, Archetypes or Angels by various people). This is known as
Everlastingness (2) The relationship of the Attributes or Archetypes among
themselves which is reflected in created things, the persisting things such
as the laws of nature and classes of objects. This is known as Eternity. (3)
The relationship of the Attributes or Archetypes to mutable or changing
individual things. This is known as Time. The word "creation" refers to such
relationships. Accordingly, we have three kinds of Creation - Everlasting,
Eternal and Temporal. Allah's Eternal Will creates Eternal beings and His
ever renewed will or re-creative activity, produces Transient things.
Mulla Sadra (1571-1640) was a pupil of Mir Damad. He accepted al-Arabi's
unity of being and thought that beings differed only according to
priority/posteriority, perfection/imperfection and strength/weakness. His
unique contribution was the assertion that the whole of creation (everything
other than Allah) is originated both Eternally and Temporally. Nature is the
substance or power of all things, the direct cause of all events and
changes. These movements and changes are not accidents but inherent in
nature. They produce the new forms. Motion and change, hence Time, is not a
property of something called nature, substance or essence, since these are
permanent only in the mind, but is permanent activity. Nature is constant
renewal. Thus he advances the notion of Energy which became an integral part
of Western Science. He distinguishes between (a) this primary inherent
movement from (b) accidental or compelled movements requiring an external
cause. The former has a direction, the desire or urge towards perfection
through constant self-renewal and the latter has none but is haphazard and
may produce conflicts and impede the first. It is this inherent urge which
produces evolution from the simplest elements through more complex objects,
living things, physical man to spiritual man. This upwards motion continues
towards unity with the Archetypes, Universal Intelligence, the Attributes.
These ideas re-emerged both in Western Science as the Theory of Evolution
and in several systems of Western Philosophy.
Comment:- The idea of Time and its three dimensions can probably be
accepted, as also the two types of motion, one ordered and directed and the
other chaotic. The notion of entropy is connected with these in Physics.
Whenever directed energy is used to produce any effect, disordered energy
emerges owing to the transfer of order to the new effect. Matter has been
found to be reducible to energy, ordered energy. A material object is no
different from any other kind of system. We may also see the notion of Satan
as being connected with disorder. This planet or any system contains a
certain amount of ordered energy and is in exchange of energy with the
greater system to which it belongs. Changes in the sub-systems, therefore,
depend usually on the introduction of energy from the higher systems.
However, if something is done within a system to change this adjustment
between the lower and higher, tensions are created which leads to chaos. Any
particular entity could cause or be affected by this chaotic energy. Both
social and psychological disorders could be seen in this light, and perhaps
also physical and environmental ones. It should be noted, however, that this
theory turns upside down a fundamental Newtonian principle accepted in
science - The Law of Motion is incorrect. Things are not basically constant
so that change requires us to find a cause for it. On the contrary, we need
an explanation for why things remain constant. Things do not require
external causes to change, but when things interact the change depends on
all the interacting objects. Mulla Sadra's theory also accords with Taoist
Philosophy. This subject requires much more attention, thought and
meditation than it has so far received.
Stage 16.
It appears that nothing new was added to Islamic thought after this. Ahmad
Sirhindi was a reformer who attacked al-Arabi's Unity of Being in order to
re-establish older mystical ideas with little success. The New Wisdom
continued to have its adherents in the 18th and 19th centuries with minor
modifications. Among its exponents were Shah Wali Shah and Hadi Sabzevari.
It became part of higher education in the Islamic colleges, but had little
impact on the general public which was either diluting or abandoning its
adherence to religion or returning to the simple, practical traditional
ritualistic, legal and theological forms. The weakness of the New Wisdom lay
in this that it had little to say about social, political and cultural
matters. The emphasis was on personal ethics and mysticism, which appealed
only to the few. It created no Political Philosophy and reduced interest in
the affairs of the world. Ideas and enterprise stagnated and became
fossilized. As there was little devotional Art, leisure was devoted to
non-spiritual matters. The rulers, authorities, those who had power, control
and leadership became self-indulgent lovers of ease and luxury, and devoted
their time to the arts, particularly poetry and music. The intelligentsia
withdrew into itself leaving the general population to its own devices. The
result was intellectual isolation from development in the rest of the World,
specially the West, which was now on the march aided by influences which
came from Islam. All these factors opened out the Muslim countries to the
opportunity for foreign invasion, domination and exploitation.
Stage 17.
In the 19th and 20th centuries reformers such as Jamal ad-Din al-Afghani,
Muhammad Abduh and Muhammad Iqbal, having been educated in Western idea and
the New Wisdom, realized the social ineffectiveness of the latter and
proposed radical changes. But they were not Philosophers, and concerned
themselves with the reawakening of political consciousness in the people and
the overthrow of foreign domination through literature. They saw that
religion was the only force capable to re-energizing people and set out to
initiate a return to traditional Islam. But in doing so they ignored and
even encouraged the persecution of mysticism. They do not appear to have
possessed the capacity to reconstruct Islam from first principles and
reinterpret it in the light of the new circumstances of the age. They were,
therefore, unable to do without a certain amount of systematized thinking
which they obtained by reviving the obsolete systems of the Mutazilah and
Asharis. These systems began to be taught in Muslim colleges. But the
narrowness of their interests continued to isolate them from modern
developments restricted their understanding of the world they were living
in, and rendered them ineffective. More modern reformers understand:- (1)
that they must also study, critically examine and adapt Science, Technology,
and Social and Political Philosophy as developed in the West, (2) that these
are disciplines concerned with truths which transcend national or religious
boundaries, (3) that there is a historical process which cannot be reversed.
Stage 18
There is currently a New Awakening in Islam, and a new stage is currently
in progress.
It is necessary that it should be based on the lessons learnt from all the
previous stages. These lessons can be summarized as follows:-
Conclusions :-
>From the above accounts the following conclusions can be drawn:-
(1) The interpretation and teaching of Islam vary with the social, political
or historical circumstances. They also vary according to what conceptual or
ideological tools are available.
(2) The teachings show a progression of their own, each built on what was
achieved before.
(3) It could be argued that Islam liberated the mind from superstition, but
that this new freedom led it inevitably to experiment and make mistakes from
which it had to learn. But the lessons were not always learnt and the same
mistakes re-occurred. The whole of Islamic history concerns these mistakes
and the learning process. It is as yet incomplete and not guaranteed. It
reflects the Fall as well as the Ascent of Mankind.
(4) The various teachings appear to contradict each other not only because
of the above mentioned factors, but also because each teacher selects or
concentrates attention on some one aspect of the whole which differs from
the selection of other teachers. There is no necessity that there should be
controversy and conflict between them as long as it is understood by all
that they are different angles and partial views not to be confused with the
whole.
(5) Some ideas are falsified, distorted or rendered incomprehensible by the
use of foreign or extraneous concepts. These destroy the self-consistency of
the Islamic teaching and fragment, confuse and render it ineffective. As far
as the majority of people are concerned the introduction of foreign concepts
or sophisticated systematization causes confusion, bewilderment and
eventually cynicism. It does not aid faith.
(6) The available conceptual tools are used deliberately by some teachers to
elucidate the religious doctrines, institutions and practices and to aid
understanding, but these must be regarded as explanatory tools, pointers
only, which should not be confused with the religious truth itself. All
this is true not only about Islam, but it can be shown that it is true also
of every other religion and to Religion as a whole. The difference between
the Religions, therefore, arises in the same way as the different sects and
teachings within each.
(7) Adaptation will continue and must continue because the World does
develop and cultural changes do continue to take place. Some of the concepts
used by the Philosophers have become difficult to understand in this modern
age. It is also necessary to try to see religion from all angles.
(8) This history of Islamic thought shows how it causes as well as reflects
the gradual degeneration of Islam, though with periods of reformation and
revival. We see also how the impulse that was in Islam was transferred to
Europe which it regenerated at the same time.
(9) It seems that what is required is that Islam must return to its roots
and start again from first principles, but with the benefit of the
developments which have taken place in the West. This is necessary for the
whole world because the West is now undergoing degeneration and must be
replaced, but the peoples to whom power is gradual passing are even more
materialistic, ruthless, spiritually dead and godless.
(10) A new formulation of Islam for the modern world is required. It must
differ from the Philosophies considered above in that it uses the results of
scientific thinking as the conceptual tools. The use of these tools,
however, also implies that the method used will be different. It cannot be
an ordered dialectical discussion as found in philosophical works.
----------<O>----------
--
Hamid S. Aziz
Understanding Islam
www.altway.freeuk.com
.