Short History of Islamic Philosophy - 3b
H. S. Aziz
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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.
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H. S. Aziz
www.altway.freeuk.com