A Brief Introduction to Islamic Epistemology, Ilm Al Kalam & Muslim Philosophy

 

Written by Mushtaq Ul Haq Ahmad Sikander | 12 September 2010

Book: A Brief Introduction to Islamic Epistemology, Ilm Al Kalam & Muslim Philosophy

Author: Dr. Hamid Naseem Rafiabadi

Publisher:  City Book Centre, Srinagar, Jammu & Kashmir

Year of Publication:  2010, (3^rd Revised and Enriched Edition)

Pages: 464;  Price: Rs 1495

Reviewed by: Mushtaq ul Haq Ahmad Sikander

The initial revelation of the Quran on Prophet Muhammad was the verses of Surah Alaq exhorting and commanding to: “Read in the name of your Lord who creates; creates man from a leech-like substance! Read, for your Lord is Most Generous;  it is  He who taught by means of the Pen, taught man what he did not know” .This verse, injunction and commandment sets Islam apart from other religions, verses like this and many others enjoin upon Muslims to search, initiate, evolve, disburse and add to the ever increasing body of knowledge. Islam stands distinct with its own epistemology, i.e. theory of knowledge, which through the ages till now has proved a mercy for mankind, unlike Christianity where religion gave rise to a rigid fascist set of clergy who would persecute and suppress any system of science or independent epistemology or individual scientific pursuits that would go against the rules or commandments of Holy Bible. In the past it resulted in the persecution of scientists like Copernicus and Galileo, known generally as inquisitions, which ultimately led to the stagnation and decline in the growth and exposition of new trends in epistemology or innovative scientific knowledge. This fascist domination of religion in the rational and epistemological spheres of life ultimately led the Christian Europe to rebel against God and Religion on which the foundations of the Renaissance or rebirth were laid then.

In Hinduism, the religion gave rise to a chosen few (elite) i.e. Brahmans, who had the Divine Right to persecute the other lower castes, thus arresting their intellectual, economic, educational and literary growth and advancement. Thus this religious outlook proved a stumbling block for Hinduism too and made it impotent to contribute anything substantial to the body of scientific knowledge, speculative mythology notwithstanding which is found in the Vedic traditions, Epic literature and even in the canonical books like the Manu Smiriti.

The exception being the Greek Civilization, where numerous gods and various views of religion were prevalent but they had opted the Policy which later on Christianity was forced to adopt, i.e.: Give God God’s and Cesar Cesar’s right. The Greeks were pragmatically factual enough to keep the domains of gods and humans separated, thus their view of gods or religion couldn’t hamper their growth in other fields of knowledge from Politics to Poetry, Mathematics to Metaphysics and Culture to Literature.

After the decline of the Greek Civilization till the advent of Muslim Civilization much of the human thought, intellect and knowledge remained stagnant, persecuted and in shambles or dormant to be modest enough. The distinction between the Greek and Muslim one being that the religion was responsible for its rationality, innovation and contribution towards knowledge as Islam and The Prophet commanded Muslims to search for knowledge and which was described as legacy of Prophets and scholars were described as heir apparent to the prophets. Thus Islam led to the renovated zeal and zest, encouragement as well as development of “knowledge culture” among the Muslim Ummah, and presently the decline of the Muslims is also due to the replacement of literary by an oratory culture.

In the words of Jamal ud din Afghani, the solution to the present predicament lies in: “Return to the essence of Islamic Faith so as to overcome the developmental asymmetry that has come to differentiate Western and Muslim societies”. For Afghani: “The power and success of modern west rested on its rejection of the stultifying restrictions of Christianity and its turn towards reason; since Islam by contrast is rooted in rationalism, hence Muslims need to turn to it”.

The present book under review by seasoned, prolific philosopher writer Dr. Hamid Naseem Rafiabadi is an exposition of this knowledge culture, its initiation, evolution, development and spread in the Muslim World as well as practical realization of the concept of Afghani. Dr. Rafiabadi is among the few writers of the contemporary age who writes on serious philosophic issues and themes in a comparative perspective. Dr. Rafiabadi opens his preface with these words, “It is a general trend to call the medieval Hellenized Muslim philosophy or modern westernized scientific attitude, Islamic, as is fashion with some Muslim debaters or clerics in modern times, who write on Islamic Philosophy and epistemology. However, the actual and real Quranic epistemology will be that which is Islamic not only in contents but in context also, unlike the above mentioned Greek Polytheistic thought or modern materialistic western secular scientific weltanschauung”.

This trend is running all over the book which distinguishes Dr. Rafiabadi from the rest as well as makes him stand apart as he seems nowhere to be awe struck from the atheistic or agnostic claims of science and philosophy and never tries to amalgamate the environs of these mutually exclusive domains with the sphere of religion i.e. Islam. This fact is reiterated by Dr. Rafiabadi when he writes poignantly, “There is no such thing as Muslim ‘philosophy’ as Islam did not depend on human speculation for establishing its doctrines as is being done by the Hindus, Buddhists or Christians and the Zoroastrians. I feel that after distorting the essence of their religions or after the actual religious scriptures of these religions were misplaced or interpolations made their way therein, the adherents to these religions had no other way than resorting to either mystifying their religions or taking recourse to philosophy or speculation, hence the mythologies abound in the religious scriptures of these religions making it difficult to find what is true and what is not”. (P-39)  

Writing about his own victorious discovery Dr.. Rafiabadi goes on as, “Previously I was fascinated by the great contributions of Muslim philosophers like Ibn Sina, Al Farabi, Ibn Rushd and even Al Ghazzali and I was more interested in Ghazzali as a philosopher rather than as a theologian or mystic. But after delving deep into the realms of Greek, Muslim and Western Philosophies and realizing the inherent inconsistencies, shortcomings and contradictions of the philosophical speculation, I got convinced that Islam did not need support from Philosophy or science for that matter as it develops its own logic and rationality for upholding and espousing its doctrines. I could realize why the deep rooted Islamic Ulama like Ibn Taimiyah, Ibn Qaim, Ibn Salah and even Ghazzali were opposing philosophical speculations tooth and nail when it comes to defending Islamic teachings”.(P-39-40).Nevertheless, Rafiabadi doesn’t believe in displacing the  intellect or rationality from religion because the Quran never displaces intellect(aql). Revelation (wahy) only purifies intellect (aql) from ghafla (desire). Intellect (aql) thus becomes a reliable source of knowledge, opines Rafiabadi, what he intends to say is that the Hellenized or speculative reason is not a prerequisite to prove Islamic doctrines, but unadulterated pure reason has a commendable role instead.

This heavy voluminous tome starts with chapters like Fikr, Tadabbur, Tafakur and concept of Knowledge in the Quran which forms the base of the whole Muslim Civilization’s Epistemology. Discussing about the context of knowledge in Muslim & now Western civilization, Dr. Rafiabadi’s penetrating criticism and golden words go as, “The control of the nature for meeting the mundane needs and the greed to usurp all the resources by the strong nations ignoring all the just rights of the weaker nations is a hallmark of the materialist ideology of our age, be it capitalist west or the erstwhile socialist bloc of the Soviet Union. Even knowledge has been made subservient to material interests and philosophy espousing ‘power is knowledge’ is gaining prominence replacing the world known ideal propounded by Francis Bacon ‘knowledge is power’. Western philosophy of education and acquisition of knowledge is all together different in approach from the early Muslim concerns where apart from material sciences, the moral and philosophical sciences were patronized by the early Muslim rulers and the orientation of all activities in this regard was spiritual more than material”.(P-113)

The intellectual discussion about the Ilm Kalam in early days of Islam is a scholarly dissertation of the fact how the Greek, Latin and other texts were translated into Arabic, and in addition to the revival of these forgotten disciplines and knowledge of the Greeks to which Muslims contributed and added various new disciplines and fields which resulted in the formation of various sects like Batiniyyah, Mutazilites and Asharites among the Muslims.

The inception of Greek Philosophy among Muslims gave birth to philosophers like Al Farabi, Ibn Sina, Ibn Rushd and the likes who tried to bring reconciliation among philosophy and religion and in this process compromised brutally on some Islamic fundamentals which ultimately gave birth to Imam Ghazzali who refuted it all using the same dialectics and logical arguments.

The scholarly chapters dealing with the philosophy, thought and way of life of these Muslim stalwart philosophers are unique contribution in itself but Dr. Rafiabadi is aghast that, “Despite all these efforts on the part of stalwart Muslim philosophers, it is a pity that western writers do not candidly acknowledge the contribution of Muslims for rekindling the dormant academic and scientific spirit in those dark ages west was passing through and brought about a revolution”. (P-141). Discussing Ghazzali’s vehement contribution, influence and impact, Dr. Rafiabadi dedicates many chapters to their exposition like Ghazzali’s impact on Ibn Tufayl, Ghazzali and Ibn Rushd- Conflict and Concord. While reducing the gap between these two Philosophers; one who wrote Tahafatu-al-Falasifah (Incoherence of Philosophers) which was rebutted by Ibn Rushd's Tahafut –al- Tahafut (Incoherence of Incoherence), as they are generally considered antagonistic towards each other but Rafiabadi opines with proof, "The debate between Ghazzali and Ibn Rushd constitutes the most profound encounter between Theology and Philosophy. Ghazzali's interest was religious and Ibn Rushd's was philosophical, but both worked in the philosophic medium and both upheld a unified outlook on philosophy and religion. For Ghazzali there was no conflict between Faith and Knowledge except in details and in the perversity of the followers of each school. For Ibn Rushd philosophy was a means to strengthen faith and to deepen one's appreciation for Truth. As a matter of fact, Ghazzali set the agenda for Ibn Rushd and hence books of both these thinkers are interlocked as the discussion goes on around the doctrines of philosophers."(P-345) This is the strongest chapter of the book where the author sets the trend and scope for further research, debate, discussion and critique.

Dr.. Rafiabadi exposes the myth which has been circulated by the Orientalists and reinforced by some Muslim intellectuals while aping them that Ghazzali’s scintillating and vehement criticism was responsible for the decline of Philosophy, Science and Rationality among Muslims in a chapter entitled “Ghazzali & Revival of Islamic Sciences”. Those who claim Ghazzali was all up arms against Philosophy, Rafiabadi challenges them and says, “To start with Ghazzali refuted the extremist trend of Greek philosophy which was influencing the whole Muslim society, Ghazzali developed his own methods and traditions in philosophy. This method of Ghazzali was moderate between the philosophical and theological extremism. Its other specific dimensions were skepticism and mysticism and a consistent and systematic approach towards reason, logic and theology”. (P-275)

Another unique contribution of Ghazzali which gets sidelined but which doesn’t escape Dr. Rafiabadi’s critical eye is Ghazzali’s unique contribution to Psychology, in which he even surpasses Freud and Adler in some respects. The association of Ghazzali with Sufism is a result of his deep understanding about human psychology. The contribution of Sufis in this field hasn’t been seriously exposed or pondered about, and need is felt for the same as they could cure the spiritual malaise from which the mankind is still suffering and desperately in need of remedy. Regarding Ghazzali one aspect escapes Dr. Rafiabadi are his view about Politics. The practicability of Ghazali’s reforms came to fore when Mohammad Bin Abdullah Toomrath, his student founded the Mowahidin dynasty in Spain based on Ghazali’s theory about State Craft. It implemented all the ideas of Imam Ghazali. Thus even, in political sector Ghazali was successful not only in preaching an ideal state but also creating one as a model.

It is said about Ghazzali that he was able to enter the house of philosophy but failed to come out of it successfully, but the case is different for Ibn Taimiyah whose introduction, attitude towards Greek philosophy and Muslim philosophy, plus his critique of Greek Logic are discussed separately alongwith a criticism which he lashes out at Ghazzali is spread in all these chapters though it would have been better to discuss the points of confrontation and conglomeration in a separate chapter which will open new dimensions espousing upper hand of Ibn Taimiyah while dealing with the whims, criticism and allegations of Philosophers. These chapters on Ibn Taimiyah complete the discussion on the Muslim philosophy and philosophers some of whom at first were inspired, others who amalgamated the religion and philosophy and others who opposed the same, though some small chapters even deal with the 20^th century Muslims Philosophers and Sociologists like Allama Iqbal and Ali Shariati.

“Western and Islamic Perspectives about religion, science and philosophy”, is a threadbare discussion about the same and Dr. Rafiabadi as discussed previously doesn’t belong to the rank of Buccaille; scholars like Dr. Zakir Naik, Maulana Wahiduddin Khan or Harun Yahya of the contemporary age or to the past naturalists like Sir Syed and Muhammad Abduh who try to interpret the Quran and Islam according to the yardstick of science as was previously done by Ibn Sina and Al Farabi by using the yardstick of Philosophy. Both these approaches have serious shortcomings and flaws which can permanently injure the image, teachings, message, nature and spirit of Islam.

The tome is essential and a must read for any serious student of Muslim Philosophy who needs to understand how Greek Philosophy contributed to growth of Philosophy among Muslims, how it was discovered and added to by Muslims and what characterized the intellectual debates  with the spread of philosophy among Muslims. In this respect the book is complete, and can be calculated among the textbooks to understand medieval Muslim Philosophy and some contemporary debates about science and Islam but I would suggest the reverend author to write a sequel or a new book debating new or already existing philosophical trends or challenges like Capitalism, Post Modernism or Deconstruction and an Islamic response.

The book is an addition to the already scarce literature on Muslim philosophy and philosophers and a refreshing read. Dr. Rafiabadi deserves all applauds congratulations for this new endeavor and hope he will bring to fore some new illuminating tomes in future as well. The publisher too deserves kudos for somewhat mistake free tome and hope in future the price of such tomes would be affordable from Pocket money for students like me.