Preliminary Discourse

Aphorism 47

2012-02-16T11:53:00.002+08:00

Wherever they deconstruct “God”, they will, ultimately, deconstruct “man”.

[“And be not like those who forgot Allah, so He made them forget themselves.” (al-Hashr, 59:19)]

Aphorism 46

2012-02-14T19:29:00.001+08:00

Radical reform is second to reforming the radical.

What is Creed?

2012-02-11T15:27:00.000+08:00

IT IS DIFFICULT to speak of the value of creed (‘aqidah) in the modern world. The best argument that people could muster is that this is part of the ‘religious’ and cultural landscape of the Muslims and hence should be preserved as part of their ‘right’ or ‘freedom’ just as they have any right towards anything. Yet the centrality of creed in the Muslim life is hardly as marginal as it is made out to be today. The very word ‘aqidah, which literally means something which has been firmly tied with a knot, implies the gravity of the concept in the religion of Islam. It stems from the word ‘aqada, which means to tie something with a knot. Indeed, salvation depends on having the correct ‘aqidah. The Qur’an emphatically condemns those who forfeit their faith for a trifling price.

Here, one seems to be in more familiar grounds: the age-old debate of ‘reason’ versus ‘revelation’. But actually this juxtaposition is an ill-posed one. To start with, one should not think of in these terms. The Qur’an itself exhorts the believers to think, to ponder and to reflect upon the ‘signs’ of God. The Qur’an is meant “for a people who think”, “for those who know”, and “for those who reflect”. The degree of those who are knowledgeable is raised above the rest: “Are they equal those who know and those who do not know?” When the pagan Arabs of Makkah refused to listen to the Prophet, clinging instead, to the beliefs of their fathers and grandfathers, despite knowing well that these were mistaken, the Qur’an severely castigated them. Thus thinking is not a problem; only when people think incorrectly, when thinking leads to error.

Classical Islamic scholarship likewise makes this abundantly clear. The use of logic, for example, was incorporated into mainstream religious scholarship quite early. When Abu Hassan al-Ash’ari reportedly dreamt about the Prophet, at a time when logic was condemned by many scholars, he was told to maintain this discipline to the service of Islam. As a result, this science saturates Islamic scholarship in all its many branches. Logic (mantiq) became a prerequisite to the study of theology (‘ilm al-kalam). Works of theology typically begin with expositions on logic, such as Sa’d al-Din al-Taftazani’s Tahdhib al-Mantiq wa al-Kalam (The Refinement of Logic and Theology). The illuminationist theosopher, Shihab al-Din Suhrawardi, in his scale of seekers, placed at the peak of the hierarchy those who are able to realize mystic truth and translate this to ordinary experience through the use of reason.

Belief is in fact the foundation of knowledge. The eminent contemporary scholar Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas made this very clear in his commentary on the ‘Aqa’id al-Nasafi (Creed of Nasafi) when he asserts that Islam itself is a religion based on knowledge, and thus to deny the possibility of knowledge or the objectivity of reality is to destroy the very foundations of Islam itself. Nasafi’s ‘Aqa’id, different from many other theological works, begins with a solid affirmation of the possibility of knowledge, controverting the ultra-sceptical sophists—the classical equivalent of modern-day nihilists—of the time.

At a time when knowledge today is confronted with profound crisis, from the clashes of “the two cultures” (CP Snow) to the problem of blinkered specialisation, the metaphysical component offered through the doorways of theology becomes even more urgent and pressing. Pure metaphysics has been revealed throughout history and all religions are not without a fair share of this metaphysical knowledge. But in the Islamic context, metaphysics is not completely severed from the particularly religious viewpoint. Throughout Islamic intellectual history, Muslim scholars term metaphysics as ‘ilm al-ilahiyyat, or literally, the ‘science of the divine’, the ‘divine science’ or ‘science of God’, which is ‘theology’ in its proper etymological sense.

Yet to think that creed is an exclusively post-humous affair is a serious and egregious error. As the foundation of knowledge, these theological formulations are meant to be understood and reflected on, not merely brushed aside as irrelevant. This is especially so since contemporary knowledge and sciences are built upon assumptions that may potentially come into conflict with these values. These assumptions then need to be challenged, not because they were ‘against ‘aqidah’ (this being merely a particularly religious expression of a universal idea), nor because they were ‘un-Islamic’ (this being a recent pejorative term), but because they were, quite simply, wrong and will lead to error.

Gradually the kalam project attracted dissidents and protesters. In a famous letter by the great Sufi Muhy al-Din Ibn ‘Arabi to the great theologian, Fakhr al-Din al-Razi, the former asked him to forgo his obsessions with debates and argumentation, and pursue instead the spiritual path of the Sufis to purify himself of worldly abasements. Razi was later to realize this, though towards the end of his life.

But this project was not left to reason alone – along the way, mystical insights, especially those after the great Shaykh al-Akbar, Ibn ‘Arabi, crept into its discourse thus endowing it with rich supra-rational and trans-logical verities, prepared to confront he fallacies of reason, whenever they occur, from higher cognitive grounds. Later in the 18^th century, the Indian mystic-philosopher and reformist scholar, Shah Wali Allah of Delhi, propounded what he called the ‘science of the subtle meanings of religion’ (‘ilm asrar al-din), which was meant to supply the truth of Islam with the robe of demonstrative proof.

Back to Qur'an and Sunnah? What Sunnah?

2012-02-02T12:10:00.000+08:00

A great contradiction of claims to go “back to the Qur’an and Sunnah” is that by strict qur’anic terms, the word Sunnah in the sense that we know it today (as referring only to the deeds and sayings of the Prophet (SAW)) is nowhere to be found in the Qur’an. That identification only came later, having been “contaminated” by the minds of mortals like Ibn Idris al-Shafii (RA) who championed such usage, even if the Qur’an means more than that.

Can 'human development' be a valid maqsid?

2012-01-31T19:10:00.000+08:00

The fact that Shatibi assigned revelatory status to the Shariah means that the maqasid must equally reflect this transcendence. And so to assert, for example, ‘human development’ as a valid maqsid of the Shariah is to impudently elevate ephemeral human conceptual constructs into the divine register—not that this should not be pursued as a valid purpose but that it has to be understood as particular human specification of transcendently and divinely immutable principles, such as justice (al-‘adl) and peace (al-salam). We say these are immutable for the reason that they are the Names of God, and thus intrinsic to Him, although it has been said that they are “neither Him nor other than Him” (la huwa wa la ghayruh). Ultimately then, the maqasid should be based, on the highest level, on the Divine Names, as consistent His declaration in a hadith qudsi: “I was a hidden Treasure and wish to be known, so I created the world so that I am known.” This hadith amply testifies to the purpose of creation, namely to attain to the knowledge of God.

Fertilising theology for power

2012-01-31T18:59:00.002+08:00

By modern standards, earlier theological quibbles would have been ill-understood. The Mu’tazilite persecution of theological rivals during the mihna (Inquisition) seems almost incomprehensible, for it would appear that such abstruse and arcane discourse would have nothing to do with political life, far less for sustaining power. And yet, historically theology has always enjoyed a love-hate relationship with the state. This becomes more understood when we analyze how a more politicized form of Islam gradually gains support in the modern world, and why, for example, an ‘Islam’ that is wedded to political ideology or indeed ideological Islam in its many forms becomes so popular amongst the disenfranchised and dispossessed segment of the Muslim community.

Islam’s negotiation with modernity is represented by two prototypical strands found in its early history, namely in the debate between the famous theologian, jurist and Sufi, Harith al-Muhasibi, and the theologian-jurist, Ahmad ibn Hanbal, on the most appropriate response to the Mu’tazilite heresy of the time. Both agreed that Mu’tazilism, which was born of early Muslim encounter with Greek and Hellenistic philosophy, was a serious challenge to Islamic orthodoxy. Yet they disagreed as to how best to deal with it. Muhasibi’s response was to produce a lengthy intellectual refutation of their claims, which naturally included an objective and fair assessment of the Mu’tazilite positions in their own terms. This infuriated Ibn Hanbal, who argued that such refutations could well serve more harm than good. Most Muslims, he reasoned, were hardly aware of such heresies, and indeed, would probably come to knowledge of them precisely because they come across such ‘refutations’. They would therefore pass from innocence and simplicity to great theological confusion when they suddenly come to know about them. This is all the more plausible given the possibility that they might in fact end up being persuaded by the heresies than by the refutations. Add to this is another likelihood that they might read the heresies without reading the refutations. All these considerations, Ibn Hanbal maintained, point to the merit of keeping the general public out of such knowledge and insist instead, on the value of piety and faith which is reflective of the way of the pious predecessors (salaf), the first three generations of Muslims. Eventually however, subsequent scholars recognize the merit of both and acknowledge the need for pious fidelity to belief, but Muhasibi’s approach prevailed insofar it was the most realistically responsive towards ever-growing challenge to belief. The other strand fell into dispopularity, yet was later hijacked by fringe theologico-political movements for their own sinister agenda.

Caution, however, need to be made against identifying this strand as “Wahhabism” or any such titles. Notwithstanding the fact that certain authors continue to inspire this deformist movements, to leave this as it is would surrender this interpretation to their monopoly. The strategy, therefore, is to incorporate these writings and subject them to a multiplicity of readings and alternative hermeneutics or interpretation, vindicated, no doubt, by systematic logical and rational scrutiny. The science of logic, for example, has always been an integral aspect of traditional Islamic religious education, but especially so for scholastic theology (‘ilm al-kalam). Yet a severely truncated reading and misinterpretation of such works as Ibn Taymiyyahs’ Refutation of the Logicians (radd ‘ala al-mantiqiyyun) have led subsequent ‘thinkers’ (or rather, ‘tinkerers’) to denounce logic as ‘deviant innovation’ (bid’ah).

Furthermore, it is also recommended that more relevant works be translated into Arabic, for it is true that in such cultures, they are deprived of a large body of literature that would have altered their perception towards things, confined, as they are, with the exclusively “religious”—a fate that wouldn’t have befallen them had there been a substantial component of spirituality, traditionally served by Sufism, which they nevertheless negate as dubious innovation.

The virulent hate for other religions and civilisations as displayed in some of their literature should be replaced with more sober and compassionate accounts. There should be more engagement with this people. Part of this deformist and totalitarian theology involves rabid contempt and hatred for Sufis, Sufism and all things Sufi. Personal spiritual experiences are deemed illegitimate and void unless there is an explicit text that warrants it. By sapping away all personal spiritual strength, this theology renders the individual’s religious and spiritual experiences subservient to the mercy of religious theocrats. Any attempt to understand the meaning of the Qur’an or hadith is deemed illegitimate because the minds of mortals are ill-equipped to understand it.

One may think that theology has little to do with politics despite the fact that historically, there has been close relationship between the two. Most people who look at things in the past simply jump to the conclusion that they were just politicizing religion. This is partially true for the more pressing question is, how is it that religion can be politicized? In fact all of them are inter-related: politics, religion, theology and even psychology. Theologically, by removing all traces of rational inquiry from the realm of religious thought, this in effect has a deleteriously paralyzing effect on the intellect. We no longer trust our own God-given intellect to make judgments for ourselves.

They seem to think that the best of servants are those who follow God’s Word are those who follow without thinking or asking. This line of reasoning was completely false.By discarding logic and its attendant discipline, scholastic theology (‘ilm al-kalam) which is thoroughly infused with philosophical discourse, one’s intellect is severely crippled when it comes to knowledge about religion, by denying ordinary believers of any say regarding religion, maintaining that it is the exclusive prerogative of the ‘ulama by appealing to the hadith that the one who interprets the Qur’an in accordance with his own opinion will assure his place in the hellfire. Explaining this hadith, Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, the greatest theologian of Sunni Islam, maintained that what was meant by it is not that one cannot say anything, but rather to ‘justify’ one’s already held assumptions by quoting verses of the Quran.

Al-Attas on 'Islamic civilization'

2012-01-31T10:34:00.001+08:00

Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas’s definition of ‘Islamic civilization’:

“I define Islamic civilization as a civilization that emerges among the diversity of cultures of Muslim peoples of the world as a result of the permeation of the basic elements of the religion of Islam which those peoples have caused to emerge from within themselves. The process by which such emergence comes about is called Islamization, which is the liberation first from magical, mythical, animistic and ethnic cultural tradition incompatible with Islam, and then from secular control over one’s reason and one’s language. Whatever basic and praiseworthy elements of the pre-Islamic civilization that bind people together and are accepted as compatible with Islam become part of Islamic civilization. It is a living civilization whose pulse describes a process of Islamization, not in the dialectical sense of an evolutionary ‘development’, but in the sense of a progress involving every generation of Muslim towards realization of the original nature and spirit of Islam as something already established in history; in the sense of an unfolding of the theoretical and practical principles of Islam in the life of the people; in the sense of an actualization of the essentials and potentials of Islam in the realms of existence. This progress, unfolding, and actualization depend upon the levels of knowledge of Islam, of intellectual and cultural attainment of the peoples in which the progress, unfolding and actualization occur. Islamic civilization is therefore a manifestation of unity in diversity as well as of diversity in unity.”

(Historical Fact and Fiction, Johor, Malaysia: Universiti Teknologi Malaysia Press, 2011, xv)

Rebel without a cause

2012-01-30T19:11:00.000+08:00

There is something about the modern condition that renders it hospitable to a rebellious outlook. That means in the mind one wants to rebel against something, but really there is nothing in particular to which one objects, only a protest for the sake of protest. Francis Fukuyama sees it as the prelude to the Last Man that Nietzsche announced so dramatically. The natural and final culmination of that is queer theory, the will to be different for no other reason than just to be different. Typically one thinks that this is natural and part of being human. As a matter of fact it’s not. This desire to be rebel and revolt for no reason is in fact symptomatic of an inner spiritual unrest, lack of satisfaction, lack of certainty and understanding. Don’t for one second think that this is squarely due to the secular, post-metaphysical and post-religious conditions of modern life, for even within religion, forces have been at work to distance the individual believer from the inner sanctuaries of religion found in spirituality and mysticism. It is in these halls that one can satiate the inner thirsts for contemplation, beauty and repose.

By the same token, religion can also be an avenue to satisfy the most perverse and erroneous of ideas. That means even within religion there should be an internal mechanism to counter the rise of such fringe tendencies that are bound to take people away from the faith by insisting exclusively on a fascist ideology based on a squarely exoteric, literalist and superficial approach to scripture. This usually involves the feeling of alienation, anomie and separation. The difference between that and the modern experience is that the ego (nafs) is disproportionately nourished to the point of obesity. Never before has there been any point in history in which the nafs is so jubilantly celebrated and rejoiced. Pop culture and cultural life is so replete with such nafs-pandering slogans—“be yourself!”, “assert yourself!”, “stand up for yourself!”, “speak up”, “obey your cravings”, “bring out the Devil in you”, “indulge yourself in pure decadence”, “just do it” (just do what really?), “no limits” (no limits to what actually?), etc. All religious traditions have always insisted that the lower self has to be subjected and subjugated by man’s higher self, the ‘aql (intellect) for example. The consequence of all this is that the nafs is so inflated that it becomes so volatile and easy to provoke. And it grows in potency day by day, so that ours is a “century of the self” borrowing Adam Curtis’ words (in a perhaps unrelated context). The bigger the nafs gets, the more power it yields over the other faculties – the intellect (‘aql) and the heart (qalb). The nafs is also closest of all these faculties to the physical body (jism). That means the more the physical body is nourished, the stronger it gets. One tactic or strategy that it employs is the appearance of being liberative. It promises individual that by doing so they feel they have more freedom and no restriction. What is not being told is that they are only pandering to the dictates of their lowest self. We have come to the point that we can no longer conceive of the desire as a prison, insofar as we have identified ourselves with our desires. In short, these desires are not only part of us, they ARE us—and we are them. Commercialist propaganda and consumerism have transformed us all into, not insan, but a mere aggregate of desires and functions. From this point of view, the man who spends his money on drinking parties is free, insofar as he has exercised his consumer right to purchase those alcoholic beverages. But from a standpoint of true human values, he is in reality a slave. The system holds him bondage by rendering him weak to confront his own desires. What is even more insidious is that it can be artificially induced and produced. If one has no such desire, they will be artificially produced in him. One way of doing that is by continuously depriving it from him such that a point is reached that mere need becomes a hysterical desire or craving. Its poisonous tentacles spread everywhere: in education, we are told to “think for yourself” (why not just “think”, full stop?). The youth of today expects to be pandered and listened to. The second he realizes that he has no place in the scheme, he feels alienated, dispossessed, and ultimately, powerless. To compensate for this powerlessness, he then decides to provoke the community, in order to be significant, to be the centre of attention, to be taken seriously, to be engaged and in the final analysis, to be powerful. To rebel against authority offers a quick solution to this inner spiritual predicament insofar as the disturbance caused is likely to attract attention. Sartre’s “better to be hatefully remembered than forgotten” perfectly captures this spirit. Revolutions and coup d’etat are but extensions of the same desires into a political context. That is why the likes of Edmund Burke and Gustav Le Bon strongly censured the rise of revolutionary fervor.

This problem may seem strictly personal and spiritual, but when it becomes public norm, has serious social and political ramifications. Revolutions, insurgences, riots, pogroms and civil discords are stirred because of it. But once it materializes at this level, it becomes more difficult to confront. Studies in crowd and mass psychology explain how these forces are so powerful that they are almost beyond control.

Grundnorm and the higher objectives of the Shariah (maqasid al-shari'ah)

2012-01-30T18:53:00.001+08:00

If the maqasid al-shari’ah are so integral to the Shari’ah, why were they not as systematically and extensively elaborated as the science of usul al-fiqh (legal methodology)? As early as the 10^th century, these purposes have been mentioned, such as by the eminent Sufi and jurist, al-Tirmidhi al-Hakim in his work on the Objectives of Prayer (al-salah wa maqasiduha). Then Abu Ma’ali al-Juwayni in the 11^th century classified them into the essentials (daruriyyat), the supplementary (hajiyyat) and the embellishments (tahsiniyyat). His student Abu Hamid al-Ghazali expanded this into the ‘five essentials’ (which is still in vogue today), namely the protection (hifz) of religion (din), life (nafs), intellect (‘aql), property (mal) and lineage (nasl). In all these there is recognition that the Shari’ah actually pursues certain objectives which have to be kept in mind and not simply apply the rules for the sake of applying them. Yet none have been able to produce a systematic methodology of identifying the maqasid from the revealed sources of the Qur’an and Sunnah. The first to actually take up this task was the Andalusian jurist, Abu Ishaq al-Shatibi in the 14^th century. But even then, it remained a latent development that is overwhelmed by the science of usul. That is now changing in the 20^th and 21^st century, for the scholarly literature is now replete with calls to expand and elaborate on the maqasid. Shatibi has been rehabilitated to speak in our generation, but even with such credential, critics usually bring up a valid point – that the science of maqasid cannot rival the methodological sophistication of usul. Throughout its long career, usul al-fiqh was developed and refined not only by drawing nourishments from a strictly ethico-legal discourse and case studies that the jurists actually came across. It turned out that usul came into contact with many other sciences, such as theology (kalam), epistemology, logic (mantiq), dialectic (jadal) and the science of argumentation (adab al-bahth). Along the way it picked up elements from each and melded them into its own epistemic architecture.

When usul al-fiqh was evolving and undergoing all these transformations, what happened to the maqasid? They were simply subsumed and as a result, were not subjected to the same rigorous scholarly treatment as the usul. So now critics are claiming that a science of maqasid can’t work because it has not systematic methodology. At best the maqasid can only be deduced where there is clear textual pronouncement or otherwise only arbitrary and conjectural speculation. But if the text is clear to start with, why on earth is there a need for a science? So it explains why they didn’t feature so prominently in the classical discourse. That brings us back to the original question: why didn’t the scholars pay as much attention to the maqasid?

One reason is that it is because it is mostly in our time, in the post-colonial period, that the assumption that the science of usul does not serve the Shari’ah first came into prominence. Before this period, it was accepted that the usul is meant to serve the Shari’ah (and naturally that means its maqasid). If indeed, there was any deficiency in the application, what is usually called into account is that specific instance itself, not the entire science as a whole.

The conventional assumption that the literalist orientation of usul was so powerful that for centuries people merely accept dogmatically its postulates and rulings risks oversimplifying a process that unfolds in complex and variegated ways. This is not unique to the Shariah, for in any legal system, once the objectives are made to be operationalised within a system, there is bound to be some distance between the means and the original purpose, so that the rules themselves create sub-objectives that are themselves meant to achieve the higher objectives. These sub-objectives are like the stilts on which the higher objectives rest.

Once the ultimate source is accepted as the basis and fundamental principle on which society should be based, as the Grundnorm of that society to use Hans Kelsen’s vocabulary, the question is how should this source interact with the daily lives of individuals? Usually this will mean application of this principle in specific situations. Often in involves some distancing from the original purpose.

Liberalism's flaw - the 'contingency' of freedom

2012-01-29T16:00:00.003+08:00

One serious error in liberal articulation of freedom and human rights lies in its contingent theory of freedom. That is to say, liberalism posits freedom as the absence of state intrusion into the private lives of individuals: freedom is contingent on such omission by the state, barring which the individual is denied his freedom. At its basic and most fundamental level, it is a recognition that the state has the ability to undermine the freedom of the individual. The state is thus unduly given the power to decide and determine the freedom of the individual. This is grotesquely false for freedom is ultimately secured deep within the soul and it is so powerful that no one save God is able to take it away from the individual. In conceiving of freedom in the socio-political sense, liberal philosophers have practically mutilated it and truncated it beyond recognition such that ‘freedom’ is now given an exclusively narrow and limited province, robbing it off the vastness and richness that it was once before. The truth is that once the individual has reached freedom, no matter what is done to him by the state, he will never feel his freedom violated for it has already been sanctified beyond defilement—no one can take it away from him.

Aphorism 45

2012-01-16T15:46:00.000+08:00

Force of faith, not faith in force.

The birth of a dancing star

2011-12-24T18:57:00.001+08:00

"One must have chaos within oneself to give birth to a dancing star." -- Friedrich Nietzsche

Aphorism 44

2011-12-19T12:37:00.001+08:00

If you wish for a tree, plant a seed today. But if you dream of a garden, plant first the seeds of patience, hope and trust in Allah SWT.

Reason and beyond reason

2011-12-05T19:34:00.001+08:00

The greatest thinkers of the Islamic intellectual tradition invariably insist on the inadequacy of discursive reasoning or rational faculty to attain to transcendent truths. For that a higher faculty of intellect is needed to arrive at intuition (ilham), kashf (unveiling) or dhawq (tasting). But the question remains this - have we indeed exhausted all the possibilities of rational faculty, this "al-'aql al-juz'i" as some scholars have dubbed it, that we need to transcend it and go beyond rational consciousness? In fact the rational heritage of 'ilm al-kalam offers tremendous reservoir that has yet to be thoroughly appreciated and explored in the modern world. Let's start thinking about this first before we venture into the regions of the unknown, which in any case are reserved for the 'elect', a state which exceptionally few can attain.

Gender harmony

2011-12-03T14:10:00.002+08:00

"Gender harmony, not gender equality," counselled my esteemed teacher, Shaykh (Dr) 'Uthman el-Muhammady once.

The myth of the 'neutral' state

2011-12-03T13:44:00.001+08:00

The liberal project frequently invokes state neutrality as the argument against ‘moral policing’ presumably on the ground that morality is a private matter. This claim is weak on several fronts. The state cannot possibly be morally neutral. Nor does it make sense to argue that the secular state model is the best example for the negotiation of ‘competing’ claims. One should aspire towards a state based on shared values. The slogan is often quoted that in a plural society, the secular state represents the best model for society. The issue is especially relevant in the context of countries with significant Muslim minorities. The Muslim legal scholar Mohammad Hashim Kamali argues that the Archbishop’s argument is a welcome development insofar as the Shariah likewise guarantees the interest of non-Muslims as well, not just Muslims.

Philosophically speaking, the neutrality argument represents a challenge to the Aristotelian view. The liberal philosopher Joseph Raz even questioned its basic postulate. Raz affirms the view that … Perhaps deeper than this is much more epistemological and spiritual: no believer can ever think of doing anything to be outside religion. The qur’anic sacralisation of the whole world as a matrix of ayat (signs), the valorization of all deeds as ‘ibadah (worship),The mystic Hugo of St. Victor once said, omnis natura, Deo lognitur (the whole of nature speaks of God). According to the Oxford legal scholar, Sandra Fredman, the illusion of state neutrality should be replaced with effective checks and balances.

It is because of this that the Shariah has been taken as a zero-sum game, which has been invariably associated exclusively with corporeal punishments, exclusivism and misogyny. This is despite the gush of writings lately on the higher intent or objectives of the Shari’ah (maqasid al-Shari’ah), an approach that now seeks to adapt the Shariah to changing realities.

A plural society, we maintain, is not served well by the secular model but by a commitment to shared values. Moreover, with the return of religion to the public sphere, it is questionable that the state should be based as such. This cannot be done without recourse to totalitarianism and despotism. Rousseau’s concept of ‘freedom’ was ‘wide’ enough to include forcing people to be free.

Shari'ah and the State

2011-12-02T16:47:00.001+08:00

A number of contemporary writers have noted that one of the strengths of Islamic law is the fact that it is able to develop coherently and effectively independently of the state and outside the political-juridical framework. This has been so for the most part of its history and indeed, the first state-sponsored systematic codification of the law came quite late, in the 19^th century with the Ottoman Mejelle. Of course, much earlier than this, Imam Malik ibn Anas was asked if his Muwatta could be the official state law—an offer which he naturally refused as befit the humility of any traditional scholar. The essential spirit of the law has been pragmatic: to follow Shah Wali Allah’s analogy, the Shari’ah is like the colorless drops of rain which when reaching the soil partakes of the color of the earth. This element of flexibility and pragmatism of this ethico-legal tradition was made possible thanks to the fact that it is entrusted chiefly in the hands of scholars rather than political authorities. If indeed they had any authority, it’s not because they were ‘civil servants’ or bear official government seals, but because they were in possession of knowledge of the law. The authority of the Shari’ah is thus epistemic, albeit one that is inseparable from the religious, which perfectly makes sense given the religion’s valorization of knowledge, testified so cogently in many verses of the Qur’an and ahadith.

But more interestingly, if we ask what made this possible, it was, oddly enough, partly the literalist orientation of the Shari’ah. By this is not meant the primacy of the letter over the purpose, but rather that this tradition is one that is fundamentally text-bound. The religion of Islam itself is centred on a text, the Holy Qur’an as the Speech of God (kalam Allah). The Companions, during the reign of the Rightly Guided Caliphs, demonstrated considerable flexibility in the application of the law, but this can’t be stretched too far to the point that “anything goes”. To start with, the Companions were no ordinary individuals: their special status is recognised even in the Holy Qur’an itself, being the direct recipients of the revelatory message from the Prophet himself. “Whoever has seen me, has seen the truth,” so one tradition goes. The tradition of usul al-fiqh (principles of jurisprudence or legal methodology) includes fatwa sahabi (ruling of a Companion) as a source of law and their rulings are often regarded as ijtihad par excellence. There is no doubt, disagreement over the status of fatwa sahabi—some, like the Malikis, Hanbalis, Shafiis and (some) Hanafis, maintain that theirs is absolute proof of the law; yet others, like the Ash’arites, Mu’tazilites and Ibn Qarfi, argued that what counts really is the merit of their ijtihad, not because they were Companions per se.

The whole enterprise of looking for the higher objectives, intents or purposes of the law, though understandably need to probe beyond the explicit, must not reach batini proportions so that only the inward counts and hardly anything worthy is to be assigned to the zahir. In this respect, one is reminded of the fact that the earliest reference to the maqasid al-shari’ah comes in the works of the eminent Sufi, al-Tirmidhi, in his work on the objectives of prayer (al-salah wa maqasiduha). The Sufis, notwithstanding their known predilection for the inward, have never declared the dispensability of the outward: “Know that the esoteric that contradicts the exoteric is fraudulent,” declared Muhy al-Din Ibn al-‘Arabi. None have been so strident and faithful in the observance of the Sacred Law than the Sufis.

The critical component here is our intimate connection with Scripture. Yet it is here that the challenge presses hardest.

Maqasid not a rival to usul al-fiqh

2011-08-12T15:45:00.002+08:00

Contrary to commonplace misunderstanding, the emphasis on the maqasid al-shari’ah (higher objectives of the Shari’ah) does not entail a dismissive attitude towards the usul al-fiqh tradition. One of the leading contemporary advocates of the maqasid, the legal scholar Mohammad Hashim Kamali makes this very explicit in his writings, and indeed, censures his contemporaries for their tendency to dismiss the whole of usul tradition (mis)guided by an overzealous application of the maqasid devoid of context. More than ten years ago he wrote:

“I take exception with commentators who set off from a premise which is dismissive of the whole endeavor of usul and proceed on the assumption as if it was no longer relevant to the concerns of contemporary Muslims. The problem over technicality and empirical weakness of usul al-fiqh has been exacerbated by the fact that prevailing practice in the area of statutory legislation has departed from some of the operational premises of the conventional methodology of usul. The new scheme of usul al-fiqh that I have presented and discussed here contemplates effective solutions to some of these issues, and given a receptive attitude on the part of government leaders and the ‘ulu al-amr it will go a long way in building upon the existing heritage of usul al-fiqh. The proper approach is surely to utilize the best potentials of that methodology but also to reform it by identifying the problems in regard to each of its particular doctrines and then to find ways of resolving them. We may also need to depart from some of the strictures of the conventional methodology and its unfeasible propositions, but we do not propose to throw, as it were, the baby out with the bath water. The basic approach must surely be one of continuity and imaginative reform which might well entail taking bold steps along the way as well as adding new dimensions to the existing methodology of usul al-fiqh. But a laissez-faire attitude to these issues can only mean continued domination of the Western methods of law and government in Muslim societies. The Islamic revivalism and resurgence of recent decades has brought home the message that a reformed methodology of usul al-fiqh would appeal to the Muslim masses who are desirous of harmony and cohesion between their cultural heritage and the applied law of the lands.”

[Mohammad Hashim Kamali, “Methodological Issues in Islamic Jurisprudence”, Arab Law Quarterly, 11 (1996), 3-33 at p. 33]

Maqasid is not meant as an alternative to usul al-fiqh but “[builds] upon the existing heritage of usul al-fiqh” which also involves reforming methodologies of the usul from within. One can’t be too insistent on this point, for clamours abound these days on the need to make the radical “shift” or effectuate complete transformation of the juristic and legal tradition to accommodate the vagaries of the present. Proponents of the latter rarely present workable methodology that may profitably be employed to address the challenges that we are bound to confront today – the asymmetry between Shari’ah and civil law; the increasingly ‘secular’ character of public life; the fast-paced feature of modernity; the question of blinkered specialization, to name but a few. To simply quote “justice”, “equality”, “freedom”, “human rights” and similar claims bereft of any substantive and solid understanding of what exactly these mean is an affront to scholarship and reduces breadth of intellectual inquiry to plain sentimentality.

A policy of critical engagement is what is needed if the true vision of the maqasid is to be grasped, not as a convenient escape passage to circumvent the Shari’ah but precisely to better capture its spirit.

Aphorism 43

2011-07-04T18:52:00.003+08:00

If the salt is no longer visible, it's because it has dissolved into water; that water is now saturated with salt. Glory be to Him!

God Speaks with Many 'Tongues'

2011-07-04T18:47:00.004+08:00

God speaks, according to Shah Wali Allah, in the ‘tongue of imagery’ and the ‘tongue of factuality’. When He commands Ibrahim (pbuh) to sacrifice his one and only son, Isma’il, this is a far cry from the teleological suspension of the ethical, but rather that in reality, God actually did ask him to sacrifice a ram, but because of his state at that moment, it appeared to him in the form of Ismail. Likewise with the commandment to Muhammad (pbuh) to pray fifty times a day, which was in reality five times a day given the circumstances of the community. But precisely because at that level the terrestrial contingencies of the material world were transcended, it actually appeared as fifty times a day. So too, with our supplication to Him; that we often don’t realize what exactly we have in mind. Allah reminds us of this in the Qur’an that we may think something is good (or bad) for us but the reverse is actually the case. We trust too much in ourselves, no thanks to the character of our times that always uphold impious glorification of the self as the hallmark of ‘confidence’ and ‘self-esteem’. To even think that we don’t know what’s best for us is an occasion for contempt and regret. Sometimes, for example, we ask Allah to give us wealth, when in reality what we want is love, but because at that particular time, our mind conventionally associate love with wealth, as for example, when we think that rich people always have many friends. This mere convention of the mind soon translates into conflation such that the boundaries between the two are obliterated. We think we want the one but in reality we want the other. This relates to how we perceive the efficacy of our prayers. Perhaps Allah has granted or fulfilled our prayer, but just that we don’t realize it, simply because we think what we ask for really represents what we actually want in the innermost recesses of our heart and deepest of our desires. But the truth can be quite something else.

Aphorism 42

2011-06-16T18:38:00.001+08:00

When your faith is in doubt, have faith in your doubt.

Aphorism 41

2011-04-27T13:57:00.002+08:00

You know a person's true character only when he has seen your weakness.

Post-secular dilemmas

2011-03-23T18:04:00.004+08:00

It is difficult to speak about religious revival without running into conceptual difficulties, especially when we locate the issue in the context of "religious vs secular" debate. Philosophical dilemmas aside, it presents considerable problems as we try to grapple with the theme from the standpoint of an intensely spiritual outlook. It is easy, of course, to distinguish between the "religious" and the "spiritual" as many have done, and caution in the manner of Rumi, against loving religion more than loving God. But this represents yet another symptom of a dualistic paradigm, and an antagonistic one at that, which introduces hostility into what is originally a harmonious relationship. Religion was revealed precisely to secure man's ascent to the knowledge (however limited), and ultimately love, of God. By definition then deviation from this path is a step outside religion. How then can love of religion ever substitute the love of God when to not love God itself is irreligious? Contemporary religious resurgence in the context of "post-secular" religiosity that now sweeps over the Western world seems to rekindle this old debate. Some resiliently maintain that the public sphere ought to remain 'secular' and that the state's role is to maintain a balance between competing claims. Yet this is an affront to a consciousness that is pervaded by religio-spiritual vision, according to which nothing virtuous can ever fall outside the religious province. Nor does such a consciousness demand that one's words or deeds be articulated in overtly religious terms for they to be qualified as such for hardly anything is spared the Divine imprint: all that exists, after all, point to Him, signs (ayat) that perpetually remind man to turn to the One.

Discourse with Shaykh Afifi al-Akiti

2011-03-21T17:38:00.005+08:00

Of what value is the past for the Muslims in the twenty-first century? One may be surprised to be told that to engage with the present demands firm knowledge of the past, for therein lies the reservoir of Islam’s rich intellectual and scholarly tradition. This theme was the leitmotif of a recent discourse session with Shaykh Dr Afifi Al-Akiti at the International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM), organised by the Assembly of Young Intellectuals (HAKIM) and Curiosity Institute.

Dr Afifi, a Malaysian scholar who is currently KFAS Fellow in Islamic Studies at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, is also a Lecturer in Islamic Studies at the Faculty of Theology, University of Oxford, as well as College Lecturer in World Religions at Worcester College, Oxford. His doctoral thesis was on a group of philosophical writings called the ‘Madnūn Corpus’ attributed to the great theologian, philosopher and Sufi, Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī (d. 1111), on metaphysics and natural philosophy. Writings such as these testify to the heritages that have slipped past Muslims today, for whom classical literature is but a closed book. It is regretted, however, that so much of this has been taken over by the West, some of them ‘lock stock and barrel’. The one-to-one tutorial system that we see today mirrors much of the shaykh-murīd relationship that we see in classical Islamic education. Similarly, the academic practice of graduates wearing the mortar board during graduation ceremonies originates in the traditional practice of Muslim graduates who place the Qur’ān on their heads as a mark of reverence to the Holy Book when they receive their ijāzah (certificate of qualification).

Such legacies, however, have yet to be fully appreciated by contemporary Muslims. The crisis (or chaos) of knowledge – ‘the fitnah of ʿilm’ – now affects even scholars, one of the symptoms being what Afifi calls ‘blinkered specialisation’. The fact that there should be balance and proportion in the pursuit of knowledge seems to have been increasingly eclipsed today. Every science is founded upon ten principles (al-mabādī al-ʿasharah); the least that is expected is knowledge of three of them, that is, its definition, objective and benefit. Outside these contours the seeker is at risk of developing a blinkered perspective that confines him to oblivion to the other sciences and cripples any prospect of knowing the worth, value or relationship between one’s discipline and its cognates. This does not just apply to the religious sciences. The intellectual or ‘secular’ subjects must equally be pursued and governed by the same spirit and principles. Scholars ought to read widely and not on their subject matter alone for every ‘secular’ subject has potentially an ethical, moral or sacred value and hence of interest to religious knowledge and by implication religious scholars.

To master the present, it is important to be firmly grounded in traditional knowledge and a grasp of the legacy of scholarship that our previous scholars have left for us. Yet this has presented formidable obstacles for many today, the lack of knowledge of Arabic being one of the major reasons. Mercifully, thanks to the Qur’ān, Arabic is a unified language and through it also much of the classical character of Arabic has been preserved to this very day. Still, there is a difference between knowledge of the language for conversational purposes and that which is required to access scholarly materials. This is an uphill task for those who have not been acquainted with the prerequisites in approaching these sciences. These methodological knowledge or tools to engage with classical scholarship he calls the propaedeutic sciences (al-ʿulūm al-ʿalāt), whose mastery used to be the barometer to leave the madrasah in the classical system. Some of these sciences include Arabic grammar (naḥw), morphology (ṣarf), rhetoric (balāghah), logic (manṭiq) and dialectic or the science of argumentation (jadal).

The task facing the scholar is even more immense when we consider the fact that specialist knowledge is one thing, the ability to engage with the public or relate such knowledge to a wide audience is quite something else. This can be seen by contrasting two personalities in Islamic history, namely Ibn Sīnā (d. 1037) and al-Ghazālī. Despite his monumental accomplishments, Ibn Sina lacked the rhetorical skills or eloquence to engage with a mass audience. The case is different with al-Ghazālī, whose personality and writing demonstrate his ability to straddle both worlds. Al-Ghazālī was not just a scholar but also a ‘translator’ who brought the language of the scholars to popular appeal. In the contemporary world, this Ghazālian populism deserves more appreciation in the context of Muslims’ encounter with people of other faiths. It was al-Ghazālī too who observed that people are always enemies of what they are ignorant of, echoing the Roman philosopher Cicero, many centuries before him, who said that people condemn things they don’t understand. To play this role of ‘translator’ again demands knowledge of the propaedeutic sciences and solid understanding of both the traditional and modern sciences, particularly in the presentation of argument with proper ethics and clarity. Afifi highlighted that this involves correct reasoning in framing our discourse. Popular literature is replete with argumentation errors, as we see in how ambiguous prefixes such as “Islam says” are appended to individual claims (the correct reasoning, the Shaykh argued, is to identify the source of the claim, e.g. “Allah says”, “the Prophet said” or “in my opinion”). This seemingly trivial issue actually reflects deeply on the intellectual state of the ummah. Within the ummah itself, the role of ‘translation’ applies when we try to harmonise or reconcile problems among Muslims, for example, in relation to intra-madhhab issues.

A glimpse at the classical method of learning Islamic law hints at this concern to bridge specialist knowledge and public engagement. The student is first given lessons in the branches of Islamic law (furūʿ), after which he ventures into the principles or foundations (uṣūl) and then proceeds to the differences of opinion (ikhtilāf). The branches precede the principles simply because the former pertain to actual circumstances or ‘case studies’ in which the rules or theoretical principles are applied. One may add that the furūʿ also relates to practice as distinguished from the more theoretical orientation of uṣūl.

'Abd al-Karim al-Jili on Hinduism

2011-01-31T10:46:00.000+08:00

“The people of the book are divided into many groups. As for the barahimah [Hindus] they claim that they belong to the religion of Abraham and that they are of his progeny and possess special acts of worship… The barahimah worship God absolutely without [recourse to] prophet or messenger. In fact, they say there is nothing in the world of existence except that it be created of God. They testify to His Oneness of Being, but deny the prophets and messengers completely. Their worship of the Truth is like that of the prophets before their prophetic mission. They claim to be the children of Abraham – upon whom be peace – and say that they possess a book written for them by Abraham – upon whom be peace – himself, except that they say it came from His Lord. In it the truth of things is mentioned and it has five parts. As for the four parts they permit their reading to everyone. But as for the fifth part they do not allow its reading except to a few among them, because of its depth and unfathomableness. It is well known among them that whoever reads the fifth part of their book will of necessity come into the fold of Islam and enter into the religion of Muhammad – upon whom be peace.”

Divine Jealousy

2010-11-23T18:25:00.002+08:00

One day Fudayl ibn Iyad was holding in his lap a four-year-old child, and by chance placed his mouth on its cheek as is the wont of fathers.

“Father, do you love me?” asked the child.

“I do,” replied Fudayl.

“Do you love God?”

“I do.”

“How many hearts do you have?” the child asked.

“One,” answered Fudayl.

“Can you love two with one heart?” demanded the child.

Fudayl at once realized that it was not the child speaking, but that in reality it was a Divine instruction. Jealous for God, he began to beat his head and repented. Severing his heart from the child, he gave it to God.

Divine Mercy

2010-11-22T21:07:00.000+08:00

“Tonight Bishr will be your guest.”

This conviction entered Bishr’s sister’s mind. She swept and watered her house, and waited expectantly for Bishr to arrive. Suddenly Bishr came like one distraught.

“Sister, I am going up to the roof,” he announced.

He planted his foot on the stairs and climbed several steps, then remained standing like that till the next day. When dawn broke, he descended. He went off to pray in the mosque.

“What was the reason you stood all night?” asked his sister when he returned.

“The thought entered my mind,” Bishr replied, “that in Baghdad there are so many people whose names are Bishr – one a Jew, one a Christian, one a Magian. My name too is Bishr, and I have attained the great felicity of being a Muslim. What, I asked myself, did the others do to be excluded, and what did I do to attain such felicity? Bewildered by this thought, I remained rooted to the spot.”

Aphorism 40

2010-11-12T17:47:00.001+08:00

Guard your thymos lest it turns into thanatos.

Aphorism 39

2010-11-03T17:02:00.001+08:00

It’s the commitment to salah, not khilafah, that leads to falah.

Aphorism 38

2010-10-22T19:40:00.002+08:00

When ignorance is the norm, further ignorance needs no justification. It's knowledge that needs that.

Public Seminar on the Impact of Globalisation on Contemporary Muslim Societies

2010-07-11T21:03:00.001+08:00

Aphorism 37

2009-12-17T13:52:00.001+08:00

Only through hearts of gold that Allah lets His sublimity glitter.

Aphorism 36

2009-06-27T09:08:00.000+08:00

A scholar is not a profession. It's a state of being.

Aphorism 35

2009-05-11T17:34:00.002+08:00

Meaning: you seek for it in this world; therein you have thus laid its tomb.

Aphorism 34

2009-05-11T17:30:00.000+08:00

Are you sick, my dear? You mourn over the death of the living ones?

Aphorism 33

2009-05-06T18:10:00.002+08:00

A picture is worth a thousands words - yes, but it's the thousand words that makes the picture more than what it is.

Aphorism 32

2009-04-06T23:14:00.002+08:00

Some questions are answered precisely when they cease being raised.

Aphorism 31

2008-11-14T00:19:00.000+08:00

The soul of the philosopher suffocates in the body of a scholar. Many a time his novelty and originality have to be concealed, suppressed and ultimately forgotten – for want of a footnote!

Aphorism 30

2008-10-26T22:07:00.001+08:00

"Current affairs": how modern man confronts the void within the self.

Aphorism 29

2008-09-03T11:51:00.000+08:00

Rational arguments are exhausted only by the doubts of men.

The Road Not Taken

2008-08-30T23:26:00.001+08:00

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -

I took the one less travelled by

And so I got lost in the wood.

Aphorism 28

2008-08-09T12:41:00.001+08:00

What are great philosophies but madness justified!

Aphorism 27

2008-08-09T12:38:00.001+08:00

Timidity is the seed; and the fruit, subtlety.

Aphorism 26

2008-08-03T10:51:00.000+08:00

Logic is the prison of thought.

Aphorism 25

2008-07-18T00:34:00.000+08:00

Rationality: being reduced to reason.

Aphorism 24

2008-07-18T00:33:00.000+08:00

Debate: private intercourse transformed into pornography.