THE IMMUTABLE PRINCIPLES OF ISLAM AND WESTERN EDUCATION
Seyyed Hossein Nasr
In his book, Islamic Life and Thought.
The introduction of Western educational systems into the Islamic world is one of the major elements which have brought tension and heterogeneity within the very matrix of Islamic society. This factor, in addition to the constant contact between many Muslim scholars and students with educational institutions in the Western world itself, has brought to the centre of the stage the crucial question of the relation between the immutable principles of Islam and philosophy, methods and contents of Western educational systems. This disparity, incongruence and usually open conflict between Islamic and Western educational systems and their aims must be examined and studied seriously by all those who are interested in the welfare of Islamic society and its future.
Two contending educational systems have created in the Muslim world today a chasm between a Westerneducated minority and a majority which on both the popular and intellectual levels is rooted in traditional Islam. A generation of Muslims in many lands have become trained in a mode of thought, based on modern science and philosophy, which makes it difficult for them to understand the language of the traditional works in which Islamic wisdom is contained. One sees in many parts of the Muslim world two men belonging to the same country and even speaking the same language externally, but who do not understand each other because they are using different systems of reference and worlds of ideas. At the same time, for over a century, a large number of works have been produced by Western orientalists, many of whom have been hostile to Islam, and in fact have written on Islam not because of their love of the subject but in order to refute it. Yet these works, even the prejudiced and distorted ones, are the only sources available on Islam to those trained in the modern educational system and they appeal to many by what appears to be their 'scientific' method and language.
To this situation is added the need of different parts of the Islamic community such as the Sunni and Shi'ite to come to know each other better and, on a larger scale, to come to gain a more intimate knowledge of the other great religious traditions of the world. The problem of the encounter with other religions is a counterpart of the contact with modernism. A traditional Muslim who has not encountered the modem world need not think of Christian theology or of Hindu and Buddhist metaphysics. But once contact is made with the different forms of modernism there is in most cases an inner necessity to come to know other religions as well. In fact, such knowledge is often an antidote for the scepticism brought about as a result of the influence of modernism whereas in a homogeneous Islamic climate such knowledge would be in most cases unnecessary and redundant.
With these factors in mind, it is our belief that it is the function of those Muslim scholars who are concerned with Islamic studies in the West or in the context of modern eduational institutions within the Islamic world itself to be aware of the following goals and aims which concern the whole of the Islamic community and its future:
1 Islam is a living spiritual and religious tradition, not a dead religion which is simply of historical interest. The duty of Islamic scholars functioning in a modem context should be first and foremost to present to the modern world the many treasuries of wisdom which still exist in the Islamic tradition but which are half forgotten by a generation of modem Western-educated Muslims. This means translating the traditional truths of Islam into a contemporary language without betraying them. Such a difficult task requires one who himself firmly believes in Islam and has not become enamoured of the noise and clamour of modernism. It calls for a person who judges the world according to the immutable principles of Islam and does not seek to 'reform' (so-called) the God-given truths of Islam in the light of the transient and ephemeral conditions which are called 'the times'. Such a person must be free from a sense of intellectual inferiority vis-Ã -vis the West. On the contrary, he should consciously uphold and be proud of the Islamic tradition with all its intellectual and spiritual riches and not see Islam just as a simple rational faith devoid of a spiritual dimension as some have tried to make it.
At the same time, he must know the Western world well, know it well but not in a second-hand fashion that would make him take for new clothing what has already been discarded by the Western intelligentsia. He must know the inner forces that motivate the Western mind and have a clear grasp of the philosophical, scientific, religious, artistic and social life of the West in their religious and historical roots as well as in their present-day manifestations. Only a person who himself knows through first hand knowledge the intellectual life of Islam and has mastered the contemporary medium of expression can hope to present in a fresh form and language the perennial wisdom which exists within the Islamic tradition. Only such a person can provide the necessary knowledge of Islam for a new generation that has been severed from this wisdom by having been trained in another mode of thought and expression and which at the same time is in desperate need of the saving truth contained in the Islamic message.
2 The study of Islam by orientalists has produced a large number of works which are studied by all interested in Islamic studies, not only in the West and in non-Muslim countries of Asia but even in those Muslim countries where a European language such as English or French is widespread. Unfortunately, Islam has not received favourable treatment in most of these works, even in comparison with other great religions of Asia such as Hinduism and Buddhism. Many factors such as the historical contacts between Christianity and Islam which have not always been friendly, the medieval fear of Muslims in Europe, the fact that Islam followed Christianity historically, the Semitic origin of Islam for the predominantly Indo-European people of the Western world, who are thus naturally more attracted towards Hinduism and other Aryan religions, all play a role in the unfavourable treatment which Islam has received and continues to receive from many quarters in the West, there being of course certain honourable exceptions. In fact, until quite recently many orientalists writing about Islam embarked upon this field not because they had a love for some aspect of it but because they had been somehow unwillingly pushed into it as philologists or missionaries.
The considerable amount of research done on Islamic studies by orientalists contains much of scientific and historical value, even if there are many elements in their works which are unacceptable from the Islamic point of view, and even if one finds in many cases distortions and misunderstandings in interpretation. Whatever the value of these studies may be, they cannot be refuted nor can their influence be annulled by simply denouncing orientalists or using the language of demagogy against them. What the orientalists have done is to study Islam for their own ends and needs. The duty of the Muslim scholars concerned with modern educational and academic institutions and set-ups is to provide a Muslim answer to the challenge of the orientalists in a language and method appropriate for such a task. Such an undertaking would also be of great interest to the world of orientalism itself. What is needed is a study of all domains of the Islamic tradition and civilisation by Muslim scholars who, while firmly believing in their own tenets, can deal with them in a scholarly manner so as to provide a response to the challenges to Islam posed by the works of many orientalists. Furthermore, they must couch them in language acceptable to those who are reared in the rationalistic and sceptical ambience of modem schools. Only an undertaking of this kind could curtail the influence of such. works on those Muslims who are affected by their writings. Such an undertaking could at the same time help to present Islam and its culture and history to the outside world in its true colour.
3 Closely allied to the challenge to Islam of the study of these orientalists is the whole modem scientific, historical and philosophic attitude of which the approach and method prevalent among most orientalists is but a reflection. This immense challenge which Islam faces, as do all other religions, is to be seen today especially in the context of such ideologies and theories as evolution, psychoanalysis, existentialism, historicism * and on another level dialectical materialism. It is not, of course, possible for a single scholar to be a specialist in all scientific disciplines and philosophical schools and to provide complete answers to all of the questions posed by these 'isms'. A complete response requires concerted effort on the part of a large number of Islamic thinkers working in harmony within the bosom of the Islamic tradition. Traditional Islamic wisdom possesses within itself the metaphysical doctrines which alone can provide the answers to such problems, but these answers need to be formulated and crystallised. These modem modes of thought in fact have come about for the most part as a result of forgetting metaphysical principles.
To present the traditional Islamic doctrines in a contemporary language would in fact itself contribute towards facing these and similar challenges posed by modernism. The very situation of Muslim scholars concerned with Islamic scholarship but in a Western-oriented university, whether it be located in the East or the West, places them in the forefront of this vital task to provide Islamic answers to the fashionable ideas of the times, some of which are pseudo-science parading in the dress of science and others purely and simply the fruit of the secularism of the past four centuries in the West. Also, by studying Islam as a living reality and emphasising the perennial nature of the truths contained in the Islamic tradition, such scholars can provide an antidote to the malady of historicism which is so prevalent today and which Islam opposes in its philosophical roots by refusing to admit that the truth can become incarnated in history.
4 Every religion by the fact that it enters into the world participates in the multiplicity which is characteristic of it and therefore is soon divided into different schools and perspectives. In fact, it is through the presence of these dimensions, providentially placed within a revelation, that it is able to integrate into its structure people of differing psychological and spiritual temperaments. Islam is no exception to this rule, although it has displayed more homogeneity and less diversity than other world religions. One of the tasks of contemporary Islamic scholarship should be to study this diversity in Islam in the light of its unifying principles, to delineate the structure of the two great orthodox dimensions of Islam, namely Sunnism and Shi'ism, as well as the movements and sects which have diverged from them. It should make each one better known to the other.
Family feuds occur naturally within every family, but they are immediately put aside when the whole family group is endangered. In the present situation in the Islamic world, an intellectual and spiritual understanding between Sunnism and Shi'ism is essential, as is a firm comprehension of the total orthodoxy of Islam which consists of these two main branches. It is also important to make a critical study of the small religious groups who over the centuries have separated from the mainstream of Islamic religious life and to discover their relation to the main body of Islamic orthodoxy. Although such studies can take place and in fact have already taken place to a certain extent in traditional Islamic educational institutions such as al-Azhar, it is especially in the context of the modern world that the pertinence of such a dialogue becomes so evident. That is why some of the most ardent proponents of the renewal of dialogue between various schools of Islamic thought and jurisprudence are those Muslim scholars who have had an intimate experience of modern education and various Western modes of thought.
5 Also due to contact with the modern world, which both corrodes the homogeneous religious world view and at the same time facilitates knowledge of other religious traditions, the carrying out of a serious dialogue between Islam and other religions has become a necessity. Until now Muslims as a whole have been less interested in the study of other religions than either the Christians or the Hindus and Buddhists, perhaps because the presence of other religions was an already accepted truth in Islam before modern times. Of all the great religious traditions of mankind, Islam is the only one to have had contact before the modern period with nearly every important tradition, with Christianity and Judaism in the Western and central territories of Islam, with Zoroastrianism and other Iranian religions in Persia itself and in Iraq, with Hinduism in India, with Buddhism in north-western Persia and Afghanistan and with the Chinese tradition in Sinking. Also the principle of the universality of revelation is clearly stated in the Quran and has in fact been explored to a certain extent by some of the older Muslim masters such as Rumi * and Ibn 'Arabi*. Therefore, in principle it is easier for Islam to make a sympathetic study of other religions and remain completely faithful to its own principles than is the case with many other religions, which may find an acceptance of other traditions difficult from the point of view of their own accepted dogmatic and theological structure. However, in modern times few serious studies of other religions have as yet been carried out by Muslim scholars and few attempts have been made to penetrate the inner message of other religions. The feud between Muslims and Christians in the Near East since the nineteenth century, combined with the problems created by the partition of Palestine vis-Ã -vis the Jews during the past decades, have made the sympathetic study of these religions difficult, at least in the Arab Near East where the religious communities issuing from the Abrahamic tradition live so closely together. The same bitterness is felt among Muslims about Hinduism in so many regions of the subcontinent. Yet a study of other religions needs to be made by Muslim scholars not only for political expediency but in order to provide answers to those questions posed by secularism which cannot satisfactorily be dealt with save through the defence of religion as such. The best way to defend Islam in its integral nature today is to defend religio perennis, the primordial religion (al-din * al-hanif*) which lies at the heart of Islam and also at the centre of all religions which have been sent to man by the grace of Heaven.
Of course to carry out all these tasks, to present the traditional wisdom of Islam in contemporary language, to answer the questions posed by the works of orientalists, to provide an answer to the challenges of modernism, to bring about closer understanding between the different groups of Muslims, and finally to provide a dialogue between Islam and other religions is a momentous undertaking.
It calls into play all the intellectual resources of the Islamic world. It requires a reassertion of the immutable principles of Islam within the matrix of Western educational systems. It also means the re-creation of an authentic Islamic educational system which would have its roots in the traditional Islamic schools and its branches extending to the domain claimed by modern ideologies and methods of education. An authentic and at the same time contemporary Islamic educational system would not shun these domains, nor would it surrender to the modern theories which claim to govern them. Rather, it would conquer these domains and make them its own. It would extend the branches of the tree of Islamic education so as to embrace these domains and disciplines. Putting aside the preservation of the Islamic religion itself, no task is more crucial in the present context of Islamic society than this reassertion of the immutable principles of Islam and their application to methods and fields of knowledge claimed by modern, Western education and learning. The degree of success of this task will decide the extent to which Islamic society and civilisation will continue to be Islamic in reality as well as in name.
Two contending educational systems have created in the Muslim world today a chasm between a Westerneducated minority and a majority which on both the popular and intellectual levels is rooted in traditional Islam. A generation of Muslims in many lands have become trained in a mode of thought, based on modern science and philosophy, which makes it difficult for them to understand the language of the traditional works in which Islamic wisdom is contained. One sees in many parts of the Muslim world two men belonging to the same country and even speaking the same language externally, but who do not understand each other because they are using different systems of reference and worlds of ideas. At the same time, for over a century, a large number of works have been produced by Western orientalists, many of whom have been hostile to Islam, and in fact have written on Islam not because of their love of the subject but in order to refute it. Yet these works, even the prejudiced and distorted ones, are the only sources available on Islam to those trained in the modern educational system and they appeal to many by what appears to be their 'scientific' method and language.
To this situation is added the need of different parts of the Islamic community such as the Sunni and Shi'ite to come to know each other better and, on a larger scale, to come to gain a more intimate knowledge of the other great religious traditions of the world. The problem of the encounter with other religions is a counterpart of the contact with modernism. A traditional Muslim who has not encountered the modem world need not think of Christian theology or of Hindu and Buddhist metaphysics. But once contact is made with the different forms of modernism there is in most cases an inner necessity to come to know other religions as well. In fact, such knowledge is often an antidote for the scepticism brought about as a result of the influence of modernism whereas in a homogeneous Islamic climate such knowledge would be in most cases unnecessary and redundant.
With these factors in mind, it is our belief that it is the function of those Muslim scholars who are concerned with Islamic studies in the West or in the context of modern eduational institutions within the Islamic world itself to be aware of the following goals and aims which concern the whole of the Islamic community and its future:
1 Islam is a living spiritual and religious tradition, not a dead religion which is simply of historical interest. The duty of Islamic scholars functioning in a modem context should be first and foremost to present to the modern world the many treasuries of wisdom which still exist in the Islamic tradition but which are half forgotten by a generation of modem Western-educated Muslims. This means translating the traditional truths of Islam into a contemporary language without betraying them. Such a difficult task requires one who himself firmly believes in Islam and has not become enamoured of the noise and clamour of modernism. It calls for a person who judges the world according to the immutable principles of Islam and does not seek to 'reform' (so-called) the God-given truths of Islam in the light of the transient and ephemeral conditions which are called 'the times'. Such a person must be free from a sense of intellectual inferiority vis-Ã -vis the West. On the contrary, he should consciously uphold and be proud of the Islamic tradition with all its intellectual and spiritual riches and not see Islam just as a simple rational faith devoid of a spiritual dimension as some have tried to make it.
At the same time, he must know the Western world well, know it well but not in a second-hand fashion that would make him take for new clothing what has already been discarded by the Western intelligentsia. He must know the inner forces that motivate the Western mind and have a clear grasp of the philosophical, scientific, religious, artistic and social life of the West in their religious and historical roots as well as in their present-day manifestations. Only a person who himself knows through first hand knowledge the intellectual life of Islam and has mastered the contemporary medium of expression can hope to present in a fresh form and language the perennial wisdom which exists within the Islamic tradition. Only such a person can provide the necessary knowledge of Islam for a new generation that has been severed from this wisdom by having been trained in another mode of thought and expression and which at the same time is in desperate need of the saving truth contained in the Islamic message.
2 The study of Islam by orientalists has produced a large number of works which are studied by all interested in Islamic studies, not only in the West and in non-Muslim countries of Asia but even in those Muslim countries where a European language such as English or French is widespread. Unfortunately, Islam has not received favourable treatment in most of these works, even in comparison with other great religions of Asia such as Hinduism and Buddhism. Many factors such as the historical contacts between Christianity and Islam which have not always been friendly, the medieval fear of Muslims in Europe, the fact that Islam followed Christianity historically, the Semitic origin of Islam for the predominantly Indo-European people of the Western world, who are thus naturally more attracted towards Hinduism and other Aryan religions, all play a role in the unfavourable treatment which Islam has received and continues to receive from many quarters in the West, there being of course certain honourable exceptions. In fact, until quite recently many orientalists writing about Islam embarked upon this field not because they had a love for some aspect of it but because they had been somehow unwillingly pushed into it as philologists or missionaries.
The considerable amount of research done on Islamic studies by orientalists contains much of scientific and historical value, even if there are many elements in their works which are unacceptable from the Islamic point of view, and even if one finds in many cases distortions and misunderstandings in interpretation. Whatever the value of these studies may be, they cannot be refuted nor can their influence be annulled by simply denouncing orientalists or using the language of demagogy against them. What the orientalists have done is to study Islam for their own ends and needs. The duty of the Muslim scholars concerned with modern educational and academic institutions and set-ups is to provide a Muslim answer to the challenge of the orientalists in a language and method appropriate for such a task. Such an undertaking would also be of great interest to the world of orientalism itself. What is needed is a study of all domains of the Islamic tradition and civilisation by Muslim scholars who, while firmly believing in their own tenets, can deal with them in a scholarly manner so as to provide a response to the challenges to Islam posed by the works of many orientalists. Furthermore, they must couch them in language acceptable to those who are reared in the rationalistic and sceptical ambience of modem schools. Only an undertaking of this kind could curtail the influence of such. works on those Muslims who are affected by their writings. Such an undertaking could at the same time help to present Islam and its culture and history to the outside world in its true colour.
3 Closely allied to the challenge to Islam of the study of these orientalists is the whole modem scientific, historical and philosophic attitude of which the approach and method prevalent among most orientalists is but a reflection. This immense challenge which Islam faces, as do all other religions, is to be seen today especially in the context of such ideologies and theories as evolution, psychoanalysis, existentialism, historicism * and on another level dialectical materialism. It is not, of course, possible for a single scholar to be a specialist in all scientific disciplines and philosophical schools and to provide complete answers to all of the questions posed by these 'isms'. A complete response requires concerted effort on the part of a large number of Islamic thinkers working in harmony within the bosom of the Islamic tradition. Traditional Islamic wisdom possesses within itself the metaphysical doctrines which alone can provide the answers to such problems, but these answers need to be formulated and crystallised. These modem modes of thought in fact have come about for the most part as a result of forgetting metaphysical principles.
To present the traditional Islamic doctrines in a contemporary language would in fact itself contribute towards facing these and similar challenges posed by modernism. The very situation of Muslim scholars concerned with Islamic scholarship but in a Western-oriented university, whether it be located in the East or the West, places them in the forefront of this vital task to provide Islamic answers to the fashionable ideas of the times, some of which are pseudo-science parading in the dress of science and others purely and simply the fruit of the secularism of the past four centuries in the West. Also, by studying Islam as a living reality and emphasising the perennial nature of the truths contained in the Islamic tradition, such scholars can provide an antidote to the malady of historicism which is so prevalent today and which Islam opposes in its philosophical roots by refusing to admit that the truth can become incarnated in history.
4 Every religion by the fact that it enters into the world participates in the multiplicity which is characteristic of it and therefore is soon divided into different schools and perspectives. In fact, it is through the presence of these dimensions, providentially placed within a revelation, that it is able to integrate into its structure people of differing psychological and spiritual temperaments. Islam is no exception to this rule, although it has displayed more homogeneity and less diversity than other world religions. One of the tasks of contemporary Islamic scholarship should be to study this diversity in Islam in the light of its unifying principles, to delineate the structure of the two great orthodox dimensions of Islam, namely Sunnism and Shi'ism, as well as the movements and sects which have diverged from them. It should make each one better known to the other.
Family feuds occur naturally within every family, but they are immediately put aside when the whole family group is endangered. In the present situation in the Islamic world, an intellectual and spiritual understanding between Sunnism and Shi'ism is essential, as is a firm comprehension of the total orthodoxy of Islam which consists of these two main branches. It is also important to make a critical study of the small religious groups who over the centuries have separated from the mainstream of Islamic religious life and to discover their relation to the main body of Islamic orthodoxy. Although such studies can take place and in fact have already taken place to a certain extent in traditional Islamic educational institutions such as al-Azhar, it is especially in the context of the modern world that the pertinence of such a dialogue becomes so evident. That is why some of the most ardent proponents of the renewal of dialogue between various schools of Islamic thought and jurisprudence are those Muslim scholars who have had an intimate experience of modern education and various Western modes of thought.
5 Also due to contact with the modern world, which both corrodes the homogeneous religious world view and at the same time facilitates knowledge of other religious traditions, the carrying out of a serious dialogue between Islam and other religions has become a necessity. Until now Muslims as a whole have been less interested in the study of other religions than either the Christians or the Hindus and Buddhists, perhaps because the presence of other religions was an already accepted truth in Islam before modern times. Of all the great religious traditions of mankind, Islam is the only one to have had contact before the modern period with nearly every important tradition, with Christianity and Judaism in the Western and central territories of Islam, with Zoroastrianism and other Iranian religions in Persia itself and in Iraq, with Hinduism in India, with Buddhism in north-western Persia and Afghanistan and with the Chinese tradition in Sinking. Also the principle of the universality of revelation is clearly stated in the Quran and has in fact been explored to a certain extent by some of the older Muslim masters such as Rumi * and Ibn 'Arabi*. Therefore, in principle it is easier for Islam to make a sympathetic study of other religions and remain completely faithful to its own principles than is the case with many other religions, which may find an acceptance of other traditions difficult from the point of view of their own accepted dogmatic and theological structure. However, in modern times few serious studies of other religions have as yet been carried out by Muslim scholars and few attempts have been made to penetrate the inner message of other religions. The feud between Muslims and Christians in the Near East since the nineteenth century, combined with the problems created by the partition of Palestine vis-Ã -vis the Jews during the past decades, have made the sympathetic study of these religions difficult, at least in the Arab Near East where the religious communities issuing from the Abrahamic tradition live so closely together. The same bitterness is felt among Muslims about Hinduism in so many regions of the subcontinent. Yet a study of other religions needs to be made by Muslim scholars not only for political expediency but in order to provide answers to those questions posed by secularism which cannot satisfactorily be dealt with save through the defence of religion as such. The best way to defend Islam in its integral nature today is to defend religio perennis, the primordial religion (al-din * al-hanif*) which lies at the heart of Islam and also at the centre of all religions which have been sent to man by the grace of Heaven.
Of course to carry out all these tasks, to present the traditional wisdom of Islam in contemporary language, to answer the questions posed by the works of orientalists, to provide an answer to the challenges of modernism, to bring about closer understanding between the different groups of Muslims, and finally to provide a dialogue between Islam and other religions is a momentous undertaking.
It calls into play all the intellectual resources of the Islamic world. It requires a reassertion of the immutable principles of Islam within the matrix of Western educational systems. It also means the re-creation of an authentic Islamic educational system which would have its roots in the traditional Islamic schools and its branches extending to the domain claimed by modern ideologies and methods of education. An authentic and at the same time contemporary Islamic educational system would not shun these domains, nor would it surrender to the modern theories which claim to govern them. Rather, it would conquer these domains and make them its own. It would extend the branches of the tree of Islamic education so as to embrace these domains and disciplines. Putting aside the preservation of the Islamic religion itself, no task is more crucial in the present context of Islamic society than this reassertion of the immutable principles of Islam and their application to methods and fields of knowledge claimed by modern, Western education and learning. The degree of success of this task will decide the extent to which Islamic society and civilisation will continue to be Islamic in reality as well as in name.
Comments
Post a Comment