CONTEMPORARY MUSLIM RESPONSE
TO THE CHALLENGE OF KNOWLEDGE:
SEPARATING THE GRAIN FROM THE CHAFF - 6
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[Background ]
[ The Problem I ]
[ The Problem II ]
The Challenge in Perspective 1. Delineation
of the Problem There doesn’t seem to be any problem in agreeing
that the Muslim Ummah has a problem, some would say, a very serious one indeed.
But there seems to be a problem in pinning it down. Even when we agree that the
intellectual crisis is the at the root of the problem and therefore the most
important and the most pressing consideration, it seems difficult to agree on
the solutions. The Islamization of knowledge is at best one solution among
others and for it, or any other solution for that matter, to survive, it has to
face the scrutiny of all and sundry, adjusting and evolving, and eventually
standing the test of time. In this matter the criticisms are more important
than the praises. Praise, it should be pointed out, is particularly dangerous,
especially when it comes too early, not only because it gives an idea of early
victory and tends to make people rest on their laurels, but also because it
sends the mind to sleep. So one should rather look at the problems associated
with the Islamization of knowledge, and there are quite a number: i. The very expression ‘Islamization of knowledge’,
raises a number of questions. One can dismiss as cynical the suggestion that it
portrays Islam as some kind of detergent that can be sprinkled, as it were, to
cleanse knowledge of whatever impurities are thought to have soiled it. But it
is certainly confusing for many of us whose limited reading suggests that all
knowledge is from Allah, and that it is the intention of the seeker and the
ultimate use it is put to, that makes it Islamic or otherwise. With this rather
elementary frame of mind one starts wondering if it is knowledge that needs
Islamization or the approach and utilisation of knowledge. In any case,
knowledge, whether of religion or of nature is nothing more than the data we
perceive as we interact with the texts of religion and the text of nature.
Muslims, at least, believe that nature is a gift from God, very much like
religion, it also comes as a text containing a message. Taha Jabir has
simplified the matter when he beautifully explained the idea of two books, one
of religion and the other of nature, and the necessity of reading both before
we can claim to understand the universe we live in.(33) But while these books
are divine, their interpretation and therefore understanding, as Souroush will
say, is human and therefore fret with human infallibility. So it seems the best
we can do is to Islamise our approach to knowledge, which then shifts our focus
from knowledge as such to epistemology. ii. Of the materials produced on the Islamization of
knowledge, it has not been sufficiently demonstrated how exactly this knowledge
is to be Islamised. Key concepts are said to be introduced into the
disciplines, but it has not been shown how these key concepts will make
chemistry different from what it is today, or indeed how sociology or history
is going to be different. Admittedly, key Islamic concepts have been introduced
into economics and a whole new discipline of Islamic economics is emerging, but
even here there remain problems to be resolved.(34) But does that mean we could
have an Islamic chemistry as a discipline? How different is it going to be from
the chemistry we know? Does the problem we have with chemistry come from
chemistry itself or from the chemist? Since chemistry is what the chemists make
it to be, the problem is more likely to come from the chemists themselves. In
all probability the problem emanates from the mind of the chemist, informed as
it is by what Nasr calls a sensualist empirical epistemology. Similarly, the
mind of the social scientist is informed and directed by modern humanism as
usually understood and associated with the secularising tendencies of the
Renaissance. The idea of humanism, as Nasr succinctly puts it, “means
ultimately the substituting the “Kingdom of Man” for the ‘Kingdom of God” and
making terrestrial man the ultimate and final arbiter and judge of truth and
himself the reality which is of highest
value.”(35) The problem, it seems, lies not so much with knowledge as knowledge
as with the process or the philosophical assumptions that underlines its
acquisition and use. Epistemology seems, therefore, to be the problem rather
than knowledge as such. The expression ‘Islamization of Knowledge’ could,
therefore be misleading in this respect. iii. Sometimes one cannot help asking how can the
Muslims Islamise what they don’t have? Today Muslims are no longer producers of
knowledge (even of Islamic religious knowledge), they are only consumers, poor
ones at that. The Islamization of knowledge can, therefore, create the
impression that all Muslims need really do is to Islamise knowledge that others
produce and not produce it themselves, as if the world of knowledge was going
to wait for them. Knowledge like time is constantly on the move and waits for
no one, in fact with the information explosion, knowledge seems to be moving
faster than time itself. Elementary as some of these observations may seem,
they appear to have engendered a frightening complacency for which the
Islamization of knowledge is becoming an alibi. It tends to cheapen the
challenge, lower the gaze, and make Muslims content with “Islamising
knowledge”, rather than walking their way to the frontiers, where they once
were and excelling as they once did. iv In redefining or delineating the problem, perhaps
Muslims should go back and try to understand the challenge they are trying to
respond to. Many will have no difficulty in agreeing that the greatest
challenge the Muslim Ummah is facing today is the challenge of knowledge. We are living in a world where
knowledge is the greatest capital. It may have actually been so all along. But
today, more than ever before, the battle for survival and control is a battle
of the brain and as Muslims ought to know, in a battle of the brain nothing
will do but the brain. For the purpose of clarity, this is a challenge of
knowledge, in the articulate words of al-Attas, “not as against ignorance; but knowledge
as conceived and disseminated throughout the world by Western civilisation;
knowledge whose nature has become problematic because it has lost its true
purpose due to being unjustly conceived, and it has brought about chaos in
man’s life instead of, and rather than justice; knowledge which pretends to be
real but which is productive of confusion and scepticism, which has elevated
doubt and conjecture to the ‘scientific’ rank in methodology and which regards
doubt as an eminently valid epistemological tool in the pursuit of truth;
knowledge which has, for the first time in history, brought chaos to the Three
Kingdoms of Nature; the animal, vegetal and mineral.”(36) v. Thus the problem at hand is not so much with
knowledge as such but the epistemology. Though the sacred-secular dichotomy
lies at the roots of epistemological problems, the solution does not end with
the taming of the secular to recognise and appreciate the sacred, that, it
would appear, is rather where the search for the solution begins. This is not
only because, as Fazlur Rahman alluded, what is required is a coherent system
which unites the two, a job he said Iqbal had began, but which requires much
more work. But also and perhaps more fundamentally because sacred epistemology
itself has its problems which must not be ignored. Stagnation in Islamic
jurisprudence, fiqh, was nothing but the result of the stagnation of sacred
epistemology which, Souroush believes was in turn because of the stagnation
of “related disciplines, such as theology
and history and the non-existence of some the decisive disciplines, such as
sociology and the like”.(37) In addressing sacred epistemology, perhaps
needless to add, Muslims must give a fresh and hard look at the assumptions of
old, especially regarding the ash‘ariyya and mu’tazila positions, and be
prepared to be even more charitable than previous generations, if only because
the benefit of hindsight has allowed us to see the prejudices, partialities and
political favouritism that went in to the debate and eventually determined its
results. What is at hand is not a black and white, cut and dried issue but a complex phenomena. Souroush may have
dramatised it when he said “Rationality, prejudice, egoism, truth-seeking,
obliviousness, greed, fallibility, partiality, complacency, easy going,
acquisitiveness, and the like all have their due share in the science of
religion and all influence it in one way or another. True, the revelation is
Divine, but what about the interpretation of the revelation?” Put in his other
words, what Souroush is saying is that “despite the firm belief of individual
believers in their own interpretation of revelation, the caravan of knowledge,
inspired with all kinds of complexities and contraries is breaking its way
ahead, feeding on the controversies, competitions and cooperations of its
members, irrespective of their individual desires and faiths. Our lot” he
rested his submission, “is nothing but hope”. This, it must be added, is the
hope of Rumi when he said “Naught but hope is possible”.(38) We don’t have to
agree with Souroush, in any case, that is not the point in citing him here, the
point rather, is to give us a glimpse of the ideas and the minds we shall have
to put up with in our efforts to address the challenge of knowledge.
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