دین و جامعه شناسی

Islam and the Languages of Modernity.

by Dale F. Eickelman

THE SECULAR BIAS of modernization theory has had a significant role in deflecting attention away from the role of religious practices and values in contemporary societies, particularly in the Muslim majority world. In the early 1960s, a leading public intellectual saw the Muslim world as facing an unpalatable choice: either a "neo-Islamic totalitarianism" intent on "resurrecting the past," or a "reformist Islam" that would open "the sluice gates and [be] swamped by the deluge."[1] Another suggested that Middle Eastern societies faced the stark choice of "Mecca or mechanization."[2] At the least, such views suggested an intensely negative assessment of the possibilities of evolution in Muslim societies and an inherent preference for militantly secularizing reformers such as Turkey's Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (1881-1938) and the Pahlavi Shahs of Iran, Reza Shah (1878-1944) and his son, Mohammed Reza Shah (1919-1980).

Although such views were first expressed in the 1960s, they remained prevalent in the 1990s. In 1994, for example, Ernest Gellner reiterated the view that "Muslim society" remained the exception to the pervasive trend toward a shared culture of nationalism with its ensuing fruit of modernity--commonly educated, mutually substitutable, atomized individuals with the potential for participating in a "civil society." Gellner argued that civil society precludes the "ideological monopoly" that Islam supposedly enjoins. [3]

In such formulations, Islam is viewed as a particularly salient example of the diminishing or obstructive role of religion and of religious thinkers in achieving a modern society in which individuals negotiate lifestyle choices among a diversity of options not necessarily congruent with collective religious sentiments. [4] Open societies claim to respect religion and religious worship. At the same time, however, in the words of philosopher Richard Rorty, religion usually functions as a "conversation-stopper" outside of circles of believers. [5]

Rorty's observation points to a second underlying continuity in the view of most modernization theories concerning the contemporary role of religious intellectuals. Writing in the heyday of modernization theory in the 1960s, Edward Shils observed that "intellectual" work originally arose from religious occupations, but that religious orientations in modern times attract "a diminishing share of the creative capacities of the oncoming intellectual elite." In Shils's view, "the tradition of distrust of secular and ecclesiastical authority--and in fact of tradition as such--has become the chief secondary tradition of the intellectuals." [6] The notion of the sacred had shifted, in his view, from religious concerns to a focus on and mastery of the technological, organizational, and political skills most useful in forging a modern state. The present thus belongs to the liberals and the technocrats, found primarily in the differentiated "modern" class. Shils argues that only intellectuals attached to these "modern" values have the vision to rise above parochial identities and to attach themselves to the notion of a modern nationstate. "Religious" intellectuals are thus implicitly marginalized.

Common to all variants of modernization theory is the assumption of a declining role for religion, except as a private matter. To move toward modernity, political leaders must displace the authority of religious leaders and devalue the importance of traditional religious institutions. "Modernity" is seen as an " enlargement of human freedoms" and an "enhancement of the range of choices" as people begin to "take charge" of themselves. [7] Religion can retain its influence only by conforming to such norms as "rationality" and relativism, accepting secularization, and making compromises with science, economic concerns, and the state.

Recent history offers formidable challenges to modernization theory. Of all the countries of the Third World, Iran was a society that had undergone enormous modernization prior to 1978-1979. Nonetheless, the state's greatest challenge emanated from the growing urban middle classes, those who had benefited the most from modernization. Revolution, not political stability, was the result. Moreover, it was religious sentiment and leadership, not the secular intelligentsia, that gave the revolution its coherence and force.

Writing from the perspective of the late 1990s, an Iranian political scientist, Fariba Adelkhah, goes further. She argues that the real Iranian revolution is taking place only now, with the coming of age of a new generation of Iranians who were not even born at the time of the 1978-1979 revolution. This new generation is creating and participating in an Iranian "religious public sphere" (espace public confessionel) in which politics and religion are subtly intertwined, and not always in ways anticipated by Iran's established religious leaders. The emergence of this public sphere has also been accompanied by a greater sense of personal autonomy for both women and men. [8]

Latin America also offers contrary examples to the conventional wisdom of modernization theory. In Peru and Guatemala, new networks of trust, confidence, and organizational capacities have arisen with religious change as groups of clergy, including progressive Catholics in Peru and evangelicals in Guatemala, create a social capital in which "'stability' is created from below, not imposed from above." [9] The United States might serve as a further example, in which religious congregations, hierarchies, and religious special interests contribute significantly to ongoing debates over collective values. [10]

How disconcerting to the view of modernity and modernization as excluding religion from the public sphere and the nation-state to see no less a committed political leader than Vaclav Havel write that "human rights, human freedoms, and human dignity have their deepest roots outside the perceptible world." On the state and its probable role in the future, Havel writes that "while the state is a human creation, human beings are the creation of God." [11] Havel considers modern thought, "based on the premise that the world is objectively knowable, and that the knowledge so obtained can be absolutely generalized," to have reached a "final" crisis. The way out, he concludes, is for the politician of the future to trust in "soul, individual spirituality," and, above all, "in his own subjectivity as his principal link with the subjectivity of the world." [12] Labeled by some as a contemporary "Romantic Rebel," Havel's ideas nonetheless influenced U.S. debates over funding for basic science research in the mid-1990s. [13]

Havel notwithstanding, it is primarily in the Muslim world that--in Gilles Kepel's evocative phrase--we are faced with the "revenge of God." [14] In a globalized McWorld, only the "green menace" of "Jihad" offers resistance to the advance of modernization and the Enlightenment. Or does it?

THE RETURN OF RELIGION

It is easy to be critical of Samuel Huntington's "West versus the Rest" argument, but he was one of the first political scientists to spur other political scientists as well as international relations theorists to encourage colleagues and policymakers to reemphasize the role of culture and "tradition" in political and international relations. [15] Decades before Huntington's "West versus the Rest" argument, other writers, notably Edward Shils, vigorously argued that "tradition" is not a residual concept that can uniformly describe the "pre-modern" values of all civilizations and cultures. For the premodern era as for today, it is difficult to see civilizations and cultures as sharply demarcated and closed. [16] "Traditions" are clusters of cultural concepts, shared understandings, and practices that make political and social life possible. [17] Such pervasive cultural understandings play a crucial element in constituting what we now recognize as "multiple modernities." [18] They coexist with and shape the exp erience of modernity. In this sense, ethnicity, caste, and clientelism can be as distinctly modern as the idea of individual choice.

A principal difficulty with Huntington's "West versus the Rest" formulation is that, having reintroduced culture and religion to thinking about politics, he overstated their coherence and force, in addition to treating the Muslim world as a monolithic bloc. Culture became an independent variable. The view of religion as a stark alternative--either an independent or a dependent variable--can be avoided by adopting an approach to understanding politics that goes beyond power relations and interests alone. Approaching these issues in a more effective way also requires incorporating an understanding of the shared, often implicit, ideas of what is right, just, or religiously ordained--ideas upon which individuals in a society or from different societies base cooperative relations. Such background understandings are common to adherents of religion, be it Islam, Christianity, or Hinduism. Evolving doctrinal considerations are only one factor among many that contribute to the creation of frameworks of practices and understandings, and adherents to religious traditions are far from monolithic in their use of these frameworks.

Politics is also a struggle over people's imaginations, a competition over the meanings of symbols. It encompasses the interpretation of symbols and the control of institutions, formal and informal, that produce and sustain them. This interpretation is played out against a backdrop of values and practices embedded in a "social imaginary"--the implicit understandings against which the beliefs and practices in any given society are formulated.[9] More broadly, politics can be conceived as cooperation in and contest over symbolic production and control of the institutions--formal and informal--that serve as the symbolic arbiters of society. Politics as Leviathan is thus decisively abandoned in favor of politics as symbolmaker. [20]

The role of symbolic politics in general, or of "Muslim politics"--in the sense of a field for debate and not a bloc of uniform belief and practice--can be seen as less exceptional if the European experience with secularism is kept in mind. Historian Dominique Colas argues that religious discourse was a basic precondition for the rise of the early modern public sphere in Europe. [21] To this day, strong "background" understandings of Christianity remain in such matters as blasphemy laws, religious holidays, and public prayers. [22] Indeed, contemporary defenders of secularism often exaggerate the durability and open-mindedness of thoroughly secular institutions, be they in the United States, in Turkey, or in India. In the context of the Muslim-majority Middle East, the militant secularism of some governing elites--the Turkish officer corps, for example--is associated with authoritarianism and intolerance rather than with "enlightenment" values.

Because the Muslim-majority world remains feared by those who regard it as the last outpost of the antimodern, the role of religious intellectuals in contributing to an emerging public sphere is often overlooked. This public sphere is rapidly expanding because of the growth of higher education, the increasing ease of travel, and the proliferation of media and means of communication.

In country after country since the 1950s, access to higher education has rapidly expanded. Morocco, for instance, committed itself to universal schooling after gaining independence from France in 1956. Though in 1957 only 13,000 secondary-school degrees were awarded and university enrollments remained low, by 1965 there were more than 200,000 students in secondary schools and some 20,000 in universities. By 1992, secondary-school enrollment topped 1.5 million and university students numbered 240,000. While illiteracy rates in the general populace remain high--38 percent for men and 62 percent for women--there is now a critical mass of educated people who are able to read and think for themselves, without relying on state and religious authorities. [23]

The situation in Oman is more dramatic, because the transformation has taken place in a much shorter period. In 1975-1976, a mere 22 students attended secondary school. Little more than a decade later, in 1987-1988, 13,500 did. In 1997, there were 77,000, and there are more than 8,000 students in post-secondary institutions, including the national university, which opened in 1986. [24]

Elsewhere the story is much the same, although the starting dates and levels of achievement differ. In Turkey, Indonesia, and Malaysia, mass education has reached every city, town, and village. In Turkey, for instance, adult illiteracy rates as of 1995 were 8 percent for males and 28 percent for females, down from 65 percent and 85 percent, respectively, four de-cades earlier. Secondary schools are now ubiquitous, and both private and public universities have proliferated. In Indonesia, university enrollment, only 50,000 in 1960, reached 2.3 million in 1996. [25]

Even where educational expansion has not kept up with population growth, large numbers of citizens now speak a common language. In Arabic, for example, there often is a great divide between the colloquial speech of everyday use and the formal, standard language of newspapers, radio, and public speech. Education, especially higher education, in the "public" language of formal, literary Arabic allows people to "talk back" to religious and political authorities in this public language. Education, like mass communications, also makes people more conscious of their beliefs and practices and encourages thinking of them as a system, allowing for comparison with other ideas and practices. Education and the greater ease of communication also erode intellectual and physical boundaries and enable connections to be made across formerly impenetrable barriers of class, locality, language, and ethnic group.

Both mass education and mass communications, particularly the proliferation of media, profoundly influence how people think about the language of religious and political authority throughout the Muslim world. We are still in the early stages of understanding how different media--print, television, radio, music, and the Internet--influence groups and individuals, encouraging unity in some contexts and fragmentation in others.

Although rivaled by other media, the printed word remains a privileged cultural vehicle for shaping religious beliefs and practices throughout the Muslim world. Books and pamphlets, including banned ones, are discussed and invoked in sermons, lectures, reviews, and conversations. In seeking to ban and confiscate them, censors only draw attention to their existence and increase their circulation. [26]

At the high end of this transformation is the rise to significance of books such as al-Kitab wa-l-Qur'an: Qira'a mu'asira (The Book and the Qur'an: A Contemporary Interpretation), an eight-hundred-page work first published in 1990 by the Syrian civil engineer Muhammad Shahrur. He has subsequently published books and pamphlets elaborating his views on the role of the state, civil society, and democracy in Qur'anic thought. [27] The first book has sold tens of thousands of copies throughout the Arab world in both authorized (in Damascus and Beirut) and pirate (in Cairo) editions and is widely distributed in photocopies in countries such as Saudi Arabia, where its circulation has been banned or discouraged. Books such as Shahrur's could not have been imagined before large numbers of people could read and understand its advocacy of the need to reinterpret ideas of religious authority and tradition and to apply Islamic precepts to contemporary society.

Shahrur draws an analogy between the Copernican revolution and Qur'anic interpretation, which he says has been shackled for centuries by the conventions of medieval jurists and those willing to follow in their tradition:

People believed for a long time that the sun revolved around the earth, but they were unable to explain some phenomena derived from this assumption until one person, human like themselves, said, "The opposite is true: The earth revolves around the sun." ... After a quarter of a century of study and reflection, it dawned on me that we Muslims are shackled by prejudices (musallimat), some of which are completely opposite from the [correct perspective]. [28]

On issues ranging from the role of women in society to rekindling a "creative interaction" with non-Muslim philosophies, Shahrur argues that Muslims should reinterpret sacred texts anew and apply them to contemporary social and moral issues: "If Islam is sound [salih] for all times and places," then we must not neglect historical developments and the interaction of different generations. We must act as if "the Prophet just ... informed us of this Book." [29]

Shahrur's ideas directly challenge the authoritative tradition of Qur'anic exegesis (tafsir) and Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh). The subtitle of his first book--A Contemporary Interpretation--uses the term qira'a, which can mean either reading or interpretation, rather than the term tafsir, which directly evokes the established conventions of traditional Islamic learning from which Shahrur advocates a decisive break. Shahrur argues that traditional disciplines of learning such as tafsir have implicitly acquired an authority equal to that of the Qur'an itself, except that the juridical tradition says little about tyranny, absolutism, and democracy. [30] Such ideas are at the center of an emerging global debate in which all Muslims--argue thinkers such as Shahrur--have a personal obligation to participate.

Because Shahrur's ideas pose such basic challenges to established religious authority, he has been attacked in Friday sermons in Damascus and elsewhere, even though one leading legal scholar, Wael Hallaq, recently wrote that Shahrur's efforts to reformulate Islamic jurisprudence are the "most convincing" of those of all contemporary thinkers. [31]

The vigorous discussion his ideas have provoked is all the more noteworthy because his notion of disseminating his ideas is almost as formally rigorous as Kant's notion of "public" contained in his essay on the Enlightenment. For Kant, the idea of "public" is the words of a writer appearing before readers without the help of authoritative intermediaries such as preachers, judges, and rulers. With the exception of a small study circle in Damascus composed mostly of engineers, Shahrur's primary means of communication is the book, an unadorned means of persuasion that appeals to a growing educated middle class and continues to represent the pinnacle of knowledge to others. His public appearances are infrequent and he has never appeared on radio or television in the Arab world.

Shahrur is only one of many public intellectuals in the Muslim world who implicitly attack both conventional religious wisdom and the intolerant certainties of religious radicals, and he argues instead for a constant and open reinterpretation of how sacred texts apply to social and political life. Another Syrian thinker, the secularist Sadiq Jalal al-'Azm, does the same. A debate between al-'Azm and Shaykh Yusif al-Qaradawi, a conservative religious intellectual, was broadcast on al-Jazira satellite television (Qatar) on May 27, 1997. For the first time in the memory of many viewers, the religious conservative came across as the weaker, more defensive voice. A similar debate took place in December of 1997 on the same program, between Nasir Hamid Abu Zayd and the Egyptian religious thinker Muhammad 'Imara. Such discussions are unlikely to be rebroadcast on state-controlled television in most Arab nations, where programming on religious and political themes is generally cautious. Nevertheless, satellite techno logy and videotape render traditional censorship ineffective. Tapes of these broadcasts circulate from hand to hand in Morocco, Oman, Syria, Egypt, and elsewhere. [32]

Other voices also advocate reform. Fethullah Gulen, Turkey's answer to media-savvy American evangelist Billy Graham, appeals to a wide spectrum of religiously minded Turks, both in Turkey and elsewhere in the world. In televised chat shows, interviews, and occasional sermons, Gulen speaks about Islam and science, democracy, modernity, religious and ideological tolerance, the importance of education, and current events. [33] Religious movements such as Turkey's Risale-i Nur appeal increasingly to religious moderates, and the link between Islam, reason, science, and modernity, and the lack of inherent clash between "East" and "West," promote education at all levels and appeal to growing numbers of educated Turks. One need not visit Turkey to learn more about the movement; its web site is available in English and Turkish. [34]

Iran's Abdukarim Soroush argues that a proper understanding of Islam enjoins dialogue, a willingness to understand the opinions of others, adaptation, and civility. Indonesian and Malaysian moderates make similar arguments. [35] To the annoyance of more conservative clerics, Soroush has captured the religious imagination of Persian speakers in Iran and abroad, and his work, in printed translation and on the Internet in several languages including Turkish, Arabic, and English, has a reach far beyond Iran.

Not all influential religious books are aimed at highbrows. Mass schooling has created a wide audience of people who read but are not literary sophisticates, and there has been an explosive growth in what a French colleague of mine, Yves Gonzalez-Quijano, calls generic "Islamic books"--inexpensive, attractively printed mass-market texts. [36] Some of these books address practical questions of how to live as a Muslim in the modern world and the perils of neglecting Islamic obligations, and not all appeal to reason and moderation. Many have bold, eye-catching covers and sensational titles such as The Terrors of the Grave, or What Follows Death. [37] Other, more subdued works--usually written by men--offer advice to young women on how to live as Muslims today. Often based on the sermons of popular preachers, Islamic books are written in a breezy, colloquial style rather than the cadences of traditional literary Arabic and are sold on sidewalks and outside mosques rather than in bookstores. While Egyptian Nobel Laureate Naguib Mahfouz is considered successful if he sells five thousand copies of one of his novels in a year in his own country, Islamic books often have sales in six figures.

As a result of direct and broad access to the printed, broadcast, and electronically recorded word, more and more Muslims take it upon themselves to interpret the textual sources--classical or modern--of Islam. Much has been made of the "opening up" (infitah) of the economies of many Muslim-majority countries, allowing "market forces" to reshape economies, no matter how painful the consequences in the short run. In Bangladesh, women's romance novels, once a popular specialty distributed in secular bookstores, now have Islamic counterparts distributed through Islamic bookstores, making it difficult to distinguish between "Muslim" romance novels and "secular" ones. [38]

In a way analogous to economic market forces, intellectual market forces support some forms of religious innovation and activity over others, and in all cases support--or in the most negative instances must appear to support--reasoned public discussion and debate. The result is a collapse of earlier, hierarchical notions of religious authority based on claims to the mastery of fixed bodies of religious texts. Even when there are state-appointed religious authorities--as in Oman, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt, Malaysia, and some of the Central Asian republics--there no longer is any guarantee that their word will be heeded, or even that they themselves will follow the lead of the regime.

RELIGIOUS INTELLECTUALS IN THE EMERGING PUBLIC SPHERE

Thinkers such as Muhammad Shahrur are redrawing the boundaries of public and religious life in the Muslim-majority world by challenging conventional religious authority. The replacement they suggest implies a constructive fragmentation. With the advent of mass higher education has come an objectification of Islamic tradition in the eyes of many believers. Questions such as "What is Islam?" "How does it apply to the conduct of my life?" and "What are the principles of faith?" increasingly are foregrounded in the consciousness of many believers and are explicitly discussed. These objectified understandings have irrevocably transformed the Muslim relationship to sacred authority. Of crucial importance in this process has been a "democratization" of the politics of religious authority and the development of a standardized language infixed and disseminated by mass higher education, the mass media, travel, and labor migration. This has led to an opening up of the political process and heightened competition for the mantles of political and religious authority. Without fanfare, the notion of Islam as dialogue and civil debate is gaining ground.

A new sense of publicness is emerging throughout Muslimmajority states and Muslim communities elsewhere. It is shaped by increasingly open contests over the use of the symbolic language of Islam. New and accessible modes of communication have made these contests more global, so that even local issues take on transnational dimensions. Muslims, of course, act not just as Muslims but according to class interests, out of a sense of nationalism, on behalf of tribal or family networks, and out of all the diverse motives that characterize human endeavor. Increasingly, however, large numbers of Muslims explain their goals in terms of the normative, globalized language of Islam. Muslim identity issues are not unitary or identical, but such issues have become a significant force. It is in this sense that one can speak of an emerging Muslim public sphere and a reconsideration of the role of religion in "modern" societies elsewhere.

This distinctly public sphere exists at the intersections of religious, political, and social life and contributes to the creation of civil society. With access to contemporary forms of communication that range from the press and broadcast media to fax machines, audiocassettes, and videocassettes, from the telephone to the Internet, Muslims, like Christians, Hindus, Jews, Sikhs, and others, have more rapid and flexible ways of building and sustaining contact with constituencies than was available in earlier decades. The asymmetries of the earlier mass-media revolution are being reversed by new media in new hands. This combination of new media and new contributors to religious and political debates fosters an awareness on the part of all actors of the diverse ways in which Islam and Islamic values can be created. It feeds into new senses of a public space that is discursive, performative, and participative, and not confined to formal institutions recognized by state authorities.

Just as there are multiple paths to modernity, [39] there is a growing practical awareness throughout the Muslim majority world of multiple claimants to the task of articulating how Islamic virtues should relate to public and political life. In this respect, print and other media direct consciousness to and craft certain models of civility, membership within a community, and citizenship within a nation, all resting on more or less mutual packages of commitments and expectations. [40] As in Hinduism and Christianity, the real "clash of civilizations" in the modern era is not, as Robert Hefner says, "between the West and some homogeneous 'other' but between rival carriers of tradition within the same nations and civilizations." [41]

Publicly shared ideas of community, identity, and leadership take new shapes in such engagements, even as many communities and authorities claim an unchanged continuity with the past. Mass education, so important in the development of nationalism in an earlier era, [42] and a proliferation of media and means of communication have multiplied the possibilities for creating communities and networks between them, dissolving prior barriers of space and distance and opening new grounds for interaction and mutual recognition.

Two cautions, however, are in order. The first is that an expanding public sphere need not necessarily indicate more favorable prospects for democracy; any more than "civil society" necessarily entails democracy (although it is a precondition of such). Authoritarian regimes are also compatible with an expanding public sphere. They may claim to speak for the "people," although multiple and alternative forms of communication, as well as shared knowledge and ways of thought in the modern world, offer wider avenues for awareness of competing and alternative forms of religious and political authority.

The proliferation of communication and education in today's global society is increasing the power of religious intellectuals in much of the Muslim-majority world. Increasingly, these intellectuals have become a transnational elite. Acquiring such a global presence may diminish the importance of cultural traditions, but it increases disparities of class. Mobility increases for a small segment of the elite with globalization, but polarities increase in the more localized remainder. As a consequence, religious intellectuals like Iran's Abdokarim Soroush become more in tune with Edward Said, but at the risk of losing touch with the local majority.

In the present era, to paraphrase the Sorbonne-educated Sudanese religious intellectual Hasan Turabi, an 'alim, or religious intellectual, is as likely to be an engineer or doctor as a religious scholar. [43] Even the idea of Islamic law, the shari'a, once a matter entrusted to specialists, now involves large numbers of people--and not just a scholastically trained religious elite--who debate its meaning and application. [44] Just as the new media have blurred the line between public and private, so has the modern era blurred the assumed hard-and-fast line between religion and politics.

The prevailing secularist bias of many current theories of society has alternately marginalized and demonized religious forces and religious intellectuals. I have emphasized trends in the Muslim world because they have been characterized as especially resistant to "modernity." Yet the Muslim majority world is as open as that of any other civilizational domain. We live in a world in which an Islamic leader such as Fethullah Gulen meets popes and patriarchs, advocating diversity and tolerance in the public sphere more than many of those who are secular. Far from compromising the public sphere, religious movements and religious intellectuals in the Muslim-majority world can advocate compromise and a mutual agreement to persuade by words rather than by force. Religious intellectuals may claim strong links with the past, but their practice in the present conveys significantly different ideas of person, authority, and responsibility.

Dale F. Eickelman is Ralph and Richard Lazarus Professor of Anthropology and Human Relations, and chair of the department of anthropology, at Dartmouth College.

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ENDNOTES

(1.) Manfred Halpern, The Politics of Social Change in the Middle East and North Africa (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1963), 129.

(2.) Daniel Lerner, The Passing of Traditional Society: Modernizing the Middle East (New York: Free Press, 1964 [1958]), 405.

(3.) Ernest Gellner, Conditions of Liberty: Civil Society and Its Rivals (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1994), 211.

(4.) See Anthony Giddens, Modernity and Self-identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age (Cambridge, England: Polity Press, 1991), 1, 11.

(5.) Cited in John Keane, "The Limits of Secularism," Times Literary Supplement, 9 January 1999, 12.

(6.) Edward Shils, The Intellectuals and the Powers (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972), 17.

(7.) T. N. Madan, "Secularism in Its Place," Journal of Asian Studies 6 (1987): 747-759.

(8.) Fariba Adelkhah, Being Modern in Iran, trans. Jonathan Derrick (London: Hurst & Company, 1999), 105-138.

(9.) Daniel H. Levine and David Stoll, "Bridging the Gap Between Empowerment and Power in Latin America," in Transnational Religion and Fading States, ed. Susanne Hoeber Rudolph and James Piscatori (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1997), 75.

(10.) Robert Wuthnow, Producing the Sacred: An Essay on Public Religion (Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 1994).

(11.) Vaclav Havel, "Kosovo and the End of the Nation-State," New York Review of Books, 10 June 1999, 4-6.

(12.) Vaclav Havel, "The End of the Modern Era," New York Times, 1 March 1992, E15.

(13.) Gerald Holton, Einstein, History, and Other Passions (Woodhury, N.Y.: AIP Press, 1995), 117-121.

(14.) Gilles Kepel, The Revenge of God: The Resurgence of Islam, Christianity and Judaism in the Modern World, trans. Alan Braley (University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994).

(15.) Samuel Huntington, "The Clash of Civilizations?" Foreign Affairs 72 (3) (Summer 1993): 22-49. For comments on Huntington's argument as it applies specifically to the Muslim world, see Dale F. Eickelman, "Muslim Politics: The Prospects for Democracy in North Africa and the Middle East," in Islam, Democracy, and the State in North Africa, ed. John Entelis (Bloomington and Indianapolis, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1997), 35-38.

(16.) Edward Shils, Tradition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), 213- 261. On the permeability of the boundaries of Muslim civilization, see Paul Wheatley, The Places Where Men Pray Together: Cities in Islamic Lands, 7th--10th Centuries (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, in press).

(17.) Charles Taylor, "Modernity and the Rise of the Public Sphere," in The Tanner Lectures on Human Values (Salt Lake City, Utah: University of Utah Press, 1993), vol. 14, 213.

(18.) Shmuel Eisenstadt, Japanese Civilization: A Comparative View (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997).

(19.) See Taylor, "Modernity and the Rise of the Public Sphere," 218--219.

(20.) See Dale F. Eickelman and James Piscatori, Muslim Politics (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1996), 5--11.

(21.) Dominique Colas, Civil Society and Fanaticism: Conjoined Histories, trans. Amy Jacobs (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1997).

(22.) Keane, "The Limits of Secularism," 12.

(23.) World Bank, Knowledge for Development: World Development Report, 1998--1999 (New York: Oxford University Press for the World Bank, 1999), table 2 and prior editions.

(24.) Sultanate of Oman, Ministry of Development, Statistical Year Book, 1996 (Muscat: Ministry of Development, 1997), 541, and prior editions.

(25.) UNESCO, Statistical Yearbook, 1998 (Latham, Md.: UNESCO Publishing and Bernan Press, 1998), table 3.7.

(26.) Dale F. Eickelman and Jon Anderson, "Print, Islam, and the Prospects for Civic Pluralism: New Religious Writings and Their Audiences," Journal of Islamic Studies 8 (1) (January 1997): 6.

(27.) Muhammad Shahrur, al-Kitab wa-l-Qur'an: Qira'a mu'asira (The Book and the Qur'an: A Contemporary Reading) (Beirut: Sharikat al-Matbu'at li-l-Tawzi' wa-l-Nashr, 1992); Shahrur, Dirasat Islamiya al-mu'asira fi-l-dawla wa-l-mujtama'a (Contemporary Islamic Studies on State and Society) (Damascus: al-Ahali li-l-Taba'a wa-l-Nashr, 1994); Shahrur, al-Islam wa-l-iman: Manzumat al-qiyam (Islam and Faith: A Treatise on Values) (Damascus: al-Ahali li-l-Taba'a wa-l-Nashr, 1996); and Shabrur, Mashru' mithaq al-'amal al-Islami (Proposal for a Charter on Islamic [Political] Practice) (Damascus: privately printed, 1999). The best representation of Shabrur's views in English is Shahrur, "The Divine Text and Pluralism in Muslim Societies," Muslim Politics Report 14 (July--August 1997), and various commentaries posted on [less than]http://islam21.org[greater than].

(28.) Shahrur, al-Kitab wa-1-Qur'an, 29.

(29.) Shahrur, Dirasat Islamiya, 23. As popular as Shahrur's views are in some circles, some conservative Muslims argue that he underestimates the ability of madrasa-trained religious scholars to adapt their version of authoritative religious learning to new contexts. However, most observers agree that madrasa-trained scholars are losing their audience and former authority.

(30.) Ibid.

(31.) Wael B. Hallaq, A History of Islamic Legal Theories (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 253.

(32.) See John F. Burns, "Arab TV Gets a New Slant: Newscasts Without Censorship," New York Times, 4 July 1999, A1, 6.

(33.) Bulent Aras, "Turkish Islam's Moderate Face," Middle East Quarterly 5(3) (September 1998): 23-30; Eickelman, "Inside the Islamic Reformation."

(34.) [less than]http://www.nesil.com.tr> [greater than]

(35.) Vakil Vakili, Debating Religion and Politics in Iran: The Political Thought of Abdokarim Soroush (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1996). For Indonesia, see Nurcholish Madjid, "The Necessity of Renewing Islamic Thought and Reinvigorating Religious Understanding," in Liberal Islam: A Sourcebook, ed. Charles Kurzman (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 284-294.

(36.) Yves Gonzalez-Quijano, Les gens du livre. Edition et champ intellectuel dans l'Egypte republicaine (People of the Book: Publishing and Intellectual Field in Republican Egypt) (Paris: CNRS editions, 1998), 171-198.

(37.) Ahmad al-Tahtawi, Ahwal al-qubur wa-ma ba'd al-mawt (Cairo: Dar al-Bashir, 1987).

(38.) Maimuna Huq, "From Piety to Romance: Islam-Oriented Texts in Bangladesh," in New Media in the Muslim World: The Emerging Public Sphere, ed. Dale F. Eickelman and Jon Anderson (Bloomington and Indianapolis, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1999), 133-161.

(39.) Eisenstadt, Japanese Civilization, 396-426.

(40.) Armando Salvatore, Islam and the Political Discourse of Modernity (Reading, England: Ithaca Press, 1997), 55-56; Salvatore, "Staging Virtue: The Disembodiment of Self-Correctness and the Making of Islam as a Public Norm," Yearbook of the Sociology of Islam 1 (1998): 87-119.

(41.) Robert W. Hefner, "Multiple Modernities: Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism in a Globalizing Age," Annual Review of Anthropology 27 (1998): 92.

(42.) Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1983), 28-29.

(43.) Hasan al-Turabi, "The Islamic State," in Voices of Resurgent Islam, ed. John L. Esposito (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983), 245.

(44.) Frank E. Vogel, Islamic Law and Legal System: Studies of Saudi Arabia (Leiden: Brill, in press). See also John R. Bowen, "Legal Reasoning and Public Discourse in Indonesian Islam," in Eickelman and Anderson, eds., New Media in the Muslim World, 80-105.

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Publication Information: Article Title: Islam and the Languages of Modernity. Contributors: Dale F. Eickelman - author. Journal Title: Daedalus. Volume: 129. Issue: 1. Publication Year: 2000. Page Number: 119. COPYRIGHT 2000 American Academy of Arts and Sciences; COPYRIGHT 2002 Gale Group

Islam, Rationality and Science.

by Mohammad Hashim Kamali

The debate over the compatibility of Islam and science still continues to invoke responses from basically two opposite camps: those who reject outright the prospect and feasibility of a compromise between religion and science, and those who see a compromise as not only reasonable but necessary if an equilibrium of values were to be kept in perspective. While identifying the basic points of tension between these two positions, this essay attempts to provide a survey and an analysis of basic Qur'anic evidence on relevant issues. An attempt is also made to present a round up of modern opinion in Muslim scholarly circles on the various aspects of the debate. The basic hypothesis maintained here is that the Qur'anic epistemology is inclusive not only of traditional knowledge but also of scientific knowledge.

Keywords: Epistemology; metaphysics; experimentation; reason; secularism; induction; education; philosophy; positivism; revelation; hearing; sight; intuition; imitation; dictatorship; modernity; the West.

Introductory Remarks

The Islamic concept of knowledge encompasses transcendental knowledge as well as knowledge that is based on sense perception and observation. Islam also lays emphasis on beneficial knowledge that advances human welfare and seeks to utilize the resources of the universe for sound and beneficial purposes. The Qur'anic doctrine of vicegerency (khilafah) also places on Man, as a trustee and custodian of the earth, the responsibility to build the earth and utilize its resources with a sense of justice to oneself, one's fellow humans, the environment and other inhabitants of the earth. Scientific observation, experimental knowledge and rationality are the principal tools that can be employed in the proper fulfillment of this mission. Islam's perception of knowledge is thus value-oriented and informed by ethical and theological concerns. Many Muslim commentators have seen this as a basic pattern of harmony, rather than conflict, between Islam and science. But since the greatest achievements in science and technology at the present age are associated with Western civilization, the Islamic proposition of basic harmony is not the accepted framework in that context. The West's perception of religion and science does not recognize any link between the two and does not commit science to any structure of values outside its own perimeters. Western science has no place for religion and it sets the scene therefore for disharmony and discordance with it. Whereas Islam envisages a basic harmony with science, secularity and positivism, which are the principal attributes of Western science, dissociate science from religion. Due to global domination of Western technology and science, and its resolute alienation of religion, the claim is also made, and made increasingly louder, that Islam is no exception. Islam too is a part of the ancient world and the basic picture of conflict between science and religion therefore applies equally to Islam.

In almost all contemporary Muslim societies, there is on the one hand the urge to follow the Islamic tenets and live in accordance with its outlook and values, and on the other hand, the enormous pressure on individuals and societies to learn and adopt science and technology if they were to harness them to their advantage. This has created a dichotomy: they can neither wholeheartedly support the secular and materialistic outlook of science, nor the age-old notions of religion as many would see it to be out of touch with the demands of modernity and science.

It is the theme and purpose of this essay to test the accuracy of these claims, to ascertain the nature of the scientific method, and the extent of harmony and conflict between Islam and science. To do this, I propose to review some of the relevant passages of the Qur'an and then discuss the acceptability or otherwise of some of the tools of science, such as the inductive reason, to the epistemology of the Qur'an. I also address the claim that Islam did not propose an epistemology of its own and that Islam's outlook on reality and scientific knowledge has been shaped by Greek philosophy and thought. The last section of this essay looks into the pervasive impact of secularism on public education and certain other aspects of law and government in the Muslim world. I begin, however, with a brief characterisation of the principal themes of this inquiry, that is, religion and science.

Religion and Science

Science is that branch of knowledge which deals with the material world, the world and natural phenomena that are observable, measurable and perceivable by the senses. Scientific knowledge is based on two important factors: observation and reflection. The former involves the use of the senses, and the latter is concerned with the exercise of theoretical reason, speculation and hypothesis. The interpretation of experimental data normally involves preconceived ideas and hypotheses of the investigator. Observed scientific reality therefore acquires much of its meaning and significance through what a theory or hypothesis may give it. The researcher may otherwise have difficulty to make sense of his observations. Experimentation alone, without theoretical reasoning, cannot therefore yield significant information about nature or the observed phenomenon. (1)

Positivism or the denial of reality to anything not perceived through the senses or not measurable by mathematics has become the tacit postulate of all that goes under the name of modern or western science. This attitude and outlook has pervaded all branches of science, including the humanities and social sciences. Every reality, whether natural or human, must be studied by one and the same method. It follows that all problems, including those of morality, society and politics can be addressed and resolved by the scientific method. (2)

The philosophy of science deals with philosophical issues that arise in connection with science. Questions such as how is our knowledge of the physical world obtained, and what are the postulates underlying scientific inquiry, the nature of causality etc., are addressed by the philosophy of science. The truth of an object in Greek philosophy, for example, lay not in the external manifestation of the object but in the inherent idea that the object manifested. This conception of truth reflected more on the essence rather than the material manifestation of truth. Such a view of the world was inclined toward mystical and allegorical meaning of reality and truth. Natural sciences, which studied matter, mortal and changing phenomena, could not therefore be a noble pursuit. (3)

Religion is concerned with the totality of existence both in this world and the next. Science concerns itself with this world alone and that too in a restricted sense. The exact sciences, as they are known, concern themselves with nature, whereas in social sciences both the natural and the social are combined. Religion is not as averse to science, one might say, as science is to religion. This is because religion does not reject scientific truth, whereas science does reject the religious truth. Some Muslim and Christian commentators have even read religion and science as an extension of one another. Sayyid Ahmad Khan (d.1898) went on record to say that "the word of God as expounded in the Qur'an, cannot be contradictory to the work of God." As the words of God are unchanging, so are the works of God and the laws of nature. Science tries to discover these laws. "Religion and science'" according to another observer are "close allies in the search for truth, and not adversaries." Both strive to advocate the ultimate reality and truth. However, while science relies on the inductive and experimental method, it only discovers partial truth regarding the observable universe. Religion uses an intuitive and direct approach to knowledge and aims at uncovering the whole truth, which includes both the visible and transcendental realities. Thus the facts uncovered by science can help us understand the truth revealed by religion, while religious insight can help supply "the missing pieces in the puzzles of scientific knowledge." (4) Einstein went on record to say that "science without religion is lame, and religion without science is blind." Max Planx similarly observed: "with religious people, God appears at the beginning of their thinking, with natural scientists, at the end." (5) Mutahhari (d.1979) has drawn attention to a certain shortcoming of science to address issues of concern to the human psyche: Half of human pains find no remedy except through science, but Man has other pains which relate to his human dimension. Here science provides no help, and when the scientists reach this point, they declare that science is neutral and indifferent; it is a means and it does not prescribe any goal for mankind. (6)

Religion and science are not in total harmony, but the tension that exists between them need not be exaggerated either. Human beings can remain spiritual and religious while enjoying the benefits of technology and science. The basic area of tension between religion and science is seen in the latter's materialist and experimental approach to reality that tends to preclude transcendental knowledge. The scientist does not speak, for example, of God and the creation of the first Man because he has no scientific data to refer to. The body of metaphysical discourse that draws attention to the existence of God, the creation of Man, and the intricacies of human psyche are not of primary concern to the scientist. The likely response of the scientist may be that he cannot go beyond what can be found and proved by evidence. This scientific attitude is very different from that of the ancient Greeks and early Muslim thinkers, who took an ontological view of knowledge which went beyond observable reality. Modern science aims not at ontological but at empirical knowledge. It denies the validity of the method of ontological science and believes in controlled observation, experimentation and generalisation. Scientific attitude and methodology cannot therefore be said to accept revelation as a source of knowledge. The spiritual aspect of man is ignored and man is regarded as a biological and social phenomenon. (7)

Greek and Islamic Epistemology

Muhammad Iqbal (d.1938) advanced an incisive analysis of the Greek philosophy and its comparison with the worldview of the Qur'an. He refuted some of the hitherto common parallels that were drawn between the two. To begin with, Iqbal acknowledged that Greek philosophy had been "a great cultural force in the history of Islam." Yet while the Greek philosophy broadened the outlook of Muslim thinkers, it also obscured their vision of the Qur'an. It was due to Greek influence that the study of physics among Muslim philosophers and theologians was based on ratiocination and was usually not dependent on direct observation. Muslim philosophers were also fascinated by Greek logic and metaphysics. The pervasive influence of Greek logic was incorporated, for example, in the science of the sources of law, the usul al-fiqh, and Greek metaphysics was assimilated into theology or 'ilm al-kalam. Yet the worldview of Greek philosophy was in many ways very different to that of the Qur'an, but even so early Muslim thinkers were persuaded to uncritically embrace it, at the initial stages at least, and subsequent Muslim scholarship found it difficult to escape that influence. Iqbal highlighted the contrast between the two approaches when he noted that Socrates concentrated his attention on the human world alone. To him the proper study of man was man alone, not the world of plants, insects and stars. This is unlike the Qur'an which sees in the "humble bee a recipient of Divine inspiration" and constantly calls upon the reader to observe the perpetual changes of the wind, the alternation of day and night, the clouds and the planets swimming through infinite space.

Iqbal continued: for Socrates's disciple, Plato, sense perception yielded mere opinion and no real knowledge. This too is unlike the Qur'an which regards 'hearing' and 'sight' as the most valuable instruments of learning. Aristotle wrote extensively on physics without performing a single experiment, and on natural history without ascertaining the most easily verifiable facts. Earlier Muslim students read the Qur'an in the light of Greek thought. It took them 200 years to perceive, though not clearly, that the spirit of the Qur'an was essentially anti-classical. (8)

The Greeks essentially systematised, generalised and theorised while relying on logical deduction rather than on observation and experimentation. The patient method of investigation and scientific inquiry was altogether alien to Greek temperament. Yet the Muslim students of physics basically followed this and the broad outline of Aristotle's teachings on the subject. It is also clear, Iqbal added, that the birth of the method of observation and experiment in Islam was not due to a compromise with Greek thought but to a prolonged intellectual warfare with it. Abu Bakr al-Razi (d.935) was probably the first to criticise Aristotle's logic. Ibn Taymiyyah (d.1328) and Ibrahim al-Shatibi (d.1398) widened the scope of this enquiry and undertook a systematic refutation of Aristotelian logic. Islam's affirmative stance on rationality and science did gain recognition and was manifested in "the spectacular development of the natural sciences during the Abbasid period, and in Andalusia and Sicily. Advances in the field of the sciences were such that Islamic culture globalised for centuries, from the early Middle Ages to the Renaissance." (9)

Just as the Muslims were slow to absorb the Qur'anic epistemology on science, the Europeans were also slow to recognise the Islamic origin of their scientific method. Roger Bacon, who is credited with the introduction of experimental method, acquired his scientific training in the Muslim universities of Spain. Bacon acknowledged this and repeatedly emphasised the importance of Arabic and Arabic science to his contemporaries. Many Western commentators have also recognised that natural science and the scientific spirit represent the "most significant contribution of Islamic thought to European life and culture." (10)

Induction may be singled out as one of the basic tools of science. The inductive method in science is based on detailed observation of incidents and phenomena that eventually lead to the formation of a general conclusion. Nature in the sense of the observable world is the principal subject matter of science, but nature as spoken of in science includes, in addition to physical nature, society in all of its observable manifestations, human nature and human behaviour. (11) The scientific method attempts to make the chaotic diversity of sense experience correspond to a logically uniform system of thought, which is provable, verifiable, and convincing.

Inductive reasoning is also the basis of the epistemological appeal of the Qur'an. In numerous places and a variety of contexts, the Qur'an calls on its readers to think, reflect and reason on the basis of what they experience and observe. They are encouraged to travel and explore the tracts of the earth, to study and observe the movement of the planets, the sun, and the moon, and reflect on the signs they see around them. Muhammad Iqbal went so far as to say in this connection that the Qur'an marked the birth of the "inductive intellect" and it is a religious obligation therefore of every Muslim to master the inductive method to uncover the laws of nature and society. (12)

In his article "The Islamic Worldview and Modern Science," Professor Nasr has envisaged, unlike Muhammad Iqbal, a direct clash of values between science and religion and denounced all attempts as "quaint" and "feeble" by modernized Muslims to read scientific subject matter in the Qur'an. This is because the very hypothesis of the existence of God is redundant in modern science. Then he poses the question " How can Islam accept any form of knowledge which is not rooted in God and does not necessarily lead to him?" (13) Nasr goes on to answer the question on the same page in favor of a total conflict and irreconcilable alienation between Islam and modern science. To quote Professor Nasr:

The adoption of western science can be carried out completely only by absorbing also its worldview in which case the consequences for the Islamic view of reality, both cosmic and metacosmic, cannot be anything but catastrophic. (14)

There seems to be an element of exaggeration in Professor Nasr's prognostication of "catastrophic consequences" for Islam in the acceptance of western science. In addition, a certain shift of focus in the argument is seen when Professor Nasr addresses a situation of complete and unquestioning reception of the worldview of the West. This is rather hypothetical: To the best of my knowledge hardly any Muslim commentator has proposed a complete and unexceptional acceptance of western scientific paradigms. The question often posed is over identification of certain lines of concordance or disagreement, and hardly, if ever, over attempting to establish complete harmony between the western scientific worldview and Islam.

Professor Nasr also tends to view knowledge and science as an extension of the dogma and belief of Islam and assumes that acceptance or rejection of the one must necessarily mean the same for the other. This is not quite in line with the purport of numerous ahadith of Prophet Muhammad advising his followers to seek knowledge from whichever source. Surely in such sayings, the Prophet could not have considered knowledge as an extension, nor even a concomitant, of the belief and 'aqidah of Islam. Far from it, such sayings take a pragmatic and utilitarian view of knowledge, which can be sought outside Islam if necessity or benefit demands such. The underlying assumption here is that a person's loyalty and commitment to Islam is unaffected by his or her attempt to seek knowledge from a non-Islamic source, nor is the knowledge so obtained of any lesser validity for that reason alone. Knowledge found in non-Islamic sources may not be "rooted in God" or necessarily lead to Him.

The Qur'an contains numerous references to knowledge that is obtained through the senses, and to man's responsibility for the proper application and channelling of his powers of observation, hearing, speech, and intuition. The text provides, for example: God brought you out of the wombs of your mothers when you knew nothing, and He gave you the hearing, and the sight, and the heart ... (Q. 16: 78). All knowledge is therefore acquired through the use of these faculties. In another verse, it is provided: And He gave you hearing and sight and feeling and understanding (Q. 32: 9). A science commentator noted concerning this verse that the special senses of hearing, seeing and feeling develop in this order. "The primordia of internal ears appear before the beginning of the eyes, and the brain (the site of understanding) differentiates last." (15)

Note also that references to the use of the senses in the Qur'an, especially to hearing and sight, are typically combined with a reference to intuition and understanding through the light of one's heart. This can be seen in the verses just quoted, and in another verse which reads: verily the hearing and the sight and the heart will each be asked ... (Q. 17: 36; 67: 23). Another passage refers to those who deny the signs of God in the world around them even when their experience would tell them otherwise: ... but their ears and eyes and heart availed them not since they denied the signs of God (Q. 46: 26; 3: 179). Also of interest here is that the reference to hearing in these passages consistently precede the reference to seeing, a point which has prompted one observer to note that hearing is more widely used in the acquisition of knowledge. As of the moment of birth of a child, unlike the eyes which open gradually, the hearing is immediately functional. Similarly, when a person falls asleep, the eyes close but hearing continues to be receptive to sound. It is further noted in this connection that hearing (al-sam') is the principal means of transmitted knowledge, whether by means of revelation (wahy) or through narration of past events. If one hears one's teacher's voice without seeing him, one can follow him, but it would be difficult to achieve the same if one could only see but not hear one's teacher. (16) In another place the Qur'an praises those who listen to the word and follow the best of it (or make the best possible interpretation thereof) (Q. 39: 18). This clearly subjects the data of sense perception to the exercise of intellectual selection .

Knowledge is gained through observation and experimentation backed by reflection, as in the following verses: Say: Travel in the earth and see how He made the first creation (Q. 29: 20). Have they not travelled in the land so that they should have hearts with which to understand? (Q. 22: 46). The first part of these verses refers to observation, and the second part to the use of reason, reflection and understanding. Experimental work is thus an indispensable tool for the understanding of nature. The text also teaches that there are realities in the physical world that we do not perceive through our senses: But nay! I swear by that which you see and that which you do not see (Q. 69: 38).

The Qur'an is virtually replete with reminders that in this or that there is a lesson or message for those who hear, for those who see, for those who think (yasma'un, yubsirun, yatafakkarun, ya'qilun) about the world, about the Qur'an, their own selves and their Creator.

This inductive experimental and reflective method of the Qur'an can also be seen in its phenomenology, that is, the occasions of its revelation (asbab al-nuzul) in that a great deal of the Qur'an was revealed in conjunction with actual events that were experienced by the early Muslims, and the Companions often asked the Prophet questions about them. The asbab al-nuzul is a much wider phenomenon but explicit references to it can be found in at least fifteen Qur'anic verses which begin with the phrase "they ask you (yas'alunaka)" about such and such, and then the text addresses the issue as the case may be. Furthermore, it is always the truth that must prevail, as the Qur'an provides. And say: the truth has come and falsehood has vanished away; verily falsehood is bound to vanish (Q. 17: 81). And The word of thy Lord finds fulfillment in truth and justice. There shall be no alteration to His words (Q. 6: 115).

The notion of beneficial knowledge (al-'ilm al-nafi') in Islam, which features prominently in the sayings and teachings of the Prophet Muhammad, contemplates the end-result of knowledge and advocates utilitarian knowledge that contributes to human welfare, in preference to that which may have doubtful consequences. This would clearly discourage promotion of science and technology that inflicts prejudice and harm. Production of weapons of mass destruction and environmental degradation and damage would be clear cases at point; legalisation of human cloning may prove to present a similar case.

Islamic thought in the Middle Ages did not admit of the ontological distinction between tangible entities and entities of a spiritual or subliminal nature. This is certainly a more sound and realistic view of reality than is allowed for by modern positivist doctrines of science. Being is manifested at various levels and in several forms, none of which is less real than the other. Arabic thought employed the notions systematised in Stoic theory that divided being into three locations: verbal utterance, psychic representation, and reality - without the latter in any sense having exclusive title to Being. Al-Farabi (d.950) took up this view, and assimilated psychic representation to the entities of reason. Others rehearsed this division with the addition of a fourth location, that of Scripture. Existence thus had a four-fold manifestation depending on whether the thing existed immediately in itself, or whether its like was graven in the mind (dhihn, psyche), whether composed of sounds, which indicated psychic representation, or was it manifested in characters standing for sound and speech. All four have a basic characteristic in common, which is existence. (17) While some thinkers and scientists confined their typology of existence (wujud, haqiqah) to the two genera of the mental and the immediate, this did not render the verbal and the spiritual existentially suspect. They were all part of a theory of knowledge in which the immediate and literal were identified as basic and original existence, while existence in the psyche formed part of the field of figurative existence.

In all cases the truth, whether articulated in speech or represented in the psyche, was believed to consist of correspondence between a tangible immediate existent, a verbal existent, and a graphic existent. The ideal state of knowledge therefore was one which seized the very immediacy of the object of knowledge in which the correspondence between concept and thing was complete. It is a state in which the object is so assimilated by its concept, or the concept to its object, that they are interchangeable. Knowledge thus relates to its object in that the object is apprehended visually or quasi-visually. The latter refers not only to gnosis but also to idealised knowledge in general, as is indicated by the use of the term cilm, and not ma'rifah, the latter being used to indicate mystical gnosis as opposed to articulated knowledge, which is science. (18)

Faith and Reason: A Qur'anic Perspective

The basic harmony of faith and reason is also manifested in the Qur'an through a series of exclusions which seek to clarify the correct from the misleading means and avenues of knowledge. These are manifested in at least four contexts, which may be summarised as follows: (19)

(a) Rejection of conjecture (al-zann) vis-a-vis certitude (al-yaqin):

This is a basic guideline that the Qur'an advocates not only in religious disputation but also in the context of learning, testimony and adjudication, and indeed in most other areas of human relations. Although certainty remains the ideal standard of knowledge, conjecture that inclines toward probability is nevertheless accepted as a basis of judgment in practical human affairs (mu'amalat), such as in court decisions that are often based on zann, for want of certainty, in order to facilitate resolution of disputes among people.

The Qur'an precludes conjecture and probability as a basis of belief, as faith must be based in conviction, which precludes zann. To this effect the text takes its deniers to task, for their blind faith in what is no more than conjecture: ... they follow not aught but conjecture, and surely conjecture avails nothing against the truth (Q. 53: 28). Conjecture in this verse, as in many other verses of the Qur'an (cf., Q. 10: 36; 6:116), is used in contradistinction to knowledge ('ilm, yaqin), and it is 'ilm acquired through hearing, seeing and reason that command acceptance. This is what the believers are instructed in another verse to ...follow not that of which you have no knowledge ('ilm). Surely the hearing and the sight and the heart are all accountable. (Q. 17: 36).

(b) Rejection of passion and untrammelled desire (hawa'):

Qur'anic references to hawab occur in contradistinction to correct guidance and truth. Thus it is provided in an address to the Prophet-King David: O David! We made you a vicegerent in the earth so that you judge among people with truth, and follow not the passion that sways you away from the path of God (Q. 38: 26).

Confusion that can be caused by passion, whether consisting of love, hatred or anger etc., can be so powerful as to obfuscate rational judgment. The basic message of this verse is that the best qualified of judges, even prophets, are not immune to the influence of hawa'. Equally clear is also the point that knowledge and truth must be pursued and vindicated through reasonable methods that are not influenced by personal sentiment and passion. The extensive influence of hawa' is elsewhere indicated in the Qur'an, which provided in an address to Prophet Muhammad: Have you seen (the predicament of) one who chooses for his god his own passion? Would you then be a guardian over him? (Q. 25: 43).

Passion can dominate a person's outlook totally in which case truth and reason can have but little place in his order of priorities. The Prophet Muhammad has been repeatedly warned as to the little or no impact his teachings could make on such persons. This evidence sustains the conclusion that rationality is a means to knowledge, discovery of truth, and justice only when it is not tainted by the vagaries of hawa'.

(c) Rejection of blind imitation:

Islam's outlook on reason is also based on its intrinsic merit that is inspired by nothing less than conviction, as opposed to blind imitation of the custom and legacy of the past. The objectivity of reason is to be ensured by its independence from conventional practice which does not necessarily provide correct knowledge and guidance. The past must be judged in the light of reason and rejected if it is found misleading. To this effect, the Qur'an has recounted the attitude of its deniers and the typical response they have given to the Prophet Muhammad: Nay, we follow the way of our ancestors- even if their ancestors did not know nor were they rightly guided (Q. 5:104; also 2:170). This was also the response that Prophet Abraham and many other prophets received from idol-worshipers but the text retorted it in such terms: both you and your ancestors were clearly misguided (Q. 21:52; 7:70; 11:87). These references to past events and prophets are made with a view to underline a certain continuity of values, and in this instance, also to confirm that knowledge and truth stand on their own merit independently of custom and convention of the past.

(d) Rejection of oppressive dictatorship:

The Qur'an takes to task those who indiscriminately obey arrogant dictators who are themselves averse to enlightenment and truth. Thus it is provided that the plea of those who say on the Day of Judgment: O our Lord! Surely we obeyed our princes and great men, but they misled us (Q. 33: 66) will have no merit. This is because, as the text explains, they rejected the correct guidance when it was conveyed to them. In another verse, the text refers to the Pharaoh who misled his people: We sent Moses with our signs and clear evidence unto Pharaoh and his chiefs, but they followed Pharaoh's command which failed to give the right guidance (Q. 11: 96). In another verse it is stated that the Pharaoh persuaded his people to make light (of Moses), and they obeyed him. They were none other but a wanton folk (Q. 43: 54).

People are thus advised to use their own judgment and distinguish between guidance and misguidance in the light of reason. This is because they themselves, and not their self-styled leaders, would ultimately be held responsible. The intrinsic value of truth and knowledge must therefore remain unaffected by the indulgent claims of oppressive men who often seek to subjugate others for their own selfish interests.

Muhammad 'Abduh (d.1905) held that there is no necessary conflict between religion and science. Both are founded in reason, and both study natural phenomena, albeit from different angles. Since the Qur'an encourages the Muslims to study and investigate the universe, Islam should be considered as a friend, not the enemy, of science. cAbduh also observed that there was nothing against true Islam in modern civilisation and science, provided that Islam was rightly understood and rightly expressed.

In saying this 'Abduh emphasized those Islamic tenets and principles which are fundamental to Islam and are not meant to be of local and temporary application. (20)

The Impact of Secularism

It seems that the affirmative stance of Islam on scientific inquiry and method created a basic attitude of receptivity to modern/western influences in the spheres of education, the legal profession and the judiciary. Notwithstanding the many questions that were asked as to whether western secular methods should be accepted in Islam's traditional center's of learning, that resistance has gradually diminished and significant changes have been made to educational curricula and methods in Islamic schools and universities. Reforms of this kind continued to be undertaken even decades after the end of colonial rule in some Muslim countries.

Public education in Muslim countries, including scientific education, was brought by colonial powers who replaced the Islamic educational system that prevailed earlier, or else the new methods were superimposed on an under-layer of the traditional system that still remained operative. The western approach to education basically precluded religion from the purview of science and led to inevitable conflict with it. The product of that combination was duality and bifurcation between the old and the new, a colonial legacy which persists to this day in the educational system of many Muslim countries. It has proved difficult to blend the two systems into an integrated whole, despite the fact that policy makers in Muslim countries have often tried to achieve that.

The Western scientific approach to liberal education can be seen in the 1946 Harvard Committee Report entitled General Education in a Free Society, which divides knowledge into three categories: natural sciences, humanities, and social studies. General education is expected to develop certain capabilities of the mind which are "to think effectively, to communicate thought, to make relevant judgments [and] to discriminate among values." (21)

Effective thinking is described as having three phases: logical, rational and imaginative. Logical thinking is applicable to practical matters such as whom to vote for and whom to befriend; it is also the ability to extract universal truths from particular cases and infer the particular from the general. It is manifested in the ability to analyse a problem and recombine its relevant elements with the help of imagination.

By rational thinking, the Report means the ability to think at a level appropriate to a problem. The Report adds that making relevant value judgment involves the ability of the student to bear a whole range of ideas upon the area of experience. "Discrimination among values" means the ability to distinguish various kinds of values, aesthetic, moral and intellectual and then to commit oneself to such values in the conduct of life.

(22) The Report excludes metaphysical knowledge and religious studies from the sphere of knowledge, and confines the attention of educationists to a concept of man for whom belief in God, or even pursuit of knowledge beyond the domain of the senses does not have any special significance. One commentator noted that by ignoring religious studies the Report failed to appreciate the effect of religion on personality and the direction that effective thinking might take as a result of the impact of religion on the whole person. (23)

The view that Islam subordinates science to the teaching of religion finds support in Professor Seyyed Hossein Nasr who wrote that by contrast to the Western world which views the science of nature to be mainly concerned with "quantitative aspects of things," and science is closely identified with technology and its applications, Islamic science "seeks perfection and deliverance." To understand it requires placing oneself within its perspective as a "science of nature which has a different end, and uses different means from those of modern science." The ultimate aim of Islamic science, Nasr added, has always been to relate the corporeal world to its basic spiritual principle which seeks to unite the various orders of reality. (24) "The arts and sciences in Islam are based on the idea of unity" and its aim is to show the inter relatedness of all that exists. In contemplating the unity of the cosmos, man may be led to the unity of the Divine principle, of which the unity of Nature is the image. (25) Professor Nasr's views have been met with some reservation, as one of his critics noted: "For me the true worth of science lies in helping us to understand nature ... We need science and technology not to make us more spiritual, moral and ethical...[but] to make us more productive" and enable us to subdue and manipulate nature. (26) I also have some reservation over the statement that Islamic science has different ends and uses different means compared to modern science. For I started the basic theme of this essay with a hypothesis that the inductive method, being the principal means and tool of modern science, is equally accepted in the Islamic theory of knowledge, be it the arts, the natural sciences or medicine. Soroush is of the view that modern science explains the world as if it was not created by a god, not denying his existence, but rather finding no need to postulate it. It is thus assumed that even if there were a god, science would nonetheless be able to explain the world without relying on his existence. Soroush has thus acknowledged a degree of disharmony between religion and science but added that the tension which exists between them need not be exaggerated. (27) University Press, MA, pp. 39-40.

Secularism is widely regarded as one of the tools, and also a major contribution, of modern science, which stands at odds with spirituality and religion. Yet it is interesting to note that secularism has penetrated public education in the Muslim world especially during the colonial rule and ever since. Secularism is defined as the deliverance of Man "first from religious and then from metaphysical control over his reason and language." Secularism and modernisation both subscribe to a fundamental belief in rationality and scientific thought: Just as Nature is separated from the will of God, Man is 'freed' from the restrictive demands of religion. (28) It would be difficult to claim that Islamic thought can accept secularism as such without some reservations. Yet certain aspects of secularism have been adopted in the Arab world and brought about considerable transformation in its institutions of learning, the judiciary and the status of religious scholars and ulama. It is also manifested elsewhere in the replacement largely of fuqaha' by lawyers, and of religious teachers by trained teachers in modern schools, especially when the kuttab/maktab, the Qur'anic schools, were transformed into modern schools on the Western model, even though the process was gradual and uneven. One of the reservations that may be noted here is as follows: Muslims have adopted many of the premises of secularism without, however, isolating religion from public life. This may be said to be manifested in many of the formal constitutions of Muslim countries which recognise Islam either as the state religion or accord other forms of recognition to its validity and acceptance.

The changes that took place in public education and Islamic institutions of learning were on a wider scale in other parts of the Middle East compared to Egypt, where for various reasons, al-Azhar kept its control over primary education. In the Maghreb, French colonialism divided the education system into a modern sector closely modelled on the French system and another, older sector, based on the kuttab. The transformation was extended with the replacement of the madaris, which used to teach the fiqh, the Qur'an, the hadith and elements of Arabic, by universities applying modern curricula. Drastically revised curricula were later, and somewhat reluctantly, introduced by institutions like al-Azhar, and Zaytuna, perhaps less drastically in the former. But Zaytuna was transformed so much that reduced its status from a university to what is now a part of a modern university, known as the Faculty of Religious Studies. Changes in al-Azhar were not so radical as the new faculties, and their revised curricula still remained under the umbrella of the old al-Azhar principles and traditions.

Turkey under Kamal Ataturk had imported western secular education without even attempting to reform the traditional system. Indonesia, and Malaysia, although Muslim majority countries, almost uncritically accepted secularism or else remained non-committal to the idea of a reformed Islamic educational system beyond retaining religious education as a subject in the curricula of their national schools. Both countries have in the meantime retained their traditional madrassas, some of which have been expanded, and to some extent reformed, in recent decades. (29)

These changes led to a shift from a perception which saw public affairs, society and education through the prism of religion, to one that bore the imprint of modernity, or nahdah (awakening), that implied openness to further modernisation. Changes were often accompanied by social upheavals that took place in Arab and Muslim societies far over a century that affected their education system and the judiciary more than most. The body of ulama was displaced from the leading places it had occupied in public life. The introduction of legal codes in many fields that were previously governed by the fiqh texts added to the marginalised status of the ulama. Formal constitutions introduced on the eve of colonialism in many Muslim and Arab countries were yet other instrument of secularism which articulated the ideas and foundations of the Western nation state in these countries. (30)

Conclusion

The Islamic theory of knowledge is entrenched in the affirmation of both the physical and the metaphysical aspects of reality and truth. Belief in the Oneness of Being, or tawhid, is an article of the Islamic faith and a cornerstone of its epistemology. Yet for Muslims this only adds a dimension to their view of modern science. To identify the religious and scientic truths as of the same provenance tends to overcome the notion of an inherent conflict between religion and science. Science for the believers of Islam cannot, in other words, be pitted against belief in an Omnipotent God. There may be instances of tension between Islam and science, as our discussion has indicated, yet it does not seem to provide a rationally compelling argument for a Muslim to reject God and religion in order to be able to accept science. To see religion and science both as acceptable facets of one's worldview does not necessarily amount to a logical contradiction- from an Islamic viewpoint at least. To accept the metaphysical dimension of reality is an integral aspect of the Islamic worldview, and the Qur'an clearly demands that. In a similar vein, to acknowledge the reality of the human psyche and thought is just as natural as acknowledging his physical existence. This is bound to be ultimately a wholesome and a more meaningful approach to the understanding of reality and a sound foundation, therefore, of a valid epistemology.

It is important, of course, to have a philosophical framework through which to give meaning to the data of sense perception and a sense of coherence to one's understanding of reality, science, and religion. Yet philosophical differences apart, science is often seen for its material advantages and benefits. With the ever-accelerating pace of science and technology in addressing issues of human welfare and need, the utilitarian view of science is increasingly making its presence felt among Muslims and, one would assume, among the humanity at large. This may also be seen as an aspect of science that has the potential of bringing the people together and act as a factor of unity among them, despite their differential philosophical persuasions. Muslims and non-Muslims can surely work together for the advancement of scientific knowledge that is of benefit to humanity, just as they have done so in the past. If the practical utility of technology and science becomes even more evident and compelling, one would not be surprised then to see Muslims embracing more openly the views of Muhammad Abduh, Sayyid Ahmad Khan, and Muhammad Iqbal, who saw a basic harmony between Islam and science as an integral part of the epistemology of the Qur'an.

(1.) Saud, Muhammad (1986), Islam and Evolution of Science, Islamic Research Institute, Islamabad, p.3; Golshani, Mehdi (1989), "Philosophy of Science from the Qur'anic Perspective" in Toward Islamisation of Disciplines, International Institute of Islamic Thought, Herndon, Va, p.75.

(2.) Garudy, Roger (1989), "The Balance Sheet of Western Philosophy in This Century" in Toward Islamisation, n.1, pp.400-1.

(3.) Ashraf, Ali (1985), New Horizons in Muslim Education, Islamic Academy, Cambridge, p.27.

(4.) Afzaal, Ahmad (n.d), "Qur'an and Human Evolution" p.2 of the online article, www.fortunecity.com/brozers/cheshire/170/survival%20(1)html; also see, Ashraf (1985), n. 3, p. 27.

(5.) Both quoted in Hofmann, Murad Wilfred (2002), "Has Islam Missed its Enlightenment?" in The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences, vol. 19, p.9.

(6.) Mutahhari, Murtada "History and Human Evolution" trans. by Alauddin Pazargadi, www.al-islam.org/al-tawhid/2human/evol.htm, p.3.

(7.) Ashraf (1985), n.3, pp. 7-8.

(8.) Iqbal, Muhammad (1982), The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, Muhammad Ashraf, Lahore, pp.3-4. See also Saud (1986), n. 1, p.13.

(9.) Hofmann (2002), n. 4. p. 4.

(10.) Roger Garudy (1989), n. 2, p. 400.

(11.) Ali, Ausaf (1996), Islam, Science and Islamic Social Ethics, Occasional Paper 24, Islamic Research Institute, International Islamic University, Islamabad, n.26, p.18; Soroush, Abdolkarim (2000), Reason, Freedom and Democracy in Islam, tr. and ed. by Mahmud Sadri and Ahmad Sadri, Oxford University Press, New York, p. 50.

(12.) Iqbal, (1982), n. 8, chapter 5.

(13.) The article appears in Selected Papers on Science in Islam published by Pakistan Association for History and Philosophy of Science, Islamabad, 1998, p.51.

(14.) Ibid., p.52.

(15.) Moore, Keith "A Scientist's Interpretation of References to Embryology in the Qur'an", www.quran.org.uk/ieb-quran-embriologylogy.htm.p.1.

(16.) al-Qaradawi, Yusuf (1416/1996), al-'aql wa'l-Ilm fi'l-Qur'an al-Karim, Maktaba Wahba, Cairo, p. 234.

(17.) Al-Azmeh, Aziz (1976), Arabic Thought and Islamic Societies, Routledge Kegan & Paul, London, p. 109.

(18.) Ibid., pp. 109-12.

(19.) Qaradawi (1996), n.13 pp. 250-70.

(20.) Quoted in Siddiqi, Mazharuddin (1982), Modern Reformist Thought in the Muslim World, Islamic Research Institute, Islamabad, pp. 92-3.

(21.) Harvard Committee, General Education, p. 64, quoted in Ashraf, New Horizons, n.3, and pp. 36-37. Physics, chemistry and biology are natural sciences whereas economics, political science and sociology are social sciences, and anthropology, psychology and psychoanalysis are classified as human sciences.

(22.) Ashraf (1985), n. 3, p. 37.

(23.) Ashraf (1985), n.3, p. 38.

(24.) Nasr, Seyyed Hossein (1968), Science and Civilization in Islam, Harvard

(25.) Ibid., p. 22.

(26.) Ali (1996), p. 26.

(27.) Soroush (2000), n.12, p. 122, 161.

(28.) Ashraf (1985), n.3 p. 8-9.

(29.) Al-Azmeh (1996), Islams and Modernities, 2nd edn., Verso Books, London and New York, p. 47; Ashraf (1985), n. 3, pp. 52-3.

30. Ibid., p. 48.

Mohammad Hashim Kamali is Professor of Islamic Law, Faculty of Law, International Islamic University, Jalan Gombak, 53100 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Email: hkamali19@hotmail.com

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Publication Information: Article Title: Islam, Rationality and Science. Contributors: Mohammad Hashim Kamali - author. Journal Title: Islam & Science. Volume: 1. Issue: 1. Publication Year: 2003. Page Number: 115. COPYRIGHT 2003 Center for Islam & Science; COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group