Seek Knowledge! An Obligatory Duty for Muslims!

1. Published: Friday, 26 January, 2007, 10:52 AM Doha Time

Prophet Muhammad sallallaahu 'alaihi wa sallam said: “Seeking knowledge is obligatory upon every Muslim.” (Related by Ibn ‘Adiyy, Al-Bayhaqi and Al-Tabarani). 

Though this Hadith is known and memorised by most Muslims, the essence, the amount, and the kind of knowledge referred to in this Hadith remains misunderstood by many. What are the minimum teachings that every Muslim – male or female – is required to know about his Deen?

A. Types of knowledge in Islam

Muslim scholars classify knowledge into two categories:

1: Obligatory knowledge (fardh ‘ayn): This refers to knowledge of the fundamentals of Islamic beliefs which every Muslim must know. Seeking this knowledge is an obligatory duty upon every Muslim. All obligatory knowledge deal exclusively with al-’Ilm al-Shar’i, that is, knowledge pertaining to Islamic faith, acts of worship, and the necessary transactions in the daily dealings of a Muslim.

2: Optional knowledge (fardh kifayah): This is not a duty required of every individual, but rather it falls upon the community as a whole. Hence, if a group of individuals in the community undertake to acquire this kind of knowledge, all other individuals will be exempted from this duty, and the whole community will be free from responsibility or negligence to acquire this kind of knowledge. Examples of such knowledge include studying Islamic law and other basic sciences, industries and professions which are vital for the welfare of the society.

Unlike obligatory knowledge, optional knowledge covers part of Islamic knowledge and all worldly knowledge. The former is called al-’Ilm al-Shar’i al-Kifa’i (optional Islamic knowledge), while the latter is called al-’Ilm al-dunyawi (worldly knowledge).

a) Religious sciences: These cover all branches of Islamic shari’ah, such as: tafseer (Qur’anic exegeses), fiqh, hadith sciences (known as mustalah al-hadith or ‘Ilm usul al- hadith), seerah (the Prophet’s biography), Islamic political science, (As-siyasah al- shar’iyah), Islamic history, etc.

Each of these sciences may require knowledge of other sciences to cover fully and comprehensively the substance of the matter studied. For example: tafseer needs Arabic grammar, Arabic literature, and other linguistic skills; Hadith sciences need the science of criticism (which looks at the narrators’ credibility, trustworthiness, power of memorisation, etc), called ‘Ilm al-jarh wat-ta’deel.

b) The natural and applied sciences: These are all the basic sciences, industries and professions which are of vital necessity for the welfare of the community. Examples of such fields include: engineering; agriculture, fisheries, food sciences, etc. Leaders of every Muslim community should always do their best to procure the necessary number of scholars, professionals and qualified men and women in all fields of optional knowledge needed by the community. For example, Muslims in a non-Muslim country must train sufficient number of shari’ah scholars to answer questions raised by members of the community. They must also prepare enough educators – administrators, teachers and counsellors to fill the growing needs of Islamic schools in this country. Both male and female Muslim doctors are needed in every city to care for male and female Muslim patients, respectively.

From the above discussion, we can fully understand the responsibility that lies upon the shoulders of Muslims in this continent.

Minimum requirements for Islamic sciences

First, the understanding fundamentals of Iman: This is also called ‘Ilm Usul ud-Deen (Fundamentals of Deen), or ‘Ilm al-Tawheed (the Oneness of Allah), or simply ‘Aqeedah (Islamic faith). Every Muslim must have a general knowledge of all matters pertaining to his faith. He should have a clear understanding of the Lord he worships, the Prophet he follows and the Deen to which he committed himself. Needless to say, one should exert the best of one’s effort to acquire these fundamentals.

Second, understanding Islamic rules and conduct (fiqh al-ahkam): This is also called fiqh al-’Ibadat (understanding of acts of worship). This field covers all aspects of the Islamic acts of worship that are necessary for the correct practice of one’s Salat, Zakat, Sawm, and Haj.
It als covers all aspects of family issues, such as marriage, divorce, children’s education, as well as rules and regulations for one’s business transactions such as, buying, selling, borrowing lending, etc. A Muslim is obligated to learn from fiqh al-ahkam only matters that are related to Ibadah (worship) he need to perform; and rules of a particular transaction he wants to undertake. For example, if a Muslim has not reached the age for prayer or fasting, he does not have to learn about them though he may be encouraged to do so. Also, if one does not have the necessary means to perform Haj, one does not need to learn its rituals until one becomes able to undertake the Haj journey.

By learning those two branches, a Muslim will know His Lord by all His beautiful names and Most High attributes. He will know the status, function and rights of the Prophets. He will follow a similar course when dealing with other required beliefs, such as the belief in the Angels, the Books, the Predetermined Decree, the Last Day, the punishment in the grave, etc. On the other hand, before performing any act of worship, a Muslim should know the requirements, the conditions and the desirable actions pertaining to that act. Hence, He will never practice any act of worship or undertake any transaction not sanctioned by the Qur’an or Sunnah.

Just by contemplating the Islamic knowledge of Muslims today, the reader can realise how much those two disciplines, which are required of every Muslim, have been neglected, if not totally ignored.

Unfortunately, there are many Muslim professors, doctors, and engineers, who hold the most advanced academic or professional positions in their respective institutions, yet do not possess the minimum knowledge of the Islamic sciences. Ironically, while it takes only a few weeks or even a few days to acquire the obligatory Islamic knowledge, it may take at least two years to obtain a basic degree in any worldly field.

Indeed, it is through knowledge and sincerity that one can enter paradise. This is how we can understand the Hadith of our beloved Prophet sallallaahu 'alaihi wa sallam, “Whoever adopts the path of seeking knowledge, Allah eases for him the way to Paradise.” (Related by Ahmad, Al-Tirmidhi, Abu Dawud, Ibn Majah, and Al-Darami).

The following Hadith is a strong reminder for anyone of us whom Allah has blessed with some Islamic knowledge: “Whoever is asked about a knowledge that he knows about and then hides it and keeps it away, he
will be bridled on the Day of Judgment with a bridle of fire.” (Related by Ahmad, Abu Dawud and Al-Trimidhi).

2. Friday speech delivered by Imam Mohamed Baianonie at the Islamic Center or Raleigh, NC on January 21, 2000

Knowledge is the road to Iman belief, and leads the person to fear Allah (S.W.T.). The fear, that is based on knowledge, regulates the person's deeds. Knowledge is the one that leads to fear of Allah, which in turn entices action. Allah (S.W.T.) said in surat Fatir, (Verse 28), what can be translated as, "It is only those who have knowledge among His slaves that fear Allah." Because of that, Allah (S.W.T.) brought the people of knowledge to different higher levels according to their knowledge, For that reason Allah (S.W.T.) raised up the degree of those who have knowledge, He (S.W.T.) said in surat Al-Mujadilah, (Verse 11), what can be translated as, "Allah will exalt in degree those of you who believe, and those who have been granted knowledge."

Knowledge of deen gathers and contains all righteous deeds and it is a sign of acceptance and pleasure of Allah (S.W.T.) with His servant. Imams Bukhari and Muslim reported that the prophet Muhammad (S.A.W.) said: "If Allah wants to do good to a person, He makes him understand and learn the deen."

Knowledge comes before Ibadah and regulates it, so no Ibadah is accepted unless it is based upon correct knowledge. For this reason, the prophet (S.A.W.) considered the person of knowledge to have much higher status than the worshipper. 

The prophet Muhammad (S.A.W.) elevated the one who has knowledge over the worshiper, He (S.A.W.) said in a good hadith reported by Imam At-Tirmithi,"An ‘Aalim (learned person in the deen) is as much superior to an ‘Aabid (Worshiper) as I am superior to the lowest among you." In another hadith reported by Imam Abu-Dawoud and At-Tirmithi, that the prophet Muhammad (S.A.W.) said: 

"An ‘Aalim (learned person in the deen) is as much superior to an ‘Aabid (Worshiper) as the full moon is superior to all stars."

The prophet (S.A.W.) considered seeking knowledge obligatory upon every Muslim, male or female. His teaching included all with no exception. Even the women took their share in seeking knowledge. Imam Bukhari reported that some woman requested the prophet (S.A.W.) to fix a day for them as the men were taking all his time. On that he promised them one day for lessons, so he preached and commanded them…"

Shyness did not prevent the women from seeking knowledge. Imam Bukhari reported that A'isha (R.A.) said: "The best woman are the woman of ansar because their shyness did not stop them from learning the deen."

The companions of the prophet were very eager to seek knowledge. They use to ask the prophet about every matter in their lives, and the prophet (S.A.W.) used to answer them with what Allah (S.W.T.) had taught him with humbleness and kindness.

The companions of the prophet (S.A.W.) used to alternate and rotate going to the Masjid of the prophet (S.A.W.) so that they do not put off their worldly work and nothing of seeking knowledge slips away. 

Umar (R.A.) is one example. Imam Bukhari reported that Umar Bin Alkhattab (R.A.) said: "My Ansari neighbor and I used to live far away from the masjid of the prophet (S.A.W.), and we used to visit the prophet (S.A.W.) by turns. He used to go one day and I go another day. When I went I used to bring him the news of that day regarding the revelation and other thing, and when he went, he used to do the same for me…"

Even the Bedouins used to travel a long distance to Madinah to seek knowledge by asking the prophet (S.A.W.). Imam Bukhari reported that Dimam bin Tha'labah came riding on a camel. He made his camel kneel down in the mosque, tied its foreleg and then said: "Who amongst you is Muhammad? At that time the prophet was sitting among his companions leaning on his arm. The companions replied, "This white man leaning on his arm. The man then addressed him. "O son of Abdl Muttaleb, I want to ask you something and will be hard in questioning. So do not get angry. The prophet said: "Ask whatever you want…" (Then the Bedouin, asked him many questions, and the prophet (S.A.W.) answered them all.)

The prophet (S.A.W.) ordered his companions who learned to teach others even if it is little. Imam Bukhari reported that the prophet Muhammad (S.A.W.) said: "Convey on my behalf even if it is only a verse (of the Qur'an)…"

Also Imam At-Termithi reported a good hadith that the prophet Muhammad (S.A.W.) said: "May Allah prosper the affairs of a person who hears something from us and communicates it to others exactly as he has heard it. Many a man to whom something is convened retains it in his memory and understands it better than the one who has heard it."

The prophet (S.A.W.) warned from keeping knowledge secret. 

Imams At-Tirmithi and Abo Dawud reported a good hadith that the prophet Muhammad (S.A.W.) said: "He who is asked about knowledge and conceals it, will be bridled with a bridle of fire on the Day of Resurrection."

The companions of the prophet (S.A.W.) were keen on seeking knowledge and spreading it during the life of the prophet (S.A.W.) and after. They traveled in the land to teach people and became within less than a quarter of a century the strongest Ummah on the face of the earth with what they had carried from the knowledge of deen and the knowledge the worldly life. With that, they became prosperous and the whole humanity became prosperous. This prosperity remained for so many centuries that history could not ignore. Many scientific remains in all aspects of science are still around.

Regression of this Muslim Ummah then started sometime in its history. This regression closely accompanied the attitude of laziness and carelessness and turning away from knowledge, so ignorance started to spread in place of knowledge until this Ummah became the most backward Ummah.

To revive this Ummah and empower it again with knowledge and leadership that it once had, we must spread the correct knowledge of the deenuAllah (S.W.T.) because from this knowledge stems all other knowledge. And it is a must that we take practical steps to achieve this.

We ask Allah (S.W.T.) to help us to seek knowledge and to bless us with sincerity in our sayings and deeds. O Allah! Increase our knowledge. "Ameen

Read Full: http://www.scribd.com/doc/6890606/Seeking-knowledge-is-obligatory

 http://islam1.org/khutub/Seek_Knowledge.htm

The Real Islamic Economics: A Radical Alternative

Dr. Asad Zaman

The creation, progress, and continued growth of numerous Islamic Financial Institutions is clearly the most important way in which the nascent discipline of Islamic Economics has influenced the real world. Nonetheless, the author shares with numerous other researchers and practitioners the impression that these institutions represent the impact of modernity on Islam, rather than conversely.

That is Islamic principles have been (and are in process of) being modified to accommodate modem institutions.  To the extent that Islamic Financial Institutions represent the reshaping of Islamic Laws in accordance with the demands of modernity, these represent the failure rather than the success of Islamic Economics. I propose to discuss below only the developments in Islamic Economic Theory.

Among contributors to the literature, it is widely agreed upon that Islamic Economics, with its concern for justice, equity, poverty, and its multidimensional conception of human development (not confined to income & material wealth) represents a paradigm shift and a radical alternative to conventional neoclassical views.

The existing literature in Islamic Economics does not reflect this radical perspective. Numerous papers introduce Islamic concepts entirely within a neoclassical framework, or else make minor adjustments to it, and therefore cannot from a basis for a paradigm shift. Another set of papers discusses the radical concepts offered by Islam in a general philosophical way, without offering any means of operationalizing these concepts. 

This is where I believe our biggest failure lies. Even though Islam offers us critical insights in the domain, we have failed to make these insights operational. Islam urges the feeding of the poor, and condemns those who do not do this. Even issues central to Islamic economics,  such as the effects of Zakat on poverty, have been addressed in a general theoretical and argumentative way, with little attention to empirical effects, and operational method of efficient utilization of Zakat funds for poverty alleviation.

According to the Quran, wealth should not become concentrated in a few hands - rather it should circulate freely.  Islamic teachings place a lot of emphasis on spending in the path of Allah. Muslims have not made any systematic study of charity behavior of Muslims, nor have they made any comparative studies of Muslim and non-Muslim societies with regard to charity contributions Muslim economics put forth the concept of Homo Is/amicus and suggested that actual human behavior is guided by motives other than pure self interest.

However no empirical evidence on this issue was offered. Behavioral and Experimental economists demonstrated that in many situations, human beings" will accept personal loss for achieving broader goals such as justice, equity etc., contrary to neoclassical teachings.

From the beginning, Islam has been substantially more concerned with spiritual and moral development of human beings, and not so much with material development. While these ideals were duly espoused in the literature, no operational or empirical aspects were developed. Other researchers developed the Human Development Index, as well as the Capacities approach to development to bring in these multidimensional components of development. The areas listed above represent failures in the following precise sense. 

Over the same period of time that we were engaged in the development of Islamic Economics, others developed, launched and established active research programs, which have had substantial influence, in many of the fields listed above. In each case, the research programs ran counter to established orthodoxy and faced resistance from conventional economists. In each case, Muslim Economists were there first with the ideas, but failed to make them operational, and did not participate in or influence the secular research programs that did translate these ideas into workable concept.

When it comes to theory, it seems clear that there has been no real progress in the area. We have no consensus as to what the field is, what its guiding principles are, what the methodology should be, what Islamic Economists are trying to achieve. Numerous people have written on these subjects and expressed their views with varying degrees of eloquence and conviction, but no consensus has emerged. The words of Umer Chapra, a leading luminary in the field, succinctly summarize the ills that plague Islamic Economics. It has been unable to suggest a balanced package of policy proposals in the light of Islamic teachings to enable Muslim countries to perform the difficult task of reducing their imbalances and simultaneously actualizing the Islamic vision. Moreover, its theoretical core has also thus far been unable to come out of the straitjacket of conventional economics, which takes into account primarily the economic variables that are measurable and generally avoids a discussion of the complex historical interplay of moral, psychological. economic, social. and political factors.

Islamic economics has thus "failed to escape the centripetal pull of Western economic thought, and has in many regards been caught in the intellectual web of the very system it set out to replace (Nasr, 1991, p. 388). It is thus unable to explain the difference in the performance of various societies with respect to overall human well-being.

The vast majority of current literature on Islamic economics is in fact structured around a critique of neoclassical theories, and the development of some alternatives which are mostly grounded in neoclassical assumptions and methodology. To escape the "centripetal pull" of neoclassical thought, we must build our camp in a distant location, and work together to achieve "escape velocity." This means radically modifying the existing methodology for the development Islamic economics. Proposals in this direction are put forth in the next section.

An important aspect of the lackluster past performance of Islamic economics is the failure to develop consensus and teamwork. Nearly all of the leaders in the field have their own unique approach to the subject while sharing a broad general approach based on Islam, they differ substantially on the details of how it should be implemented. A research program, like a building, requires teamwork with large numbers of participants working together on a common vision. In contrast, researchers in Islamic economics have all been placing bricks in different locations, with no two bricks being placed one on top of the other.

To achieve synergy, we need to have consensus. I believe it is essential for us to work from problems to theory instead of the other way around. We should look for a real world problem to solve, and then develop theory as part of a solution to this problem. Muslims economists must get involved in the problems of their communities as well as the larger problems faced by their nation and the Ummah as a whole. Each university should have-detailed knowledge of poverty in the neighborhood, and Muslim students should be actively involved in attempts to solve these problems. Theories about poverty should be assessed in order of their relevance to the solution of the problems.

In implementing the goal described above, it is crucial not to fall into the trap of defining our problems to be those that Western economists and policy makers see as our problems. For Western economists, the issues are "privatization", "Gender Equality & Female Education," "Democratization" and transition to modernity in general. We must set our own agenda. Our problems must be those that the Quran and Sunnah define as problems. For example, consider the "role of government" which continues to be a highly contested area between liberals and conservatives in the West. In Islamic teachings there is substantial consensus on the roles and responsibilities of the government (provision of justice, basic needs, and well defined roles in terms of taxation, provisions of services, defense, market regulation, etc.). There is a well developed theory of market regulation (Hisbah) which has no parallel in Western theory.

As spiritual development is at the heart of Islamic teachings, the core of Islamic Economics should be the efforts to strengthen faith, with resultant impacts on reduction/removal of corruption, development of an attitude of service and fellow feeling, all of which would substantially impact on economic prospects.

Western methodology suggests that theoreticians  should not get their hands dirty some perspective is needed for neutrality and emotion tree evaluation. As Muslims, we must reject this methodological principle. We should require translation of all theories into practical recipes. Our Prophet s.a.w. demonstrated the applied orientation of his teaching on many occasions.

Another common problem of Muslim countries is the post-colonial bureaucratic structure. In the colonized world, administrative structures were designed mainly for generation and collection of revenue trom the people, and its transport to the imperialist powers. They were not meant to serve the people in any real way. Post colonial governments typically continue in this tradition, exploiting the people to serve material interests of the people in power. Muslims are praised in the Quran as those who decide their affairs by "Shoora" or consultation - that is, decision making processes must be responsive to the needs of the people. How can we transition trom present oppressive and exploitative structures to Islamic ones? When students are motivated to solve problems, they will get a much better grasp of the strengths and weaknesses of economic theories as instruments which help solve these problems. 

The most urgent problem that we face as economists is the existence of massive resources, the phenomenal concentration of wealth into a few hands, together with large scale hunger and poverty. We should join hands with efforts to solve these global problems of inequity. We should strive to work for practical solutions, along the lines recommended by Quran and Sunnah. We should work on implementing the orders of Allah in the economic domain in Muslim societies.. In the course of solving practical problems we face, we will develop (and if necessary borrow) tools, techniques, and theories that we need. 

To develop Islamic economics, we need teamwork. This can only be built around the Quran and Sunnah. To establish Islamic economics as a viable discipline, we need to show a successful example. We have to show the world what Islam can do in the economic domain, rather than talk about it. This involves showing (for example) how Zakat can play a role in eliminating poverty instead of discussing the theory of this, Muslim economists must get involved in the nitty gritty of it - practical problems faced in identifying the poor, political problems in getting the money to the target population, etc. We must involve our students in this as well. We can borrow Western theories when they are useful to solve the practical economic problems being faced by our societies.

Read full paper: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/searchq=cache:KZbM0fEZiYkJ:www.pafkiet.edu.pk/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket%3DfDo%252FqxwBFao%253D%26tabid%3D152%26mid%3D1553+islamic+economics+%2B+modernity&hl=en&gl=pk

Asad Zaman: https://sites.google.com/site/asaduzaman/

Other Papers by Author: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=289526

Asad Zaman is a Professor at International Institute of Islamic Economics, at the International Islamic University of Islamabad.

He has previously taught at University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University, Johns Hopkins and Cal. Tech, as well as at Bilkent University in Turkey and at LUMS, Lahore. He was elected to the Council of the Econometric Society in 2004.

He is the author of an advanced graduate econometrics textbook, Statistical Foundations for Econometric Techniques, published by Academic Press in 1996. He is the managing editor of International Econometrics Review. His current research interests include foundational issues for

probability, econometrics and economic theory. He is also working on developing new approaches to Islamic economics, based on cooperation and generosity, as an alternative to conventional economics, which is based on competition and greed.

Islam: An Irrational Legalism?

Tim Winter (Abdul Hakim Murad)

Muslim commentators often wish to champion the revelation as a supreme advocate of reason.

God’s word, the Book, as speech (nu~q), is the very ground and guarantor of logic (man~iq), and the Book is itself a set of arguments accessible to the mind (although definitions of ‘mind’ have, as we will see, widely diverged). Nineteenth and twentieth-century apologists were especially concerned to show the Qur’an as the quintessence of aql, or intellect.

Such polemics were reactive against a European belief in ‘Oriental unreason’. Although in the eighteenth century it was not uncommon for Europeans to compare Islam favourably with Catholic ‘superstition and obscurantism’, the racial and imperial confidences of the nineteenth century inverted the image. Ernest Rénan, riding the warhorse of European triumphalism, had attacked Islam as a kind of intensified Judaism, an irrational legalism which rejected the spirit of reason and needed to be fought without mercy. Hence the Muslim apologist’s retort that Islam is quintessentially reasonable, a view which also drew strength from the growing polemic against Sufism, understood in Suhrawardi’s sense as an escape from the city of reason to the wilderness where God can be found.

Bulaç has documented the recurrence of this Islam/rationality trope as perhaps the most characteristic apologetic theme in modern Islam, in Turkey and elsewhere. In the Western milieu, many converts to Islam claim that they are attracted to what they regard as its clear, rationally-accessible teachings, unobscured by elaborate mysteries.

Non-Muslim academic accounts, now frequently draw attention to the central role of reason in Islamic theology.  Josef Van Ess: All these attempts, Muslim and non-Muslim, to portray Islam as the reasonable religion par excellence root themselves in the Qur’anic text. ‘The Qur’an does indeed,’ says Leaman, ‘display an unusual commitment to argument and logic in its self-explanation,’ and a systematic exploration of this has very recently been offered by Rosalind Gwynne. Here, however, lies the great fault-line in modern Islam, whose origins are ancient, pre-dating in some respects the religion itself.

Modern fundamentalist tendencies, emanating frequently from Saudi Arabia and tracing their

ancestry to the scriptures via Ibn Taymiya (d.1328), reject formal dialectics, while not accepting a self-definition as ‘irrationalist’. For such thinkers, all important truth, which is to say, truth which saves, is necessarily explicit in the Book, from which ‘We have omitted nothing’ (6:38).  Scripture is ‘clear’ (mubÏn), and God has not burdened humanity with the demand to evolve elaborate metaphysical interpretations either of His evidences in nature, or in the specific revelation of the Qur’an. Those who do so are guilty of underestimating both the clarity of the Book, and the benign intentions of a God who wishes all to be saved, including those incapable of following a syllogism.

Both advocates and enemies of reason base their positions in scripture. Who is normative? One way of answering might be to point to the unpopularity of Ibn Taymiya’s  Hanbalite fideism, and to the centrality of sophisticated philosophical theology in the medieval madrasa curriculum. Most scholars voted with their feet, and welcomed the logic-based theologies which, finally schematised by Razi, traced their roots back to early Islam’s need to deploy reason against schismatics.

Yet the recent revival of  Hanbalite and Taymiyan fortunes, rooted in an understanding of the intentions of scripture, cannot be dismissed so easily as un-Qur’anic. Any attempt at an arbitration must consider the texts themselves.

The Qur’an is, like any prophetic deliverance, a staccato, ecstatic, collocation of insights. Famously, but not uniquely (one thinks of the Psalms, for instance, or Oriental lectionaries, or most collections of poetry), it does not respect any thematic sequence. Despite Gwynne’s insights, most Muslims experience it not as a set of arguments, but as a dithyramb which irresistibly transforms the soul.

The  account, describing an illiterate woman in India, gives an excellent sense of this. Scripture (kitab) seems to imply writing, and there is a way in which its writing’s form unveils reality in a way that transcends reason. But even more significant has been aurality and a receptivity to the mantic voice of the Unlimited. The illiterate woman of Delhi, finding truth in the Arabic cursive mysteries, is wholly Islamic, but is less representative than the auditor of Qur’anic cantillation, the Islamic art, that is to say, mediator of the sacred, par excellence. Here is Isabelle Eberhardt, in Algiers.

This is the Qur’an as healing (17:82), a balm for hearts. The scripture seems to imply that our tragedy is an ignorant alienation from the Real, wherein lies all wholeness and appropriateness, and that only Heaven can send down the rain which revives the hearts.

Whether it saves through its calligraphy or its cantillation, the Book does not seem to be saving through reason; it does not deny it, but it insists on ‘descending upon your heart’ (2:97), for its Author is not reached by the faculties of perception (6:103).

Islam has a historic hospitality to Platonism, regretted by modernist advocates of a supposed Averroist rationalism, but noted in detail by Henry Corbin and others; and this is to be attributed not only to the Platonic resolution of all diversity to the One Source, so congenial to Islam’s rejection of a triune or other differentiation within the Godhead; but also to the sense that, as in the Timaeus, the One is manifest aesthetically and, particularly, musically, in the ground of creation. Ion, in the early dialogue with Socrates, acknowledges that as a singer of poems he is an instrument played upon by a supernatural power. And the Prophet Muhammmad, like him, is an Aeolian harp: the wind plays him, while his personhood contributes nothing; the Voice is therefore the pure sound of the Unseen. The Qur’an, a web of ‘signs’, is in this rather Platonic sense understood as the voice of the divine substrate of creation; it is the true music of the spheres. The ascent to the One, therefore, is not through the logic-chopping powers of our ‘dingy clay’, but through acquiring a true and loving ear that can properly hear this music. Could it be that the very existence of prophecy, which the scripture proclaims as necessary to man’s salvation, indicates that human reason, unaided, cannot reach truth? Is this the crux of the argument not only between Plato and Aristotle, but between Athens and Jerusalem?

The Qur’an is so replete that Ibn Rushd, the iconic Arab ‘rationalist’, can use its verses as examples of rational induction; and modern Muslim advocates of reason can and do use it to dispel mystical fancies. But the fact of its origin in the empyrean has made it also the religion’s theophany of theophanies, a mystic fact, whose very shape or sound inspires an ecstasy that seems to show God more fully than any logical inference ever could.

The Qur’an, then, seems to be the authentic root of two disciplines whose mutual relations are controversial: formal systematic theology (kal¥m), and Sufism (tasawwuf). Sufism is typically absent from the madrasa curriculum, which gives pride of place to kal'am. And kal'am presents itself as a fiercely rationalistic discipline, according to some more so even than Islamic philosophy (falsafa). A standard kalam text such as Taft¥z¥nÏ’s (d.1390) Shar^ al-¢Aq¥’id devotes three quarters of its length to systematic metaphysics (il¥hiyy¥t), with the remainder dedicated to issues of prophecy and the afterlife which can only be demonstrated through revelation. Such texts defined orthodoxy; yet they seem to have been less influential upon the minds of most Muslims than the passionate Sufism of the likes of Rumi, whose pessimism about kalam is evident.

Here we are faced with an evolving tension within classical Islamic intellectual life and society of a kind which required – and occasionally delivered – brilliant reformers. It is striking that only in a few texts do we observe an attempt to provide a grand synthesis of the two approaches, which we might, to borrow European terminology, describe as the logical and the passional. Ghazali (d.1111) is the most obvious, and successful, example. Other claimants would include Ibn ArabÏ (d.1240), Ibn Kemal (d. 1534), Shah Wali Allah al-Dihlawi (d.1762), and Sait Nursi (d. 1960), before we enter the purely modern period, where such synthetic theologies have been challenged by modernists and fundamentalists, both of whom, for different reasons, are uneasy with mysticism and kalam.

This synthetic renewal, which often draws in individuals acclaimed as the ‘renewers’ (mujaddid) of their centuries, is a key dynamic in Islamic religion and history. Hence tendencies perceived as erroneous, or even heretical, may be helpfully understood as the result of an imbalance towards one type of epistemology at the expense of the other.

Sachiko Murata and William Chittick have reflected extensively on this inner Islamic metabolism, identifying kalam with the principle of drawing inferences about God as Transcendence (tanzih); and Sufism with the principle of experiencing God as Immanence (tashbih); the dyadic categorisation of divine names as Names of Rigour and Names of Beauty is one outcome. Their conclusion is that these two inexorable consequences of the postulate of monotheism run like twin constants through Islamic religious history. Each is allocated its own realm, form of discourse, and even, on occasion, ritual life and structured authority.

To assess the case we have been making about Islam, we need to set aside as unnecessarily complicated any consideration of the debates in classical Islam about the role of reason and inspiration in metaphysics, and focus on the early period, when this tension did not exist.

Before the third century, it was not customary to record inner experiences and ‘unveilings’, and it is therefore not always easy to discern how these interacted with other registers of religious discourse. However it is likely that a close integration was normal. This was certainly the case with regard to the balance between ‘reason and revelation’, which, again, were not experienced as dichotomous in the first two centuries. The Mu'tazilite theologians who emerged towards the end of this period seem to have been the first to have proposed such a tension ('aql against naql, or tradition), and although the theologians decided against Mu'tazilism on the grounds of its tendency to expand human freedom in a way which radically curtailed the power of God, this Mu'tazilite polarity remained a theme, proving its worth in several autonomously Sunni contexts. In primal Islam, the word 'aql thus had a supple, comprehensive meaning.

In a hadith, the Holy Prophet provides a principle that later underlay juridical definitions of human accountability (taklif): ‘The Pen does not record the works of three people: one sleeping until he awakes, the one who is mentally unsound until he regains his sanity (hatt¥ ya'qil), and the child before maturity.’ In a similar hadith we read: ‘Four [types shall be excused] on the Day of Resurrection: a deaf man who could hear nothing, a stupid person [a^maq], a senile man, and someone who died in the period [fatra] between the decline of one religion and the arrival of the next.’ Here the prophetic voice explains that consciousness is what defines our status as human beings. 'aql is what makes us human, and distinguishes us from other orders of creation for which there will be no judgement. The implication is clear that the unreached, who had no access to prophecy, still possess 'aql, but may still be saved: what is required is a full assent based on knowledge.

Prophetic teaching also insists that 'aql survives death, and this became a feature of Muslim belief concerning consciousness before resurrection while remaining in the grave. ‘God’s Messenger, may God bless him and grant him peace, once mentioned the angel that asks questions of the dead, and Umar asked: “O Messenger of God, shall our minds [¢uq‰l] be restored to us?”, to which he replied, “Yes, they shall be just as they are today.”’

A further meaning of intelligence comes in a hadith in which the Companions are instructed on the correct position of the body during worship. ‘God’s Messenger, may God bless him and grant him peace, used to touch our shoulders before the Prayer, saying: “Form straight lines! Do not stand unevenly, lest your hearts be at odds! Let those of you who have minds and intelligence [ulu’l-a^l¥m wa’l-nuh¥] follow me.”’

In other hadiths, a more abstract portrayal of the aql is evident. ‘When God created the aql, he commanded it to come – and it came. Then He commanded it to move away – and it moved away. Then he declared: “I have created nothing nobler than you. It is through you that I take, and through you that I give.”

However such confidences, rooted in the judgement that Islam’s immutable liturgy and values coupled with an uncomplicated and reasonable monotheism, must eventually allow it to prevail over its rivals in the post- Christian battle for hearts and minds, must be moderated by an awareness of the continued strength of literalist radicalism and other unmistakeable signs of Muslim decadence.

The contemporary turn away from kalam and spirituality, and of the great synthetic renewals which reintegrated Islam’s various disciplines, has produced a fragmented and impoverished Muslim intellectuality and spiritual style which, one may foretell, will not long resist the same secularising tendencies which have caused the atrophy of European Christianity.

Islam, which seems called to be Europe’s spiritual and intellectual deliverance following the postmodern collapse of Enlightenment reason and the rise of the new barbarian principle of hedonistic individualism and predatory capitalism, must overcome this internal degeneration as a matter of urgency. Providentially, with a Sunni revival evident on all sides, the atmosphere currently gives reason to believe that the normative will prevail.

Tim Winter, University Lecturer in Islamic Studies, Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge

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