Dîn, Modernism, Evolution, Science & Transcendence

Omar K N

1.1 Definition of tradition

Therefore according to how we understand the concept from its etymological root: tradere (deliver, transmit) - Tradition has nothing to do with peoples' usages or customs from old, but is understood as *revealed* tradition, that is truths and principles of divine order revealed or unveiled to mankind.

“Tradition is essentially of "super-human" origin, which is quite exactly also its correct definition and nothing traditional cannot be qualified as such without the presence of this vital and axial* foundational element, which defines its own authentic character.”

“Nothing which is purely human can be considered traditional, that is why it is wrong - as René Guénon rightly says - to talk about a "philosophic tradition" or a "scientific tradition"... because only the heritery forms of an uninterrupted chain of transmission (silsilah) deserve the qualification "traditional" for they will guarantee the reality and permanence of the "vital element", ie. that of non-human origin, inside a particular tradition.” DRG

Or to put in another way: Tradition is the light with which the human kind has been endowed with from the beginning of times to the end of it; it is the light of meaning in an otherwise meaningsless void, it is the light of spiritual guidance in a materialistic and hedonistic era, it is the light of the Logos shining upon the contingent entities. This Light is from God, the light of the heavens and earth.

In the case of Islam, which is the most recent - and the last of traditions, the concept of tradition, the dîn, is seen as being twofold:

• in its general meaning the transmission of an element of the suprahuman level - the Qur'an,
• and in its specific sense the words and sayings reported from Prophet Muhammad  may Allah bless him and grant him peace, which have been recorded in the hadith collections together with the entire Islamic religion.

2.1 Modernism & postmodernism

In modernism it was believed that materiality or phenomena was everything there is and that it is superiour to anything else. This philosophy of science is called positivism - it is a rejection of metaphysics, as it holds that the goal of knowledge is simply to describe the phenomena that we experience, which we can observe and measure and nothing beyond that. 

In some quarters there was still an underlying, dormant longing for the construction or discovery of the Grand Design (4*), meaning a new unity of being, of what reality really is, but a unity which had to do without religion and metaphysics. ( 2.3ff  )

(4*) Probing the "Grand Design, in posing the greatest questions: How vast is the Universe, the entirety of existence? Was there a beginning? Will there be an end? What is the origin and fate of the Universe?" 
< From "Cosmology: A Cosmic Perspective" >

However, as Charles Upton has shown ( SAC-33 ) 
in postmodernism it is always held (as a conviction or belief ?!) that:
(1) there is no Grand Design,
(2) truth is plural and ultimately subjective,
(3) reality is only as it is configured,
(4) there is nothing out there but chaotic potential.
So much for the quest for truth! ( 2.2  )

Furthermore, with today's "celebration of diversity", normal logical thinking seems to have evaporated from many a contemporary mind, as modernism and postmodernism even can work together, or so it seems, in the mind of a single individual, confounding it and neutralizing any attempt toward a traditional or metaphysical view of reality! SAC 

____So much so that by now "modernism has become nothing more than a sub-set, one more disrelated item in the postmodern spectrum of "diversity" ." SAC-34/5

2.5.5 Man did not 'evolve'

As long as man has lived on this earth he has had a traditional outlook or perspective on life, which is proven by the many old cultural remnants, not the least his holy scriptures. It was then that he relied on the Higher Being, God, Allah and lived under His protection and guidance. Man has never only been an individual with a brain without heart, nor just a heap of molecules in a DNA-structure, meaning that the mind is luckily more than nerve-threads and electrical signals. Instead man has a potential for knowing God and his soul and for choosing what is better in any given situation, or creative of the most beautiful, - as God's viceregent.

The traditional outlook on life is opposed to the modern or postmodern way of seeing reality, in fact the two are irreconcilable. Man has always been man, he did not have to evolve from some lower being, from an ape or a fish ... The idea of bringing out the higher from the lesser is a modern myth, it is both illogical and unscientific! 

____Imagine a piece of computer evolving - by accident - from its integrated IC-circuits, from its bits and zeros into the practical machine which it is - without the mind to design it and programme it! How much less is this conceivable in the - much more complex - biological domain of life itself !

Or the words of Charles Upton:
"The projection of this false myth of progress on biology results in the ideology known as 'evolutionism', the doctrin that the less is the causal origin of the greater, that the higher and more complex life forms, including man, have developed incrementally from simpler forms. The Traditionalists, on the other hand, teach that the advent of new life forms, which the fossil record shows to be more discontinuous than continuous - thus calling Darwin's 'natural selection of random mutations' into serious question - actually represents the descent of matter-organizing spiritual archetypes from the higher planes of Being, in response to God's creative word. These 'Platonic Ideas' of species then draw themselves the matter they need in order to construct physical vehicles for their life in space and time." SAC-105

2.4.2 Principles Are Necessary to Transcend the Human Level

However, doctrines and principles are necessary to gain meaning from empirical sense-data and to gain meaning is proof of perfection and permanency, and giving up on the quest for meaning leads to ignorance and despair. As one of the ancient savants, Aristotle, declared:

"The things which are most knowable are first principles and causes; for it is through these and from these that other things come to be known, and not these through the particulars which fall under them." AM I.ii.6

Man has therefore to prepare himself to a way of life concerning thought and practice, which will enable him to transcend the materialistic, and only psychological levels of understanding.

2.4.3 The Validity of the Modern Sciences

Transcending the materialistic and psychologic levels of understanding is neither intended nor envisaged by modern science. Obviously can neither empiricism, nor validification through induction, nor "reliance upon the data of the senses as confirmed by reason, serve as principles in the metaphysical sense." TIM These scientific methods are valid on their own restricted levels leading to results and applications of the sciences which created them, but they are neither able to answer our existential questions nor improve our normal human condition. (normal: how man was meant to be, ...  )

____What is worse, modern science has with all its inventions brought about a serious disequilibrium in this world - despite their partial benefits - , precisely because of it being divorced from - and its inability of taking account of - the higher principles, even if this may not always have been the intention of the individual scientist.

4. True science is based on the Intellect

In modernism reason is conceived as a purely human activity, also cut off from the Transcendant and in postmodernism one is set to deconstruct reason by taking hold of and referring to the irrational levels of the human psyche, whereas in traditional sciences the human mind is understood as being a mirror of the Divine Mind. The picture produced on the mirror is the product of the Picture-maker reflecting Itself on it. 

Thus tradition has always held that the organ ''and container of knowledge is not the human mind but ultimately the Divine Intellect.'' Therefore ''true science is not based on purely human reason but on the Intellect which belongs to the supra-human level of reality, yet illuminates the human mind.'' TIM p.100. 

"When Descartes uttered, 'I think, therefore I am (cogito ergo sum), he placed his individual awareness of his own limited self as the criterion of existence, for certainly the 'I' in Descartes' assertion was not the Divine 'I' who, through Hallâj, exclaimed, 'I am the Truth' (ana'l Haqq): The Divine 'I' which alone, according to traditional sources has the right to say 'I'. Until Descartes, it was Pure Being, the Being of God, which determined human existence and the various levels of reality. But with Cartesian rationalism, individual human existence became the criterion of reality and also the truth." TIM p.100

   And what could be of more success to earthly man than to relate his intellect to the higher Intellect which is not of his own and which is unrestricted and independant of place and time. ( Quran 24-19 )

Read full: http://www.livingislam.org/mmt_e.html

References:

TIM: Traditional Islam In The Modern World; Seyyed Hossein Nasr;

SAC: The System Of Antichrist; Truth And Falsehood In Postmodernism & New Age; Charles Upton; Sophia Perennis, NY 2001

DRG: Dictionnaire de René Guénon, Jean-Marc Vivenza; Éditions Le Mercure Dauphinois, Grenoble 2005

Shariah: Framework for Human Rights at the Core of Islam as a Religion

Dr. Robert D. Crane

Over the long run, the most productive initiative by the still largely silent majority of Muslims in marginalizing Muslim extremists is to fill the intellectual and spiritual void that serves as an ocean in which the extremists can swim. This initiative can provide the favorable environment needed for Muslims to ally with like-minded Christians and Jews in order to show that classical Islam and classical America are similar, even though many people do not understand or live up to the ideals common to both.

This is the only way to convince the extremists that their confrontational approach to the “other” is not necessary; that the threat mentality of those who think only about their own survival and are obsessed with catastrophe and conspiracy can backfire; and that only those can truly prosper over the long run who can transcend their own self-centered interests in order to develop an opportunity mentality together with those who are no longer merely the “other” but now are a single pluralist community.

In order to fill the intellectual void, Muslims need to emphasize the universal Islamic principles, the maqasid al shari’ah, which spell out precisely what Michael Novak says do not exist in Islam. These maqasid, following the methodology instituted by the Prophet Muhammad and perfected in the architectonics pioneered six centuries ago by the master of the art, Al-Shatibi, are considered to consist of seven responsibilities, the practice of which actualize the corresponding human rights.


The first one, known as haqq al din, provides the framework for the next six in the form of respect for a transcendent source of truth to guide human thought and action. God instructs us in the Qur’an, wa tamaat kalimatu Rabika sidqan wa ‘adlan, “and the word of your Lord is perfected in truth and justice.” Recognition of this absolute source of truth and of the responsibility to apply it in practice are needed to counter the temptations toward relativism and the resulting chaos, injustice, and tyranny that may result from de-sacralization of public life.

Each of these seven universal principles is essential to understand the next and succeeding ones. The first three operational principles, necessary to sustain existence, begin with haqq al nafs or haqq al ruh, which is the duty to respect the human person. The ruh or spirit of every person was created by God before or outside of the creation of the physical universe, is constantly in the presence of God, and, according to the Prophet Muhammad, is made in the image of God. This is the basis of the intimate relationship between God and the human person as expressed in the Qur’anic ayah, “We are closer to him than is his own jugular vein.”
This is also the basis of the prayer offered by the Prophet and by countless generations of Muslims for more than a thousand years:Allahumma, inna asaluka hubbaka wa hubba man yuhibbuka wa hubba kulli ‘amali yuqaribuni ila hubika, “O Allah! I ask You for Your love and for the love of those who love You. Grant that I may love every action that will bring me closer to You.”


At the secondary level of this principle, known as hajjiyat or requirements, lies the duty to respect life, haqq al haya. This provides guidelines in the third-order tahsinniyat for what in modern parlance is called the doctrine of just war.


The next principle, haqq al nasl, is the duty to respect the nuclear family and the community at every level all the way to the community of humankind as an important expression of the person. This principle teaches that the sovereignty of the person, subject to the ultimate sovereignty of God, comes prior to and is superior to any alleged sovereignty of the secular invention known as the State.


This principle teaches also that a community at the level of the nation, which shares a common sense of the past, common values in the present, and common hopes for the future, such as the Palestinians, Kurds, Chechens, Kashmiris, the Uighur in China, and the Anzanians in the Sudan, has legal existence and therefore legal rights in international law. This is the opposite of the Western international law created by past empires, which is based on the simple principle of “might makes right.”


The third principle is haqq al mal, which is the duty to respect the rights of private property in the means of production. This requires respect for institutions that broaden access to capital ownership as a universal human right and as an essential means to sustain respect for the human person and human community. This principle requires the perfection of existing institutions to remove the barriers to universal property ownership so that wealth will be distributed through the production process rather than by stealing from the rich by forced redistribution to the poor. Such redistribution can never have more than a marginal effect in reducing the gap between the inordinately rich and the miserably poor, because the owners in a defective financial system need not and never will give up their economic and political power.


The next three universal principles in Islamic law concern primarily what we might call the quality of life. The first is haqq al hurriya, which requires respect for self-determination of both persons and communities through political freedom, including the concept that economic democracy is a precondition for the political democracy of representative government.


The secondary principles required to give meaning to the parent principle and carry it out in practice are khilafa, the ultimate responsibility of both the ruled and the ruler to God; shura, the responsiveness of the rulers to the ruled, which must be institutionalized in order to be meaningful; ijma, the duty of the opinion leaders to reach consensus on specific policy issues in order to participate in the process of shura; and an independent judiciary.


The second of these last three maqasid is haqq al karama or respect for human dignity. The two most important hajjiyat for individual human dignity are religious freedom and gender equity. In traditional Islamic thought, freedom and equality are not ultimate ends but essential means to pursue the higher purposes inherent in the divine design of the Creator for every person.


The last universal or essential purpose at the root of Islamic jurisprudence, which can be sustained only by observance of the first six principles and also is essential to each of them, is haqq al ‘ilm or respect for knowledge. Its second-order principles are freedom of thought, press, and assembly so that all persons can fulfill their purpose to seek knowledge wherever they can find it.


This framework for human rights is at the very core of Islam as a religion. Fortunately, this paradigm of law in its broadest sense of moral theology is now being revived by what still is a minority of courageous Muslims determined to fill the intellectual gap that has weakened the Muslim umma for more than six hundred years, so that a spiritual renaissance in all faiths can transform the world.

Read full article: http://www.globaljusticemovement.net/articles/islamicjurisprudence-rdc-0305.htm

Dr. Robert Dickson Crane is a scholar and a prolific writer and expert on subjects ranging from law to economics to international affairs and Islamic jurisprudence.

He is a co-founding board member and former Chairman of the Center for Understanding Islam, and Director for Global Strategy at The Abraham Federation: A Global Center for Peace through Compassionate Justice. In 1962 he co-founded the Center for Strategic and International Studies, while remaining of Counsel with his law firm until 1965. From 1963 to 1968, he served as Foreign Policy Advisor to Richard Nixon who appointed him as Deputy Director of the National Security Council in 1969. From 1982 to the present Dr. Crane has been a full-time Islamic scholar and activist.

Dr. Crane was a Founding Member of The American Muslim Council and from 1992 to 1994 served as Director of its Legal Division. In 1993, he was elected president of the Muslim American Bar Association, which he founded in order to organize Muslim participation in the American Bar Association's work on issues of conscience. From 1994 until the present he has headed his own research organizations [Santa Fe, New Mexico] focusing on paradigm management designed to shape the agendas of think tanks, which, in turn, direct public policy.

http://www.iiit.org/Portals/0/pdf/Dr%20Crane-Bio%20Sketch.pdf

Philosophy: "A Love of Wisdom"

"Fear should lead to hope, and hope should lead to love and this all should ultimately lead to a level of ihsan or beauteous perfection, where ultimately all things other than God are absent from one's heart."


Wisdom, Hikmah and the Islamic worldview

Tarek Ghanem

Hikmah, which directly translates to wisdom, has several meanings, varying from a type of knowledge, a mode, and an approach to deal therewith. 

Practically speaking, a wise person is someone who is able to make best decisions at the right time and the right place. Naturally, this is associated with a type of maturity, which is not necessarily a function age. Also, such a possessor of wisdom is thought to have both a better grasp with the bigger picture of things and, most importantly, a faculty apt to make decisions and commitments that are more viable in the long run. So on the operational level, wisdom is associated with not having short-sightedness.

Now, it is important to understand that in itself philosophy, paying attention to the etymology, based on the Greek origins of the word, is "a love of wisdom". The pursuits of Greek philosophers, like Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, not only attest to that, they even push for the understanding that philosophy is the drive to understand the divine and the way the divine wants the order of things.

The Islamic Worldview

Referring to the words of the best of humans, our beloved and honored Prophet (peace be upon him):

"There should be no envy but only in case of two persons: one having been endowed with wealth and power to spend it in the cause of Truth, and (the other) who has been endowed with wisdom and he decides cases with the help of it and teaches it (to others)." (Muslim)

In the Quran, God, majestic in His praise tells us:

*{He gives wisdom unto whom He will, and he unto whom wisdom is given, he truly hath received abundant good. But none remember except men of understanding.}* (Al-Baqarah 2:269)

Also, with regard to the ultimate source of wisdom, we are told:

*{Even as We have sent unto you a messenger from among you, who recites unto you Our revelations and causes you to grow, and teaches you the Scripture and wisdom, and teaches you that which ye knew not}* (Al-Baqarah 2:155)

  

The basis of wisdom is fear of God as we are told by the wisest of humans, Prophet Muhammad. And, as Islam directs that from this inspection there are other levels of one's relation with God.

Fear should lead to hope, and hope should lead to love and this all should ultimately lead to a level of ihsan or beauteous perfection, where ultimately all things other than God are absent from one's heart.

The scholars of Islam mention that the best classical definition of hikmah is to put things in their due place and portions. This definition is of tremendous importance, since, if fully applied, no thought or action can ever be dealt with wisely without incorporating the complete layers of existence, physical and metaphysical, of the here-now and the hereafter, intrinsic and relational that surround us.

This is why religious wisdom, although it is one of the types, is of a higher order. This is also why the Quran narrates to us stories of wise individuals,

This all leads to the following peaks and jewels of wisdom. That God and God's pleasure is the first and most important matter in all situations, seeing the complementary relation between this world and the next. The best exemplar to follow and learn from in living, thinking, or acting is the seal of prophets.

Nothing in Islam is ordained to us without it having ultimate benefit for us, regardless of whether we see it otherwise. The true rank of something is its rank in the eyes of God and through Shariah. And the true rank of someone is their eternal rank in the Hereafter.                          

Read more: 

http://www.readingislam.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1203757880034&pagename=IslamOnline-English-AAbout_Islam/AskAboutIslamE/AskAboutIslamE

Tarek A. Ghanem is an Egyptian researcher, writer, and translator. He is specialized in Muslim issues. His interests cover Islamic manuscripts, terrorism related issues, journalism, Muslim affairs, Islamic arts and translating Islamic texts. Currently he is an editor at Islamicamagazine. He lives in Chicago, US.  He holds a BA in Political Science and Philosophy from the American University in Cairo. He is also a student of Islamic religious sciences.