An American think tank, titles his book on Muslims, borrowing the subtitle “intellectual suicide” straight from the Muslim intellectual Fazlur Rahman’s work ‘Islam & Modernity’, where Rahman, while talking about shunning of philosophy by Muslims, says:
“A people that deprives itself of philosophy necessarily exposes itself to starvation in terms of fresh ideas-in fact, it commits intellectual suicide.”
This 2010 book, written by Robert Reilly and published by Intercollegiate Studies Institute, Wilmington, is not as much intended to educate Muslims as it is to inform the Western powers that be, about–among other things–the reasons that make Muslims so exclusive about their faith.
In writing foreword to Mr. Reilly’s book, English writer & Philosopher, Roger Scruton reflects in a manner that we are too familiar about:
“Why is it that Muslim minorities in Europe, who migrate in order to enjoy the benefits of a secular jurisdiction, call for another kind of law altogether, even though so few of them seem able to agree what the law says or who’s entitled to pronounce it?” Reilly attempts to answer this question too in his tome.
Now what is the nature of this intellectual suicide that Muslims seem to have already committed? The answer, in part, lies in the same aforementioned assertion of Fazlur Rahman Malik: the shunning of philosophy.
What Rahman calls ‘depriving itself of philosophy’, Reilly puts it as ‘dehellenization’. It is too daunting for me to summarise the Reilly’s book ‘the closing of the Muslim mind’ in this short write-up, yet I would catch hold of some key ideas-not all- that run consistently all through the book.
Before I set about accentuating the key ideas, I’d first bring the whole idea of the book in perspective by way of the following statement. “There are two fundamental ways” says Reilly, “to close the mind.
One is to deny reason’s capability of knowing anything. The other”, he adds, “is to dismiss reality as unknowable”. According to Reilly Muslims have done both: denied, as well as, dismissed. Here are the key ideas:
About ‘cause & effect’ & free will: Reilly categorically states that Muslims, by and large, are not as much interested in ‘cause & effect’ relationship as in ocassionalism. He brings prominent Ashari, Mohammad bin Yousuf as-Sanusi from the medieval times, to buttress this point, where Sanusi is quoted as having said, “You become aware of the impossibility of anything in the world producing any ‘effect’ whatsoever, because that entails the removal of the ‘effect’ from the power and will of our majestic and mighty Protector (the cause).” Reilly, therefore, poses a question:
“If one’s theological assumptions about reality are incorrect, can one recover from them if these assumptions have been dogmatised and made pillars of one’s faith?” He further ponders to answer his own question: “If one wishes, for instance, to admit to the reality of cause and effect in the natural order, there does not seem to be any obstacle in the Quran to do so, even though Quran explains events almost exclusively as the direct product of God’s actions.”
He, furthermore, looks perplexed mentioning Institute of Policy Studies, a branch of Jamaat-e-Islami, which, years back, tried to ensure that science textbooks in Pakistan be written this way: ‘in writing a science book for grade 03 children, one should not ask, ‘what will happen if an animal does not take any food?’ Instead the following question should be asked: ‘What will happen if Allah does not give the animal food.’
“The elimination of cause and effect”, says Reilly, “makes prediction epistemologically impossible and theologically undesirable. “This can”, he further adds, “result in some unusual behaviour affecting everyday matters”.
Reilly mentions dropping/suspension of weather forecasts between 1983 & 1984 in Pakistani media an example of this ‘unusual behaviour’. “If the incalculable God,” Reilly concludes, “directly creates the weather, then the weather cannot be calculable.”
About ‘reason’: “Were it not for al-Ghazali, Averroes and rationalism”, says Reilly in chapter 06, “might have won the battle for the Muslim mind. But it did not happen, and, as a result, the Sunni Muslim mind suffered the consequences. It closed.”
At another place, quoting MacDonald who questions thus “What use, then, did they (Muslims) find for reason?” and adds himself forthwith, “Its use, they found, was to demonstrate that it was not of any use…” “What, then,” Reilly adds further, “of the achievements of Muslim Philosophy in Ibn Rushd, Ibn-Haytham, Ibn-Sena, al-Razi, al-Kindi, al-Khawarizmi, and al-Farabi?” Citing Ibrahim Al-Buleihi (Saudi writer & philosopher) to respond to this: “these achievements are not our making, and those exceptional individuals were not the product of Arab culture, but rather Greek culture. They are outside our cultural mainstream and we treated them as though they were foreign elements. Therefore, we don’t deserve take pride in them since we rejected them …”
About democracy & legislation: Here, quoting Iranian philosopher, Dr Abdulkarim Soroush, as to why these institutions do not take shape in the Islamic world: “you need some philosophical underpinning, even theological underpinning in order to have a real democratic system.”
Reilly augments to this hence, “to think that the only obstacles to democracy in such cultures are the autocracies that rule them is delusional.” He further says.
“The primacy of reason, theologically and philosophically understood, is the prerequisite of democracy…, He continues to tell us, “along with it must come metaphysical support for natural law, which provides the foundations not only for modern science but also for the development of constitutional government.”
About Education: Bassam Tibbi, a political scientist, born in Syria, is cited to explain the fate of education: “the fiqh-orthodoxy had the power to determine the curriculum of Islamic education. Thus, the distinction between fiqh (jurisprudence) and falsafa (philosophy) was lost.
In Islam ilm/science was identified with fiqh. No debate was allowed and this mindset led to the decline of Islamic civilization…” And Tibbi adds further, “This resulted in the displacement of critical thinking by rote learning. The most prominent feature of Muslim education became memorization.”
There are chapters on freewill, morality, justice, and others where Reilly builds a case as to why the Muslim societies are underdeveloped, uneducated by and large, with rampant poverty despite having ample resources, ridden with anarchy and conflict having become flashpoints, and lack of clear direction and will to progress.
Reilly’s book is, in a way, a good read for Muslims to look at the loopholes in their thought, and initiate corrective measures. It underscores what we have probably missed. Yet Reilly oversteps, at places, and among them one instance, relating Islam with Nazism, communism and totalitarian ideologies, is glaring.
He, however, uses term ‘Islamism’ in place of ‘Islam’ to denote the difference. Reilly employs all arguments, yet, at many occasions in the book, speaking about ‘natural morality’ & ‘freedom’, which according to him Muslims seen to be undermining, yet the same arguments of ‘freedom’ and ‘morality’ fly at his face when the ostensibly ‘free’ and ‘moral’ West uses WMD as a ploy to invade Iraq, to trample communism in Afghanistan leaving the place in shambles, support dictatorships as and when it suits them, gulping the major part of world resources. In a bid to whitewash their sins they hand us lessons on Geneva Convention, about conservation, & global warming.
He seems to be blind of this misuse of ‘freedom’ and trespass of ‘morality’ grounded in reason. If our civilization has been lagging behind in development (we agree and we must do something urgently about it) then, despite having everything, Reilly’s own western civilization lacks all clue of the future. If we have no science in our present, you have no spirit.
Fazl illahi is a teacher at IASE, Srinagar
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are the personal opinions of the author.
The facts, analysis, assumptions and perspective appearing in the article do not reflect the views of GK.