The Islamic Concept of Knowledge [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

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The Islamic Concept of Knowledge [Electronic resources] - نسخه متنی

Sayyid Wahid Akhtar

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The Islamic Concept of Knowledge



Dr. Sayyid Wahid Akhtar


While it is an open question whether an explicit and
systematically worked out Islamic epistemology exists, it is undeniable
that various epistemological issues have been discussed in Muslim
philosophy with an orientation different from that of Western
epistemology.


Today attempts are being made to understand the basic
epistemological issues in terms of that orientation. This is a valuable
effort that deserves our interest and encouragement. However, it can be
fruitful only if the practice of rigorous analysis is kept up, with close
attention to the precise definitions of the various concepts involved.


With this view, an attempt is made in this paper to
delineate the different shades and connotations of the term 'ilm, i.e.,
knowledge, in the Islamic context. It is hoped that this brief attempt
will serve as a step for future groundwork for the construction of a
framework for an Islamic theory of knowledge.


In the Islamic theory of knowledge, the term used for
knowledge in Arabic is 'ilm, which, as Rosenthal has justifiably pointed
out, has a much wider connotation than its synonyms in English and other
Western languages. 'Knowledge' falls short of expressing all the aspects
of 'ilm. Knowledge in the Western world means information about something,
divine or corporeal, while 'ilm is an all-embracing term covering theory,
action and education. Rosenthal, highlighting the importance of this term
in Muslim civilization and Islam, says that it gives them a distinctive
shape.


In fact there is no concept that has been operative as
a determinant of the Muslim civilization in all its aspects to the same
extent as 'ilm. This holds good even for the most powerful among the terms
of Muslim religious life such as, for instance, tawhid "recognition of the
oneness of God," ad-din, "the true religion," and many others that are
used constantly and emphatically. None of them equals ilm in depth of
meaning and wide incidence of use.


There is no branch of Muslim intellectual life, of
Muslim religious and political life, and of the daily life of the average
Muslim that remains untouched by the all pervasive attitude toward
"knowledge" as something of supreme value for Muslim being. 'ilm is Islam,
even if the theologians have been hesitant to accept the technical
correctness of this equation. The very fact of their passionate discussion
of the concept attests to its fundamental importance for Islam. It may be
said that Islam is the path of "knowledge."


No other religion or ideology has so much emphasized
the importance of 'ilm. In the Qur'an the word 'alim has occurred in 140
places, while al-'ilm in 27. In all, the total number of verses in which
'ilm or its derivatives and associated words are used is 704. The aids of
knowledge such as book, pen, ink etc. amount to almost the same number.
Qalam occurs in two places, al-kitab in 230 verses, among which al-kitab
for al-Qur'an occurs in 81 verses. Other words associated with writing
occur in 319 verses. It is important to note that pen and book are
essential to the acquisition of knowledge. The Islamic revelation started
with the word iqra' ('read!' or 'recite!').


According to the Qur'an, the first teaching class for
Adam started soon after his creation and Adam was taught 'all the Names'.
Allah is the first teacher and the absolute guide of humanity. This
knowledge was not imparted to even the Angels. In Usul al-Kafi there is a
tradition narrated by Imam Musa al-Kazim ('a) that 'ilm is of three types:
ayatun muhkamah (irrefutable signs of God), faridatun 'adilah (just
obligations) and sunnat al-qa'imah (established traditions of the Prophet
[s]).


This implies that 'ilm, attainment of which is
obligatory upon all Muslims covers the sciences of theology, philosophy,
law, ethics, politics and the wisdom imparted to the Ummah by the Prophet
(S). Al-Ghazali has unjustifiably differentiated between useful and
useless types of knowledge. Islam actually does not consider any type of
knowledge as harmful to human beings. However, what has been called in the
Qur'an as useless or rather harmful knowledge, consists of pseudo sciences
or the lores prevalent in the Jahiliyyah.


'Ilm is of three types: information (as opposed to
ignorance), natural laws, and knowledge by conjecture. The first and
second types of knowledge are considered useful and their acquisition is
made obligatory. As for the third type, which refers to what is known
through guesswork and conjecture, or is accompanied with doubt, we shall
take that into consideration later, since conjecture or doubt are
sometimes essential for knowledge as a means, but not as an end.


Beside various Qur'anic verses emphasizing the
importance of knowledge, there are hundreds of Prophetic traditions that
encourage Muslims to acquire all types of knowledge from any corner of the
world. Muslims, during their periods of stagnation and decline, confined
themselves to theology as the only obligatory knowledge, an attitude which
is generally but wrongly attributed to al-Ghazali's destruction of
philosophy and sciences in the Muslim world.


Al-Ghazali, of course, passed through a turbulent
period of skepticism, but he was really in search of certainty, which he
found not in discursive knowledge but in mystic experience. In his favour
it must be said that he paved the way for liberating the believer from
blind imitation and helping him approach the goal of certain knowledge. In
the Islamic world, gnosis (ma'rifah) is differentiated from knowledge in
the sense of acquisition of information through a logical processes.


In the non-Islamic world dominated by the Greek
tradition, hikmah (wisdom) is considered higher than knowledge. But in
Islam 'ilm is not mere knowledge. It is synonymous with gnosis (ma'rifah).
Knowledge is considered to be derived from two sources: 'aql and 'ilm
huduri (in the sense of unmediated and direct knowledge acquired through
mystic experience). It is important to note that there is much emphasis on
the exercise of the intellect in the Qur'an and the traditions,
particularly in the matter of ijtihad.


In the Sunni world qiyas (the method of analogical
deduction as propounded by Imam Abu Hanifah) is accepted as an instrument
of ijtihad, but his teacher and spiritual guide, Imam Ja'far al-Sadiq
('a), gave pre-eminence to 'aql in this matter. In the entire Shi'i
literature of fiqh and usul al-fiqh, 'aql is much more emphasized, because
qiyas is only a form of quasi-logical argument, while 'aql embraces all
rational faculties of human beings.


Even intuition or mystic experience are regarded as a
higher stage of 'aql. In Shi'i literature in particular, and Sunni
literature in general, 'aql is considered to be a prerequisite for
knowledge. Starting from Usul al-Kafi, all Shi'i compendia of hadith
devote their first chapter to the merits of 'aql and the virtues of 'ilm.
In Sunni compendia of hadith, including al-Sihah al-sittah and up to
al-Ghazali's Ihya, a chapter is devoted to this issue, though it is not
given a first priority.


This shows that there is a consensus among the Muslims
on the importance of 'aql which is denoted by such words as ta'aqqul,
tafaqquh and tadabbur in the Qur'an. Exercise of the intellect ('aql) is
of significance in the entire Islamic literature which played an important
role in the development of all kinds of knowledge, scientific or
otherwise, in the Muslim world. In the twentieth century, the Indian
Muslim thinker, Iqbal in his Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam,
pointed out that ijtihad was a dynamic principle in the body of Islam.


He claims that much before Francis Bacon the principles
of scientific induction were emphasized by the Qur'an, which highlights
the importance of observation and experimentation in arriving at certain
conclusions. It may also be pointed out that Muslim fuqaha and mufassirun
made use of the method of linguistic analysis in interpreting the Quranic
injunctions and the sunnah of the Prophet (S). Al-Ghazalis Tahatut
al-falasifah is probably the first philosophical treatise that made use of
the linguistic analytical method to clarify certain philosophical issues.


I personally feel that he is rather maligned than
properly understood by both the orthodox and liberal Muslim interpreters
of his philosophy. His method of doubt paved the way for a healthy
intellectual activity in the Muslim world, but because of historical and
social circumstances, it culminated in the stagnation of philosophical and
scientific thinking, which later made him a target of criticism by
philosophers.


There was made a distinction between wisdom (hikmah)
and knowledge in the pre-Islamic philosophy developed under the influence
of Greek thought. In Islam there is no such distinction. Those who made
such a distinction led Muslim thought towards un-Islamic thinking. The
philosophers such as al-Kindi, al-Farabi and Ibn Sina are considered to be
hakims (philosophers) and in this capacity superior to 'ulama', and fuqaha
This misconception resulted in al-Ghazali's attack on the philosophers.
Islam is a religion that invites its followers to exercise their intellect
and make use of their knowledge to attain the ultimate truth (haqq).


Muslim thinkers adopted different paths to attain this
goal. Those who are called philosophers devoted themselves to logic and
scientific method and they were derogated by the Sufis, though some of
them, such as Ibn Sina, al-Farabi and al-Ghazali took recourse to the
mystic path in their quest of the truth at some stage. As I said earlier,
'ilm may not be translated as mere knowledge; it should be emphasized that
it is also gnosis or ma'rifah. One may find elements of mystic experience
in the writings of Muslim philosophers. In Kashf al-mahjub of al-Hujwiri a
distinction is made between khabar (information) and nazar (analytic
thought).


This applies not only to Muslim Sufis but also to most
of the Muslim philosophers who sought to attain the ultimate knowledge
which could embrace all things, corporeal or divine. In the Western
philosophical tradition there is a distinction between the knowledge of
the Divine Being and knowledge pertaining to the physical world. But in
Islam there is no such distinction. Ma'rifah is ultimate knowledge and it
springs from the knowledge of the self (Man 'arafa nafsahu fa qad 'arafa
Rabbbahu, 'One who realizes one's own self realizes his Lord').


This process also includes the knowledge of the
phenomenal world. Therefore, wisdom and knowledge which are regarded as
two different things in the non-Muslim world are one and the same in the
Islamic perspective. In the discussion of knowledge, an important question
arises as to how one can overcome his doubts regarding certain doctrines
about God, the universe, and man. It is generally believed that in Islam,
as far as belief is concerned, there is no place for doubting and
questioning the existence of God, the prophethood of Hadrat Muhammad (S)
and the Divine injunctions, that Islam requires unequivocal submission to
its dictates.


This general belief is a misconception in the light of
Islam's emphasis on 'aql. In the matter of the fundamentals of faith
(usu-l al-Din), the believer is obliged to accept tawhid, nubuwwah and
ma'd (in the Shi'i faith, 'adl, i.e. Divine Justice, and imamah are also
fundamentals of faith) on rational grounds or on the basis of one's
existential experience. This ensures that there is room for doubt and
skepticism in Islam before reaching certainty in Iman. The sufis have
described iman as consisting of three stages: 'ilm al-yaqin (certain
knowledge),'ayn al-yaqin (knowledge by sight) and haqq al-yaqin (knowledge
by the unity of subject and object).


The last stage is attainable by an elect few. 'Ilm is
referred to in many Quranic verses as 'light' (nur), and Allah is also
described as the ultimate nur. it means that 'ilm in the general sense is
synonymous with the 'light' of Allah. This light does not shine for ever
for all the believers. If is hidden sometimes by the clouds of doubt
arising from the human mind. Doubt is sometimes interpreted in the Quran
as darkness, and ignorance also is depicted as darkness in a number of its
verses.


Allah is depicted as nur, and knowledge is also
symbolized as nur. Ignorance is darkness and ma'rifah is light. In the
ayat al-kursi Allah says: (Allah is the Light of the heavens and the earth
... Allah is the Master of the believers and He guides them out of the
darkness into light). Usually darkness is interpreted as unbelief and
light as faith in God. There are so many verses in the Quran as well as
the traditions of the Prophet (S) that emphasize that light may be
attained by those who struggle against darkness.


Among Muslim philosophers, particularly some
Mu'tazilites, like Nazzam, al-Jahiz, Aba Hashim al-Jubbai and others,
adopted the path of skepticism. Al-Ghazali was the most eminent among
Muslim philosophers who, in his spiritual auto-biography, al-Munqidh min
al-dalal, elaborated the path of skepticism which he travelled to attain
the ultimate truth. There have been some Muslim thinkers, like Abu Hashim
al-Jubba'i, al-Baqillanis al-Nazzam and others, who advocated skepticism
in order to arrive at certain religious faith. Skepticism is a philosophy
that has three different meanings: denial of all knowledge, agnosticism,
and a method to approach certainty.


Most of the Muslims philosophers sought the goal of
certainty. Skepticism in the general sense of the impossibility of
knowledge is not compatible with Islamic teachings. It is acceptable only
when it leads from uncertainty to certainty. The skeptical method has two
aspects, rejection of all absolute knowledge, and acceptance of the path
to overcome uncertainty. Muslim philosophers have followed the second
path, because there has been an emphasis on rejecting blind faith.


Shaykh al-Mufid (an eminent Shi'i faqih) said that
there was a very narrow margin between faith and disbelief in so far as
the believer imitated certain theologians. In his view, an imitator is on
the verse of unbelief (kufr). In Islam 'ilm is not confined to the
acquisition of knowledge only, but also embraces socio-political and moral
aspects. Knowledge is not mere information; it requires the believers to
act upon their beliefs and commit themselves to the goals which Islam aims
at attaining. In brief, I would like to say that the theory of knowledge
in the Islamic perspective is not just a theory of epistemology.


It combines knowledge, insight, and social action as
its ingredients. I would like to cite here a tradition of the Prophet (S)
narrated by Amir al-Mu'minin 'Ali ibn Abi Talib: Once Gabriel came to
Adam. He brought with him faith, morality (haya') and 'aql (reason) and
asked him to choose one of the three. When he chose 'aql, the others were
told by Gabriel to return to heaven, They said that they were ordered by
Allah to accompany 'aql wherever it remained. This indicates how
comprehensive are the notions of intellect and knowledge in Islam, and how
deeply related they are to faith and the moral faculty.


The all-round development of various branches of
knowledge pertaining to physical and social phenomena, as well as the
process of logical argumentation for justification of Islamic doctrine and
deduction of Islamic laws (ahkam) with reference to Qur'anic injunctions
and the Prophetic tradition, is indebted to Islam's notion of 'ilm.
Scientific knowledge, comprising natural and physical sciences, was sought
and developed by Muslim scientists and mathematicians vigorously from the
beginning of the last decades of the first century of Hijrah.


The scientific endeavour found its flowering period
with the establishment of the Bayt al-Hikmah in the reign of al-Ma'mun.
Undoubtedly the major contributions in philosophy and sciences were made
by Iranians, but the myth created by the orientalists that the fundamental
sources of Islam, viz. the Qur'an and Sunnah, did not contain scientific
and philosophical ideas is totally false.


As said earlier, not only the Qur'an and hadith
encouraged Muslims or rather made it obligatory for them to pursue truth
freely from all possible sources, but also contained certain guiding
principles that could provide a secure foundation for the development of
religious and secular sciences. Some Prophetic traditions even give
priority to learning over performing supererogatory rites of worship.


There are several traditions that indicate that a
scholar's sleep is more valuable than an ignorant believer's journey for
pilgrimage (hajj) and participation in holy war, and that the drops of a
scholar's ink are more sacred than the blood of a martyr. Amir al-Mu'minin
'Ali ('a) said that the reward for piety in the other world would be
bestowed upon a believer in proportion to the degree of his intellectual
development and his knowledge. Islam never maintained that only theology
was useful and the empirical sciences useless or harmful.


This concept was made common by semi-literate clerics
or by the time servers among them who wanted to keep common Muslims in the
darkness of ignorance and blind faith so that they would not be able to
oppose unjust rulers and resist clerics attached to the courts of tyrants.
This attitude resulted in the condemnation of not only empirical science
but also 'ilm al-kalam and metaphysics, which resulted in the decline of
Muslims in politics and economy. Even today large segments of Muslim
society, both the common man and many clerics suffer from this malady.


This unhealthy and anti-knowledge attitude gave birth
to some movements which considered elementary books of theology as
sufficient for a Muslim, and discouraged the assimilation or dissemination
of empirical knowledge as leading to the weakening of faith. Apart from
Shaykh al-Mufid and other Shi'i scholars, a number of classical Sunni
fuqaha and 'ulama,' even those considered to be conservative, like Ibn
Taymiyyah and Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah, regarded emulation or imitation
(taqlid) as religiously unauthorized and harmful. Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti
held that taqlid was forbidden by both the salaf and the khalaf (early and
later generations of scholars). He cited al-Shafi'i's opposition to
taqlid.


Ibn Hazm followed the same line. These and many other
fuqaha' and theologians emphasized the exercise of 'aql and ijtihad as
obligatory for the believers. Imam 'Ali ('a) gave a place of pride to
reason even in the matters of religion. Abu 'Ala' al-Ma'arri believed that
there was no imam except reason. Thus it is obvious that the Shi'ah and
Sunnis, not withstanding their differences on several issues, agreed on
the role of reason and the necessity of ijtihad.


It is unfortunate that some recent movements of Islamic
resurgence in the Sunni world, e.g. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Algeria,
Sudan etc., are opposed to reason and preach emulation, distorting the
role of ijtihad and disregarding even major Salafi theologians. This
attitude, they do not realize, is self-contradictory and self defeating
for their own cause.


It is a good sign that apart from the rejection of 'aql
in recent times by some Sunni quarters, attempts have been made and are
still being made to revive the practice of ijtihad and combining social,
scientific and secular knowledge with the teaching of theology, fiqh, usul
al-fiqh, hadith, 'ilm al-rijal, kalam and tafsir, whose acquisition is
essential for ijtihad in the matters pertaining to the faith and its
practice.


Another myth propagated by the orientalists, that the
Arab mind was not akin to philosophizing and that it was the Aryan mind,
i.e. of the Iranians, which introduced philosophy in the Muslim world, is
equally unfounded and a conspiracy against the history of Muslim
philosophy and its significant contribution to the development of sciences
which not only benefited Muslim world but also contributed to the
enrichment of human learning, culture and civilization.


Ironically, despite the claim that the Aryan mind
introduced philosophical and scientific thinking and research, Muslim
philosophy is called 'Arab philosophy' by the orientalists, implying a
contradiction inherent in their prejudice against the Semites. In Islam-of
course, after the Qur'an and the Prophet's hadith-'Ali's sermons and
letters, later collected under the title of Nahj al-halaghah, contained
the seeds of philosophical and scientific inquiry, and he was an Arab.


Similarly, the Mu'tazilah, known as the first
rationalists among Muslims, consisted of Arabs. Even the officially
recognized first Muslim philosopher, al-Kindi, was an Arab. After the
decline of philosophical and scientific inquiry in the Muslim east,
philosophy and sciences flourished in the Muslim west due to endeavours of
the thinkers of Arab origin like Ibn Rushd, Ibn Tufayl, Ibn Bajah, and Ibn
Khaldun, the father of sociology and philosophy of history.


Ibn Khaldun's philosophy of history and society is the
flowering of early work by Muslim thinkers in the spheres of ethics and
political science such as those of Miskawayh, al-Dawwani, and Nasir al-Din
al-Tusi. The credit for giving serious attention to socio-political
philosophy goes to al-Farabi, who wrote books on these issues under the
titles of Madinat al-fadilah, Ara' ahl al-madinat al-fadilah, al-Millah
al-fadilah, Fusul al-madang, Sirah Fadilah, K. al-Siyasah al-madaniyyah,
etc.


Muslims never ignored socio-political economic and
other problems pertaining to the physical as well as social reality. They
contributed richly to human civilization and thought by their bold and
free inquiry in various areas of knowledge even at the risk of being
condemned as heretics or rather unbelievers. True and firm believers in
Islamic creed, like al-Ghazali, Ibn Rushd, Ibn Bajah, al-Haytham, Ibn
'Arabi and Mulla Sadra, and in recent times Sayyid Ahmad Khan, Iqbal and
al-Mawdudi were not spared fatwas of kufr by the partisans of blind
imitation who were hostile to the principle of ijtihad, research and
critical thought.


Along with the Muslim astronomers, mathematicians,
natural scientists and physicians like Ibn Sina, Zakariyya al-Razi, and
others who were instrumental in the development of human knowledge and
civilization, it would be unjust not to mention the significant
contribution of Ikhwan al-Safa (The Brethren Purity) a group of
Shi'i-Ismaili scholars and thinkers who wrote original treatises on
various philosophical and scientific subjects, an effort which signifies
the first attempt to compile an encyclopedia in the civilized world.


In brief, it may be justifiably claimed that the
Islamic theory of knowledge was responsible for blossoming of a culture of
free inquiry and rational scientific thinking that also encompassed the
spheres of both theory and practice


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