Islam and Modernity

I'm glad that I waited to post anything about my research, because now I have ideas being crystallized in my mind; whereas before, I knew my general topic, but not really any specifics.

Last night, I attended a very interesting seminar given by a guy named Imam Suhaib Webb. The title of his talk was "From Oklahoma to Al-Azhar." I thought about mentioning that I should sue him, because I have a trademark on this blog name, and that his talk-title was dangerously close...

Imam Suhaib Webb is a white American man in his late thirties, who is originally from Oklahoma. A number of events happened in his life that led him to convert to Islam, and in the aftermath of his conversion, he was sent to al-Azhar University in Cairo on a scholarship to pursue a degree in Islamic Law. Well, shit. There goes my lawsuit, I guess. I'll have to settle with the knowledge that "From Midwest to Mideast" is more clever....and he'll have to be satisfied with his blog/website winning an award for being the best website of 2009 dealing with contemporary Islamic issues. Whatever.

Webb's focus and goal with his studies is to return to America to help the American Islamic community feel authentic in their Islam, despite the cultural differences that exist between Islam's "home and headquarters" in the Middle East, and America. His message is a return to religion. Just because you are Muslim, you don't have to wear any certain clothing, or look a certain way. You are Muslim by your faith and your actions. There is no inherent contradiction between living in a modernized Western country and being a Muslim.

Now, you may ask what on earth all this has to do with my research.

Philosophy is often not taken seriously. It is considered to be a discipline that is engaged in for intellectual stimulation only, but has no real place in our world today. Philosophers are considered to be ivory-tower-dwellers, as the popular phrase "armchair philosophy" demonstrates.

In reality, nothing could be farther from the truth. Philosophy continues to play a big role in our quest for human knowledge. Additionally (and also more importantly, at least as far as the present discussion is concerned), philosophy reflects and affects the mode of thinking of a culture, of a people. It can reinforce a particular mode of thinking, which then acts as a filter all across our experiences. This has major implications.

Let's take modern science as an example, which emerged in Renaissance Europe, and it can be traced back to big names such as Newton, Galileo, and Descartes.

Rene Descartes, probably most famous for his "Cogito Ergo Sum" argument (I think, therefore I am), contributed to the introduction of modern science in the sense that he was the first to undertake the new rationalist approach. Rationalism asserts that we gain a significant amount of knowledge from a certain subject area, S, independent of sensory experience (via deductive and inductive reasoning)

Before Rationalism in Europe, there was Scholasticism, which did not traditionally use reason to discover new truths about the external world. Descartes shattered this tradition in his "Meditations on Philosophy" in which he adopted the skepticism of the Scholastic philosophers, and doubted everything until he concluded that the only certain proposition he could know was "I think, therefore I am." From this, he trudged forth attempting to see what could be known about the external world.

This kind of rationalistic methodology was new, and helped to spur on an attitude of critical, skeptical thinking characterized by doubt. And it was in this way that it cultivated a mentality appropriate for the rise of modern science and scientific methodologies.

Of course, Europe sprang far in front of other areas in the world, with new innovations in mathematics, astronomy, science, philosophy, etc. as a direct result of the Renaissance, which included this new way of thinking.

Another effect of this kind of skeptical world-view was secularization. If human reason was so powerful as to produce things such as modern science and the like, then this meant that people no longer had to rely on authority (including religious authority) to discover truth. People began to become more skeptical about the dogmatic principles of their religions, and started to disregard principles which they saw as illogical.

Again, so what does this have to do with my research?

In the 19th century, the Middle East was colonized/occupied by Western European countries, especially in Northern Africa. These places saw their culture becoming more westernized because of the European presence, and also as a result of the Tanzimat reforms undertaken by the Ottoman Empire during that time.

Muslim intellectuals took a step back to see what had happened. In the "glory days" of Islam, where its reign spread like wildfire following the first 300 or so years after the prophet's death, Islam had made brilliant innovations in math and science, astronomy, and philosophy (also somewhat ironically, though outside my scope here in this post, the Arabs provided Europe with the preserved Greek science and philosophy that actually helped Europe along...). But now, Islam was in decline.

These intellectuals sought to preserve and revive their culture, and return it to its dominant position in the global community. This was the beginning of the Nahda, the cultural and literary renaissance of the Middle East.

The nahda was most alive in Cairo, Egypt, and one of the major players during that time was Jamal al-Din al-Afghani. Al-Afghani had a political agenda, Arab unity, and also of course the aforementioned restoration of Islam to its glory days.

Al-Afghani was clever enough to have seen that the kind of Cartesian Rationalist philosophy had helped Europe along in terms of development, and knew that incorporating that kind of rationalistic thinking would be an important step for the Arab world if they wanted to regain their influential status.

But how could he simply import the European Rationalism of Descartes, without merely reinforcing the same cultural hegemony he hoped to escape? Al-Afghani knew that if this movement was going to take off, it would have be authenticated. He knew it would have to come from the Islamic tradition itself to gain traction among the masses he hoped to mobilize.

Thus, al-Afghani looked to Ibn Sina, a 10th century Persian medical doctor and philosopher, in order to justify this use of rationality. Indeed, Ibn Sina was a rationalist, and his ideas actually caused quite the raucous among his contemporaries. He utilized reason to make conclusions about the nature of God, etc. which was considered an inappropriate use of rationality. He was deemed a heretic by most orthodox Muslims of his time.

Al-Afghani, during this attempt at reviving classical Islamic philosophy, faced similar accusations, and he was exiled from Egypt in 1879.

This failure to adopt a skeptical, rationalistic world-view can, in my opinion, partially explain the current state of the Muslim world, regarding their economic, cultural, and intellectual development.

Hence, the Muslims in America who comprise Webb's ultimate intended audience, are (I guess) at odds with themselves. They have been brought up in a society and culture that emphasizes this kind of skepticism, and doubt, and (of course) the supremacy of human reason. But, their religion (appears) to denounce exactly this kind of mindset, and seems to resent the resulting "progresses" of a society which has that kind of mindset, such as technological advances, and (of course) secularization.

Ironically, the orthodoxy seems to think that Islam is generally opposed to the kind of "critical-eye" that they denounce in the West, but as a matter of fact, there is a strong tradition of Rationalism in Islam, such as reasoning by analogy (القياس) and personal struggle over one's faith (إجتهاد).

Where's the gap, then? Why, considering that there seems to be a tradition of Rationalism both in the Islamic Philosophers and in the more orthodox theological schools, is this kind of world-view still not adopted?

OK, I've rambled on far too much about this now. All you readers from the US (especially everyone from the 513....), I just thought I would let you know it was 91 degrees and sunny today.

Hehehe.

Iskandar