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| Ust. Syamsudin Arif |
By: Prof. Dr. Syamsudin Arif
Although
most Muslim scholars nowadays agree on the glaring need for an ‘Islamic
science’ as well as the importance of Islamization of modern science and
contemporary knowledge, little has been done over the past three decades or so
in elucidating the place that traditional Islamic studies occupies in the new
epistemic framework and the positive role it is supposed to play in
reformulating the methodologies and philosophical underpinnings of various
sciences. It is therefore the goal of my paper to highlight the importance of
traditional Islamic studies such as ‘ilm usul al-din in relation to other
branches of learning within an ‘Islamic university’.
Rethingking The Crisis
In
the book published by the Muslim Youth Movement of Malaysia (ABIM) in 1978 Syed
Muhammad Naquib al-Attas wrote that the decline of the Muslims is caused not so
much by corrupt leadership per se as by “confusion and error in knowledge of
Islam and its worldview” which has created the condition for the loss of adab
and which, in turn, has enabled “false leaders” to rise and to thrive in all
spheres of societal life, causing the condition of injustice (zulm) amidst the
Community.[1] It must be pointed out that on this he
clearly disagreed with many modernists or socalled ‘reformists’ like the Indian
Sir Ahmad Khan and the Egyptian Muhammad ‘Abduh who argued for a rational and
scientific understanding of Islam,[2]
or Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, who promoted Islam as a political ideology
vis-à-vis the Western powers and saw the establishment of a pan-Islamic state
for the entire Ummah as the real solution and way out of the current
predicament.[3]
Unlike those thinkers who “traded their old
lamp for a new one”, al-Attas insisted that the Muslims should look for
guidance and solution in the luminaries of the past, i.e. the true,
authoritative scholars (‘ulama) who were men possessed of intellectual and
spiritual discernment and virtue, whose knowledge, derived as it is from the
Divine Sources, is of a universal quality and character, transcending history
and the forces of change, and hence still relevant today.[4] Again
we must here note the difference between al-Attas and the late Isma‘il Raji
al-Faruqi. The latter, still influenced by the modernists and expressing in
rather pessimistic tones, held the Muslim scholars (‘ulama) of the past
responsible for the backwardness of the Ummah, blaming them for closing the
gate of ijtihad and causing the Shari‘ah to become frozen, and accused them of
stifling individual creative thought and of advocating literalism, dualism, and
escapism.[5]
Rather than finding fault with the ‘ulama,
al-Attas aptly observed that many Muslims today are confused. They have
mistaken information for knowledge and science for truth, ending up in what the
Holy Qur’an describes pertaining to those falling victims to the temptation of
magic: “And they learn that which harms them and profits them not (wa
yata‘allamuna ma yadurruhum wa la yanfa‘uhum)” (2: 102). They have lost the
capacity to discern and distinguish the true from the false, the right from the
wrong, and the useful from the useless.[6] The
‘web’ of intellectual confusion and epistemic error in which contemporary
Muslims find themselves entangled is brought about by the ‘spider’ of ignorance
concerning fundamentals of Islamic faith (al-‘aqa’id) and other related
essentials of Islamic worldview which together constitute that category of
knowledge designated by Imam al-Ghazali as fard ‘ayn.
The resulting condition which al-Attas rightly
called the loss of adab refers to the loss of discipline of body, mind, and
soul,[7]
whereby everyone claims that he has right to do and say just anything –a
situation which ‘Abdullah ibn al-Mubarak (d. 181 A.H.) has anticipated long
ago: “Withoutreference to authority, everybody wouldfeel free to say what he
wanted (lawla al-isnad la-qala man sha’a ma sha’a)”.[8] Once
this relativistic attitude prevails, everyone will regard himself the equal of
others who are in fact superior and far better than him, knowingly or
unknowingly cultivating immanent arrogance and obstinacy, unduly inclining
towards envy, and tending to challenge, belittle and reject authority. Such a
person haughtily thinks he knows while in reality he does not know his place in
relation to himself and to others.[9]
The loss of adab that manifests itself in the
leveling of all to one’s own level leads to the undermining of legitimate
authority as well as the destruction of hierarchy and the propagation of
intellectual anarchy. A person exhibiting a lack of adab tends to whittle down
to his size his great predecessors and contemporaries, attacking and
disparaging them on account of the fact that those authorities – regardless of
their roles as prophets, saints or scholars– are mere human beings, men of
flesh and blood like any other, and dismissing their great works and lasting
contributions, while at the same time emphasizing their human errors and
trivial mistakes that in fact neither negate the validity of their teachings
and thoughts, nor deny their rightful places in the Community. Indeed, the loss
of adab is not only about putting all men (or all kinds of knowledge, books,
etc., for that matter) together on the same level, but even worse placing the
lesser above the greater in rank, or accepting the false authority and
denouncing the true one.[10]
Reflecting the loss of adab in the modern
system of education is the greater attention and appreciation accorded to the
acquisition of fard kifayah knowledge. Whereas this type of knowledge is
allowed to develop tremendously and its pursuit supported by the state
government with large funding, the Muslim’s education in fard ‘ayn knowledge is
left at the elementary level, so that the majority of Muslims today spend most
of their adult life knowing more about the world and very little about their
religion. It is this mis-education with its elevation of the natural and social
sciences and marginalization of the fard ‘ayn knowledge that has produced weak
Muslims whose infantile and incomplete knowledge of Islam causes them to
erroneously perceive their religion as the main source of backwardness.[11]
Thus we find contemporary Muslims trapped in a vicious circle of confusion and
epistemic error, the loss of adab, and the proliferation of false leaders,
which together bring about the condition of injustice and chaos in the
Community that is declared as the best ever raised up for mankind (khayra ummah
ukhrijat li ’l-nas. Q.3:110).
In the contemporary system of education
throughout the Muslim world, the false leaders who are confused and suffering
from the loss of adab are responsible for perpetuating error by putting the
fard kifayah scienceson the same level as that of fard ‘ayn knowledge, and by
confusing the nature and method of the former with that of the latter, thereby
opening the door to secularization of knowledge as has been happening in the
West over the last 300 years. Having themselves been trained in Western-style
institutions and having imbibed the secular humanistic values, these ‘educated’
Muslims are simply emulating their masters in their way of thinking, words and
actions, and in producing and disseminating false knowledge that “has brought
chaos to the three kingdoms of nature; the animal, vegetal, and mineral”.[12]
This is why it becomes necessary -if we want to break the vicious circle- to
redefine knowledge, to purge it of Western secular elements, and infuse it with
Islamic values. And this is what al-Attas refers to as ‘Islamization’,
involving “a critical examination of the methods of modern science, its
concepts, presuppositions and symbols, its empirical and rational aspects, and
those impinging on values and ethics, its interpretations of origins, its
theory of knowledge, its presuppositions on the existence of an external world,
of the uniformity of nature and of the rationality of natural processes; its
theory of the universe; its classification of the sciences; its limitations and
inter-relations with one another of the sciences, and its social relations”.[13]
Reordering Knowledge
It
was Abu Hamid al-Ghazali who first made the distinction between the fard ‘ayn
knowledge and fard kifayah knowledge. According to him, while all knowledge is
ultimately from God, not all knowledge is the same in terms of its objects,
purpose, and method of acquisition. Some knowledge is compulsory to pursue, and
some is not. That which is compulsory is further divided into the fard ‘ayn
knowledge the acquisition of which is compulsory on every individual and the
fard kifayah one the pursuit of which is a communal duty. Interestingly,
although one may describe it as a collective responsibility, fard kifayah is an
obligation which can in some cases be discharged by a single individual, so
that if at least someone learns it, the rest is exempt from studying it.
Falling under the first category are knowledge of how to perform what is
obligatory and abandon what is prohibited and knowledge of what one ought to
believe (al-‘ilm bi-kayfiyyat al-‘amal al-wajib fi‘luhu aw tarkuh waqta
wujubihi wa al-‘ilm bi ’l-i‘tiqad al-wajib ‘ala ’l-‘amal). This is the
knowledge meant by the Prophet as incumbent on every Muslim and is referring to
the science of the path to the hereafter (‘ilm tariq al-akhirah) which
comprises both the science of devotional practice (‘ilm al-mu‘amalah) as well
as the science of unveiling (‘ilm al-mukashafah). Al-Ghazali exhorts students
to attain this type of knowledge, which is not simply a memorization or
collection of facts but rather “a light which floods the heart”.[14]
Indeed, according to al-Ghazali, one must
first fulfill the task of acquiring the fard ‘ayn sciences in accordance with
one’s own needs and ability. The fard ‘ayn knowledge deals with religious
beliefs (‘aqa’id), duties, and prohibitions. It is the noblest of all sciences
because pertains to God and should be pursued for the sake of nothing else but
for itself and for one’s salvation in the hereafter. Studying the fard‘ayn
sciences is a life-long task of every individual. While the basic points one
has to learn concerning beliefs are the same throughout one’s life, one’s
knowledge of them may become deeper with time, just as it is possible at some
stage of one’s life for doubts concerning some religious doctrines to creep
into the mind so that it would be obligatory upon the person to learn whatever
necessary to remove that doubt.[15]
Now, the fard kifayah knowledge is divided
into two: [i] the sciences about religion (‘ulum shar‘iyyah), which are derived
from and revolve around the Divine Revelation and Prophetic tradition,
including knowledge of the principles (‘ilm alusul) such as ‘ilm al-kalam, the
ancillary sciences (‘ilm al-furu‘) such as fiqh and tasawwuf, the propaedeutic
(al-muqaddamat) such as language and logic, and the supplementary
(al-mutammimat) such as exegesis, usul al-fiqh and history; and [ii] the
non-revealed sciences (‘ulum ghayr shar‘iyyah) that are attainable by means of
reasoning, experience-experiment, and scholarly consensus, such as arithmetic,
medicine, engineering, law, politics, economics, etc. In al-Ghazali’s own
words: “Sciences whose knowledge is deemed fard kifayah comprise every science
which is indispensable for the welfare of this world: for example, medicine
which is necessary for the life of the body, arithmetic for the daily
transactions and the distribution of inheritance, others besides”.[16]
It important to note that in al-Ghazali’s
view, however, not all knowledge is praiseworthy (mahmud). Some knowledge may
be considered as blameworthy (madhmum) depending on the potential harm it may
inflict on the students and other people or the advantage it may bring to those
concerned whether directly or indirectly. Just as the revelational sciences are
divided into the praiseworthy and the blameworthy, the non-revelational
sciences are classified into three, namely: the praiseworthy, the blameworthy,
and the permissible. Whereas the fard ‘ayn knowledge is always and wholly
praiseworthy, the fard kifayah sciences are said to be praiseworthy only within
a certain limit, as they vary with different individuals, disciplines and
changing needs of society. Also, whereas the fard ‘ayn knowledge may and should
be studied thoroughly (istiqsa’), the fard kifayah sciences should not be
studied beyond the rudimentary (iqtisar) and intermediate (iqtisad) levels.[17] Al-Ghazali laid down three general guidelines
for those who want to study the fard kifayah sciences. First, one should always
maintain the supremacy and the priority of the fard ‘ayn knowledge over the
fard kifayah one. Second, one should observe gradual progress in the study of
the fard kifayah sciences since these are of varying degrees of excellence,
some being more important than the other. Third, one should refrain from
studying those sciences have already been taken up by a sufficient number of
people. Thus, the pursuit of the fard kifayah sciences should begin with the
study of the Qur’an and its sciences, followed by the study of the Prophetic
tradition (Sunnah) and its sciences, the study of law (fiqh) and the principles
of jurisprudence or legal theory (usul al-fiqh), and the other sciences in that
order.
Rethinking University
The classification of knowledge such as
espoused by al-Ghazali is important because it provides an alternative
conceptual framework to the existing Western models of university organization.
As we all know, universities in most countries nowadays are organized into
faculties and departments each of which is defined by particular disciplinary
fields and subfields that remain in most cases disconnected and developing in
relative isolation from each other. Instead of educating wellrounded
individuals, modern universities have become the breeding ground for
narrow-minded specialists and single-minded careerists occupied only with his
or her own field of interest or vocation. Most universities have lost the
capacity to train students to become self-cultivated persons (Kulturmenschen)
but to become only specialists (Fachmenschen)as the Germans would call them.
In
the Muslim context, according to al-Attas, a university must be conceived in
emulation of the general structure, in form, function and purpose, of a human
being. A university should be the mircocosmic representation of man –or rather,
of the Universal Man (al-insan al-kulliyy). Like a man, it must possess a vital
centre, a soul, and a permanent, underlying principle that establishes its
final purpose.[18]
It should contemplate the universal, which is the ideal and eternally real,
using all its various faculties to achieve some higher goal that lies beyond
academic study in its purely pragmatic and utilitarian intentions. Since the
purpose of its existence is to acquire and disseminate knowledge, the
university should not promote skepticism, relativism, or agnosticism. Nor
should it encourage the incessant pursuit of knowledge for the sake of
knowledge. Rather, it must develop knowledge in line with its definite purpose
and turn the sciences it teaches into a sign (ayat) that points not to itself
but to what it is supposed to represent.[19]
An Islamic university, like a Muslim man or
woman, must not be geared to secular purposes, nor should it reflect the
interests of the secular state and society. Instead of working to produce good
citizens or employable graduates, the Islamic university should direct its
efforts to the proper education of Muslim individuals and improvement and
elevation of their personality. Therefore it is necessary to reorganize the
university not just to better serve its diverse and growing student body, or
meet the changing needs of society and industry, but rather to reflect the true
purpose of human existence as God’s vicegerent on earth.
Concluding Remark
From
the foregoing discussion it may be concluded that the mission of an Islamic
university is first and foremost to Islamize the mind which is locus of knowledge.
Both at the higher and lower levels of education, the core knowledge should be
composed of ingredients pertaining to the nature of human being (insan), the
nature of religion (din), the nature of knowledge (‘ilm), wisdom (hikmah), and
justice (‘adl) with respect to human being, and the nature of right action
(‘amal and adab) in relation God, the Revelation (the Qur’an and Sunnah), the
Divine Law (Shari‘ah) and the Prophet. The sciences belonging to this core
knowledge, being fard ‘ayn, should be related to each other and integrated into
a harmonious unity in the university curriculum, rather than fragmented into
separate disciplines resulting in the distorted vision of reality. The fard
‘ayn sciences must be not just normal kinds of knowledge alongside other
disciplines, but must play an architectonic role in the circle of
sciences.
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